VOIP Solution for Vacation Property
 

Background: We've purchased a 2nd home on the coast of Maine and will be splitting our time between it and our primary residence. Cellular coverage at the new place is spotty. For a number of reasons I don't need to go into here, I currently use Vonage for both home and business lines (as opposed to cell service).

Vonage provides a facility through their web UI that allows customers with multiple "vonage boxes" to move lines from box to box, and they're sending me a 2nd box to install at the other property for that purpose at no additional charge.

While this seems to be a fairly reasonable way to stay connected to my "land lines," I'm wondering if there's a provider that offers an option to ring phones at both locations without requiring another number/line allocated just for that purpose, and would allow me to move from location to location without having to update my configuration . . . essentially creating an extension phone at the alternate house.

The community on Flyertalk is, by definition, fairly mobile, so I'd think someone here would have dealt with this issue before.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/insight/solutions :)

Have you explored Google Voice? Especially if you have an Android or iOS mobile phone?

As stated in my original post, cell phone service is spotty at the vacation property (although an Android or iOS phone would support Wifi too). I'm paying for broadband service at both my home and remote locations, though, and am looking for a way to "extend" VOIP service to the new property.

I do have Google Voice, and while it works with Google Chat, its call quality has been highly variable. Vonage has been rock-solid for me.

Why not just use the vonage app on a cell phone with wifi? I assume you are going to have internet or wifi? Isn't there that vonage dongle still, plugs into a computer or laptop, enables full access to your vonage account and numbers but remotely? If you port your number to google voice, and HAVE the second box at the 2nd location then you could just put the two numbers into the google voice setup for multi-ring. The quality of google voice from that perspective would be no different than regular POTS service, that's the way it works.

Or, if you don't want to port a primary number to google voice, you could have the 2nd vonage device at the 2nd location, setup google voice, FORWARD your primary number to the google voice number but ring BOTH numbers, or all numbers. Then, just picked whatever line you want wherever you are.

google voice by nature doesn't work over wifi, from a cell phone. The call goes out over the cellular connection, so unlike sype, vonage on the device it doesn't use the wifi connection for the VOIP services.

I don't think I'm explaining myself properly :)

I have two "well known" numbers I use for home and office . . . the former is the number all my friends and family use to contact me, the latter is used by by my staff and coworkers. With Vonage, I can simply move both of those numbers to a different Vonage box (and attached "conventional" 2-line phone) at the vacation property through their customer web UI, and my phones ring at my vacation property just as they would at home (they don't ring at home, though).

When I head back to my "normal" home, I can switch them back. There's no need for me to acquire and pay for another number at the vacation property, and when we're not there the phone service is effectively shut down at that location. Some people emulate this functionality by unplugging their Vonage boxes and bringing them with them, but an extra Vonage device at the alternate location eliminates the need to tote one along.

What I'm hoping for is some mechanism (that may include a replacement for Vonage as my VOIP provider), that rings the phones in both locations, and allows me to dial out from either location, without having to make a configuration change each time I move from one property to the other or pay for yet another line. I guess my question is . . . are there VOIP providers that allow you to "mirror" one SIP device to another at a different location, essentially creating a geographically disparate extension phone?

I don't think so. Multi-ring of the SAME NUMBER to different address I do not believe is possible in the telephony space. Multi-ring of ONE number to MULTIPLE numbers is. If you are THERE, why does it matter if it doesn't ring back at the base location?

2 reasons . . . my son may elect not to come with us when we head out "to camp" (although he does have a cell phone), and switching the lines from box to box is just another task I'll have to take care of when leaving for our home away from home. It's not that big a deal, but I figured it was something that had been dealt with before :D

This is easily done with V:pIP. Some providers may not offer such service, however. Google Voice won't do this as there is currently no number associated with the box that may soon be installed in Maine. Vonage should be able to ring both -- if you have two of their boxes. They may not be willing to do so, though. I know a provider that can do this. The OP can PM me for details.

PM Sent :)

PM sent, hoping I don't get told "asterix"

I'm interested in which VOIP providers can ring the same DID to multiple VOIP SIP devices.

Keep Slingbox in mind so you don't have to purchase cable at both places.

I use this exam setup when I am traveling:
Basically, both my home and soft-phone ring at the same time and whichever answers first, gets the call.
Another cool thing is that I am able to call my own number and make my home phone ring if I want to speak with my wife.
I use www.voip.ms and created two sub accounts attached to the same number... then I link them by using a group ring. Simple to set up.

This thread on dsl reports from a couple years ago (assuming the companies are still in business) may help

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r188...two-locations-

My provider Call Centric offer this service and calls it simultaneous ringing
http://www.callcentric.com/features/...aneous_ringing

I believe Ooma can do this.