One of the regular readers of VOIP Guide is sharing his thoughts on Linksys WIP G-VOIP phone he has been using for some time. This guide is exclusively written by Vishnu Saini (Ireland) for VOIP Guide. Vishnu might soon join VOIP Guide as full time reviewer and will write some exclusive guide on various topics such as IP Phones, PBX setup guides etc.
Vishnu writes,
I recently upgraded to A Linksys WIP300 G-VOIP phone (which now Linksys call iphone). When I got this phone I was amazed by looking at this great phone. Just weighing 120 gms with a color display of 2.2 inch (240x320 pixels), this phone is more than what I had expected.
I inserted the phone battery, charged for about 8 hrs initially (which is required as per manufacturer) and was ready to call friends without limitations. The user configuration is too easy and it took me not more than five minutes to make the first voip call with this great phone. I successfully configured this phone for with my voip providers for incoming and outgoing calls (I use different voip providers for calls to different places).
Note that this phone allows you to configure six voip accounts, but you can use only one at a time, but do not worry I will tell you below how you can configure any number of voip to work at a time.
Below I have described how to configure this phone in minutes and if you follow these steps you should not have any difficulty with using this phone.
When you first switch on the phone and scroll down to profile tab (with the help of joystick) and click OK, phone will ask you to set up a password for you. This is your first time you are using your phone so give a password which you can easily remember (Do not worry even if you can’t remember as you can set the phone back to factory default anytime).
Once you are done with your profile password setup, next is to setup your wireless network and sip account settings, it is up to you, what you want to setup first.
We need to setup a SIP account for the phone so highlight sip account settings and press select key and select edit on next screen. By now you must have sip details for your VOIP provider.
This screen ask you for your user name, sip proxy and auth ID and password. Fill these details under different options and rename this as your voip provider. Remember that you can use only one at a time but you can configure six voip accounts with this phone.
TIP: to use more than one sip account for incoming and outgoing, you can open a free account with voxalot and register / setup you voip provider in the same account and use voxalot as you sip account for this phone. This will give more flexibility for using different services and you can make changes in voxalot account separately and will not need to make any change in your phone sip account.
Now Let us set up Network settings for the phone. In the profile menu, click on the network profile. You have now six predefined network profile names. Do not worry you can rename these anytime and click on any of these as the settings are same for each.
For instance if you click on “open” this means that you will be setting up a profile with name “open”.
So highlight “open” and select to open the profile settings. Click on the edit settings and go to wireless settings on the next screen. If you setup your wireless router with broadcast SSID, this will help you to know your SSID, (if you have not done so please do it before you setup your phone, You might consider to refer to your wireless router setup to enable the SSID broadcast).
When you click on ESSID on next screen you have option for new SSID or site survey. I will recommend to do a site survey, so click on this and your phone shows you the available wireless networks in your phone’s range. Selecting your wireless networks will assign the ESSID automatically (tip : you have your SSID broadcast disabled you can assign it in your phone by new SSID tab, but remember to put in the same SSID as your network).
Now go to security on back screen and this is where you need to put your network details. If your wireless network is without security simply use “open” network and click on back key to go to account settings.
(If you have WAP or WEP settings for your network, choose WEP or WAP-PSK security settings and enter your passwords/ keys for your security settings.)
If you have a fixed IP settings you should go to IP settings and enter it there or if you have your router for DHCP enabled (which in most cases will be), set your IP settings for phone as DHCP.
Highlight Account choice and set it to the sip account you have configured above as you will be using this for your phone connectivity.
TIP : I recommend to set your phone and wireless router with security enabled settings (WAP-PSK or WEP) so as to avoid any unauthorised use. Also set up two or three network profiles as open so as when you move around places you can use different wireless hotspots for your connection, I will give also give some hints below for quick selection of networks.
Now once you are ok with these settings, go back to your phone’s main screen and you phone will try to setup wireless network connectivity… you will see messages coming up like. Getting IP address… and then Registering… and if everything is alright Your phone’s screen will show up the Network SSID and SIP account name.
By this time you will also notice the signal bars on top left corner of your phone, which shows the strength of wireless network in your phone’s range.
Now dial the number and you are ready to go.
You can make and receive calls as long you are in the range of your wireless network.
TIP : When you are out of your network range scroll down to tools tab and do a site survey of the networks available nearby. Each secured network will be shown with a * and open network without *, so you just need to go to your profile as above and in ESSID settings choose, a network found in Site survey without a * and your phone will setup rest for you.
If you impressed with this phone and would like to buy. You will get over $38 discount if you buy from the link below (Discount is not applicable otherwise).
Original price is$167.99 USD , post discount is $129.99 USD.
Go ahead and buy
Linksys WIP300 Wireless-G IP VoIP Phone
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