Gigaset N300A IP DECT/VoIP Base Station with Answering Machine

I recently moved from copper landline to full fibre to the premises and wanted to continue using my 10 year old Gigaset CL540 ("Dune") handsets with my new VOIP service. The N300A I/P did the trick - it actually first came out about the same time as my handsets (about 10 years ago) so they had no problem connecting to it. I had to set up the VOIP functionality manually but fortunately my VOIP provider (A&A) provided a guide for the setting up the N300 to use with their service and after 10 minutes it was all working.

This base station works well, and is easy to configure.Some Pros:+ Its web interface makes configuration very straightforward.+ Being able to make multiple concurrent VoIP calls is very liberating, without any noticeable degradation of the existing calls.+ Firmware upgrade facility, to allow future upgrades.+ NNTP/Time synchronisation.+ Call routing via POTS or VoIP, based on the prefix of the number being called.Cons:- Does not have a call pre-selection facility for calls made over the POTSAs you can see, this base station is quite powerful. I like it!I only rated this item at 4/5 stars, because I really miss the call pre-selection feature of my previous base station. (With preselection, when you dial a number the phone can insert another sequence of numbers to allow accessing reduced-rate services automatically.)Understandably, pre-selection does not quite "make sense" in a VoIP environment, but since this phone is STILL capable of using the old-fashioned telephone system to make calls, I miss the lack of that powerful facility.Overall, a powerful and impressive device. Well worth it.

What a great little box this is. I was originally looking at getting a VOIP adapter which you good plug standard PSTN phones into, but then I stumbled across this. Its very compact, smaller than it looks in the picture and has lots of features. You can setup different handsets with different numbers and route calls to different VOIP providers depending on the number. The only feature I would have liked to have seen would have been time based routing so you could stop certain numbers or phones from ringing late at night. You can also set the phone to display weather or RSS feeds when the phone goes into standby....brilliant.I found it very easy to setup with my VOIP account and register the handsets, it even had presets for Sipgate my VOIP provider. Call wise the quality is great, just make sure your internet connection is running well and you should have no problems.

I've given this a neutral score at the moment as I have only had it a short while and most of that time I haven't had internet access on my router, because my previous ISP cut me off three weeks early and BT aren't due to install their new full-fibre (FTTP) service until 14th December. I like that it has lots of options but it's a bit confusing because some of the settings have to be set on the phone (such as the answerphone configuration), while some have to be set on the base station (such as any personalised names for the handsets). Also, I have an ongoing problem in that my unit keeps locking me out, so I am unable to access the settings from my network computers. The only way back in so far has been to perform a full master reset and then upload a previously-saved configuration file. Since in my case, the power to the unit is in the loft, I have had to cut the low voltage power supply and position a switch by the side of the unit so that when I need to do the master reset procedure, I don't have to go searching for an extension power lead to temporarily power it from a socket where I can reach both the power switch and the button on the front of the unit at the same time (you have to be able to control both when doing the master reset). Time will tell if Gigaset manage to find out why this keeps happening and provide a fix as it's a real pain having to do this. I have reported the issue and I am waiting for the support team to get back to me.

I have this along with C570a handsets. they sound quality is great and everything can be administered via the interface. Really pleased with the quality.

Have 3 of these now. Fairly simple to set up. 1 PSTN line and up to 6 SIP accounts - great hybrid solution. Can selectively assign 1 or more of the active lines to each handset for ringing and answering. Can assign single outgoing line to any handset, or set to select which line for every call. 3 separate answer machines.Register up to 6 DECT handsets.Up to 4 simultaneous calls (fixed line + up to 3 SIP)Have Gigaset handsets registered to 2 of the base stations, with full functionality (A690HX and C430A)Have 2 basic non-Gigaset (Panasonic) handsets assigned to 1 of the base unit. Make and receive calls OK, but full functionality (missed calls etc.) do not show on these non-Gigaset handsets.

When buying this, I was unsure how well VOIP would work on home broadband as I've had a few connection and sound reliability problems with soft VOIP applications running on computers and mobile phones. I've had the N300A IP for a few weeks and have been very pleased so far. The connection to my sip provider seems reliable, all incoming and outgoing calls seem to be getting through ok, sound quality is also excellent and reliable.The call features of the N300A IP are far superior compared a standard landline, most sip providers give caller ID as standard, my sip provider also allows multiple calls through the same phone number, so in addition to caller ID I also get call waiting, call on hold, call transfer and can receive multiple calls at through one sip account, great if more than one person in the house needs to use the phone.I've only given four stars due to difficulty setting up the remote voice mail box number. The phone kept adding the local dial code in front of the mail box number when trying to call it. It took a while to work out how to get round this.