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Does any one here use a Panasonic Hand Set paired to an iPhone on Public Mobile??

barrascuk
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Since I have not had home service for almost a week I am looking at this as an alternative. 

I may leave my voip account alive to handle long distance outbound calls using caller id of the Public Mobile account. 

 

1. Does work? (looking at having a permanent phone/account to act as land line- phone won't be portable)

2. Inbound calls clear (transparent to both sides of conversation)?

3. Outbound calls clear (transparent to both sides of conversation)?

4. Does the Panasonic base station take the voicemails. 

5. Can you use as link2cell and NOT have a Voip or a POTS account attached?

6. How many bars of reception are needed for the mobile phone?

7. Does the Panasonic set handle call blocking?

 

Any comments would be much appreciated and no doubt I will have more questions. 

 

 

 

7 REPLIES 7

barrascuk
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@carlaspapa wrote:

And here I thought this was about normal phones and I would understand the discussion but no this is way over my head as per usual! I hope your phone problems get worked out good luck with it!


lol. Not sure what you mean about normal!!!  Panasonic, I believe, don't make a cell phone. 

I am always figuring ways out to cut costs. But this effort will be more than what I pay now and since voip.ms had been down for almost 2 weeks and is still not up a running fully for everyone, I found that unacceptable. 

 

So to use a PM $15 plan here is my option 1

The Panasonic link2cell is this

The plan plus a onetime $140

 

So to use a PM $15 plan here is my option 2

The ZTE box like this

The plan plus a onetime $20 because I bought a previously used unit that was with Telus. And any locked device that is from Telus, Koodo, or PM will work. 

I showed the Koodo option as it is better explained than how Telus shows it. 

 

 

carlaspapa
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

And here I thought this was about normal phones and I would understand the discussion but no this is way over my head as per usual! I hope your phone problems get worked out good luck with it!

barrascuk
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Nice finds on eBay. The one I bought is in "as new" condition cosmetically and came with the original box. The old Telus Sim remained installed....which is a good sign and the box had a Telus warranty in it. Has a Telus UPC bar code on it too. And it worked!!! 

 

I just wonder what PM thinks about using the ZTE..but why should they it is a device with an IMEI? I also wonder if they will unlock it, as it has been mention that they do assist.   Or I could try Telus as I have done, in the past...may be not now,.....many unlocks using Telus chat. Just to be more salable if I choose to sell it. 

 

I will miss the stuff you can do on Voip.ms but this outage was unacceptable, to me any ways. 

 

I wonder if what I hear here could mimic what I was doing? Call my Voip land line and both of our cells rang and first to pick up the other two stop ringing. If a cell answered Voip did a dual charge for inbound and outbound call. PM was inbound so was zero cost. 

 

So apparently you can call forward a PM number to another number at no cost to the "call forward unit". 

So on PM...

Using my home number (PM account) 

Can I call forward it to two other numbers?

Will all 3 ring?

If yes would there be a charge to any of the 3 numbers?

 

 


@barrascuk wrote:

I found a ZTE WF721 that was used on Telus. On Craiglslist for $25 and got it for $20. First test it works!!!  And it works on the Panasonic set we have using the built in voice mail but I had to reset the Panasonic to 4 rings. But if that is too short will figure out the routine for the voicemail from PM.

Nice find. And definitely easy setup originating from Telus, unlock is not required. Still something I recommend doing at some point anyway to make it work for potential future other carrier or future owner. You might need a Bell or Rogers family SIM temporarily to test it.

 

I think Public Mobile defaults to 20 or 25 seconds. You can check by putting that SIM into a mobile phone and entering *#61#. Note the voicemail number, and ring time.

 

Change the ring time to the maximum 30 seconds with *61*notednumber**30#

 

If you want to "disable" public mobile's voicemail so you never have to dial in to listen, you can disable the ability to leave messages, but still play a custom announcement using the process in this post:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/Re-Disable-Voicemail/m-p/213805#M3875...

 

Another option is to configure all the conditional forwards to a free voicemail to email service like YouMail... Maybe even good to program in case your panasonic answering system ever fails to answer, or you are away etc.

 

The only thing is that the set we have only has a phone book for 50 and blocks for 30 and on Voip we have 200 contacts and more blocks!! Once fully tested I can only see one problem...I won't receive any texts from PM. But I should be ok as my account will always be ahead for $ funds. 


Yeah, you will definitely have limitations for call filtering compared to the options at voip.ms. Maybe the best option is just to not answer unknown calls, let them go to voicemail, or even YouMail where they are easy to delete like any other email.

 

Yeah, the ZTE devices have absolutely no SMS function... anything sent will disappear into the ether.. Check selfserve regularly I guess.

barrascuk
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

I found a ZTE WF721 that was used on Telus. On Craiglslist (lower mainland) for $25 and got it for $20. First test it works!!!  And it works on the Panasonic set we have using the built in voice mail but I had to reset the Panasonic to 4 rings. But if that is too short will figure out the routine for the voicemail from PM. The only thing is that the set we have only has a phone book for 50 and blocks for 30 and on Voip we have 200 contacts and more blocks!! Once fully tested I can only see one problem...I won't receive any texts from PM. But I should be ok as my account will always be ahead for $ funds. 

 

I think later if Coscto puts the Link2Cell on sale I will try. The phone that is linked will never leave its spot....just a few feet away as recommended. You can upload your contacts list to it as well. And has 3500 contacts and more blocks than what I need..and you can always use the cell phone to block too. I too am concerned of the blue tooth connection. May have to use a hybrid.....upload contacts to new Panasonic and then use the ZTE. Either way I should be able to make it work. I am retired and fall is here....and time is on my side to play. 

Nezgar
Mayor / Maire

I would recommend a ZTE721 (or newer model like 722, 723) over a hodge-podge bluetooth link to a cell phone. That's just asking for flaky issues.

 

I used a ZTE720 and later a 721 (added support for caller ID name display) with my home phone service for 3+ years before switching to VoIP based service and it was rock solid. Afterwards I unlocked the devices after requesting the unlock codes from the former carriers (Rogers & Koodo) and they work with any carrier now, including Public Mobile. Just plug in your usual analog phones.

 

Not sure the best way to acquire one new though - probably best to find one used. Make sure to only buy from Canada, as US carriers will not give out unlock codes if needed, unless they specifically claim it's unlocked I guess.

 

Here's the cheapest one I see on eBay in Calgary AB right now: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/255146781749

 

Or this one: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/363527683943 (in Thornhill... MB?)

 

If you get these ask the seller what carrier it was originally from, just in case you need to get it unlocked...

 

Nice thing with these devices is they include an internal lithium ion battery so they will run for many hours on their own with no power as well.

 

You could still have some fun with VoIP by using this box as a "trunk" for 2-stage outgoing calls via your "analog" line using an ATA with an FXO port - I'm playing with this right now using a Grandstream HT813... So your main phones would be connected directly, but you could still have incoming calls "ring" VoIP extensions, and you could make a call to that "extension" to get the dialtone of that analog line from elsewhere etc.... but those complicated things would only break on your stuff if it flakes out and not the phones your wife uses. 🙂

 

Good luck in your choice!

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