Hi all,

I have a one of these and am happy with the tesco service. Although I know it's slightly more expensive than some other providers it suits my needs.

Anyway, I was just wondering if this model is unlocked for use with other services in case I decide to change one day?

Thanks

Yes you can put in your own SIP settings and use any SIP VOIP provider with this.

Thanks very much!

Assuming it's the Tesco IPA 1000 your refering to then it is virtually locked as (unless mines a different firmware) uses the IAX protocol Not SIP.
As far as I can tell it will only work with the freshtel voicedot network ( Can't even phone freshtel free firefly numbers )

Yes that's a good point, if you get equipment with locked firmware you may well be stuck, so check that when you're buying it (or ask customer services if they'd honour a test and return for refund policy if it turned out to be locked).

Is there anyway of unlocking or reflashing the Tesco ATA so I can use a different VOIP ? I actually know mine is a Virbiage ATA just with a tesco badge and tesco firmware. I paid out £50 early when these were released but I am know thinking of switching VOIP but I don't want to go out and buy another ATA at £30+ Thanks in advance.

Gareth

My understanding from some brief research is:

Like the others I believe this is indeed a Tesco badged/locked Virbiage 3010.

That is a VoIP ATA but NOT a SIP device but an IAX2 compatible one instead using UDP port 4569.

You can find the Virbiage 3010 manual on the web at
http://www.freshtel.net/files/3010ATAManual.pdf

That shows the way to use the *** sequence to get certain basic announcements from the box, but also talks about the web interface eg to control volume.

I found one blog reference to getting into the Web GUI using Admin/Admin but that appears to be locked ou nowadays - MAYBE you can do it with a box BEFORE plugging it onto public Internet and possibly having its firmware auto updated to lock you out. BUT even then it isn't as if there is some SIP dialogs to tailor there - there isn't, just data on its proprietary dialplan!

Ooops another bit of searching came up with:
http://www.tescointernetphone.com/ipa/technical_faq/

which reveals about the Web GUI and the ID/password, which starts as admin/admin but becomes admin/yourTescoPhoneServicepassword once you've set up the device to your a/c.

The Web GUI is TOTALLY Tesco'd.
Mine is showing firmware: Firmware Version: 1.1.0.28 (main) 1.1.0.26 (update) Tesco/1.0 (resource)

Mine is set for New Zealand impedence (I left that alone as there is no UK/Euro one) and thinks its counting time from when it was last plugged in as 1/1/2000 +. I hadn't made/received any calls since then so perhaps why not synch'd to some remote timekeeper.

The provider is LOCKED as IAX protocol to gateway.tescointernetphone.com and Automatic updates is set to update firmware when a new version is available.

I was thinking of sending my sister a Tesco internet phone for Christmas.
But she lives in New South Wales so it will have to be a branded Skype or compatible I suppose.
She is even less savvy than me.

Haven't read anywhere that you need to be in the UK to activate an IPA. Even if you do then you could set it up here before posting it to her there. Then Tesco:Tesco calls free over the Internet. And you could set her up with a virtual UK phone number so other UK relatives could phone her at UK landline rates (eg c5p/hour in evenings).

I think the only real downside is that it requires its own telephone/DECTset - though of course they can be had from £5-£15.

I got my Tesco IPA in a competition with I think 1000 prizes. Quite a few seemed to find their way onto eBay (though the people listing them werent honest about how/why they had them) and they were going for under £10 at one time - which includes the £5 credit which is enough to get the a/c set up - ie I have yet to give them my credit card!

Mind you I'm not overly impressed with the quality of incoming calls to the # - adequate but not as good as Betamax VoIP calls - but they are SIP based.
.

Don't forget there are many more VoIP service than the two dearest ones - Tesco and Skype, if you are both on the same network then calls between you are free, some also have peering arrangements so you don't have to be on the same network for free calls.

My adaptor never provisioned properly, so it never locked itself to Tesco's service (although the support folks were helpful in getting me the details to plug in to it to make it connect to their service). As a result, after getting Trixbox installed on an old laptop, I was able to reconfigure it to talk to a IAX2 extension on my Trixbox machine so it can call out over SIP trunks (including VoipCheap).

Incidentally, without some tweaking I couldn't get this adaptor to make any phone I had ring. The workaround for this, strangely enough, was to plug a spare ADSL filter into its phone socket and plug the phone into that. AIUI the ADSL filters also do some of their own magic with the ring wire.

Are they BT phones ? if so then probably still require the ring wire. The ATA doesn't have the bell capacitor fitted which provides the ring wire but ADSL filters (like master BT sockets) do.

Well I used the Tesco box over in Italy last week successfully in that it connected and worked for phoning out and receiving calls in on its UK #.

Not so successful in terms of audio quality though. Far inferior to Betamax services whether USB or SIP Ethernet there. Quality better on calls in than calls out.

Rather disappointed

As others have said the price model, by comparison with other services such as the Betamax, make this Tesco service uneconomic in my viewpoint although it DOES have the UK VoIP-IN number going for it.