Linksys SPA-3102 Voice Gateway / Router Review

Introduction

I should probably prefix all this by saying that I am quite new to the world of SIP adapters so many of my mistakes will be obvious to most of you reading this. I have, however, been using gizmoproject.com for quite some time to call friends and family in the US, Hong Kong, and Thailand. They have a promotion now that even allows free calls to friends land lines and mobile numbers if both members are active gizmoproject users. I am not sure if these calls will still be free if made through a SIP adapter.

I had been planning on buying a Linksys SPA-3102 for quite some time to allow friends and family to call me in the Philippines. I played briefly with an VoSKY Call Center USB adapter for Skype - this involved setting it up for my father who has built up quite a network of friends and family on Skype. It was OK in that it allowed him and my mother to make and receive calls using a normal phone, but as suffered the fact that it required a computer to be running at all times.

I was able to convince a friend doing business in the Philippines that this device was a reasonable alternative to long distance calls between the Philippines and the USA. I offered to help set it up and test it for him so I will have access to this device for the next month or so.

The Linksys SPA-3102 was purchased at voxilla.com for around $90. It costs $77 now. It came in a plain white box which included the unit and charger, ethernet and phone cables, and a Quick Installation Guide that is a bit clearer, now that everything is working reasonably well.

The Linksys SPA-3102 is purported to be a Voice Gateway with Router. There are 5 ports on the rear- Power, Internet, Ethernet, Phone, and Line. It has no power or reset buttons. It is supposed to allow me to make calls in either direction, using my home phone line as a gateway for inbound and outbound calls through the FXO and FXS ports. I am still not sure which port is which.

Installation

The initial installation did not go smoothly. I did not want to mess with my existing router setup since this was to be a temporary installation so I attached the adapter to one of the WAN ports on my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. As I was a SIP virgin, I opted to use the voxilla.com configuration tool for the SPA-3102. The guide stated that it required access to Port 80 on the device. Rather than fiddling with Port Forwarding on the router, I decided to put the device in the DMZ with an address of 192.168.1.200. I was initially confused with the default IP address for the device which was 192.168.0.1. I was then puzzled by the inability to access the web configuration menu over the network when upstream from the device. There were no issues when I plugged into the Ethernet (WAN) port of the adapter. Of course the LAN IP address (192.168.0.1) is different from the IP address that the WRT54G router sees (192.168.1.200). The first of many newbie mistakes.

Once I sorted that out, I enabled Remote Management on Port 80 as required by the voxilla.com configuration tool and was able to access the SPA-3102 over the network. I realized that anyone pointing to my DynDNS address would have access to the device, I decided I needed a password. It's probably just me, but Linksys doesn't make it very obvious where the password should be set. I kept looking in menus in the Router tab, near the point which enabled Remote Management. For some reason, Linksys thought it would be better to put the password in the Voice tab. I even had difficulty finding it just now, to confirm it's location for this review.

Panic point number 1 - after I set my password, the SPA-3102 asked for my password and username. I did not, at any point, set a username. I tried the default on my WRT - "admin". I started to look for the hardware reset button to revert back to the original configuration - there is none. Apparently the reset is accomplished using a phone attached to the Phone port on the device. After a bit of fumbling around, I took a hint from the request - it asked for the password for the spa user- user it is! Another newbie problem solved. While I was at it, I also set the administrative password. Username is, of course, "admin".

The voxilla configuration goes without a hitch, except it doesn't work. I tried to use gizmoproject for the outbound account and freeworlddialup for the inbound account. No luck. I tried using different gizmoproject accounts for inbound and outbound services. No go. Registration failed on both Line 1 and PSTN Line status, and I keep getting a funny dial tone.

After annoying my wife on Christmas morning wih several hours of fiddling, I noticed that the time was incorrect, even though I had set the time servers to time-a.nist.gov and time-b.nist.gov. I realized that it may be a DNS problem, so I entered my trusty OpenDNS servers (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220) and success! I am now able to dial the toll free number (18005551212) using my gizmoproject account. I can also call into my VOIP-PSTN gateway using my second gizmo account. After some searching, I found that the proper way to enter the password is xxxx# followed by the number to be dialed, e.g. 1234#18005551212. This works in both the VOIP-PSTN gateway and the PSTN-VOIP gateway.


Current Status

The SPA-3102 is now set up to do one of three things :

1. Initially, I could pick up the phone attached to the adapter and make an international call using gizmoproject dialing rules. I could also make a local call by first pressing #9 to get a local dialtone. I decided that this would lead to too many expensive mistakes - I might dial long distance calls using my local phone, or I may dial some random number on gizmoproject, so I changed the dialing rules, included here for reference:

(<001:1>xx.|00xx.|1747xxxxxxx<:@gw2>|[2-9]xx.<:@gw0>|*[2-9]xx.<:@gw0>|**[2-9]xx.<:@gw0>|<#0,:>xx.|<#1,:>xx.<:@gw1>|<#9,:>xx.|<#9,:>*xx|<#2,:>xx.<:@gw2>|<#3,:>xx.<:@gw3>|<#4,:>xx.<:@gw4>|xx.)

Replace 001 with 1 for US numbers
Dial 00-country code etc as international
1747 numbers get routed to Gateway 2 (free calls to Gizmo users)
Numbers that start with [2-9] get routed to Gateway 0 (local line)
#0 gets Line 1 - the primary gizmoproject account.
#1 gets Gateway 1 - another gizmo account
#9 gets Line 1
#2 gets Gateway 2 - another gizmo account
#3 gets Gateway 3 - another gizmo account
#4 gets Gateway 4 - voipuser.org account.

For some reason, when dialing my usual toll free test number (1800 555 1212) using the voipuser.org account, I get a message stating that it is not a toll free number.

2. I can call the gizmo account (using another gizmoproject account) set up in the PSTN to get 3 short beeps. Typing in the password followed by the hash and local number, e.g. 1234#5551212, gets me a local call in the Philippines. I actually set up a local US number using ipkall.com but had quite some difficulty getting it to work- this allows friends and family to call a local number in the Philippines using a normal phone in the US.

3. Away from home, I can call my home number, enter a password, and dial as though I was using the telephone attached to the SPA-3102.


Conclusion

All in all, I guess the SPA-3102 is quite a flexible device. It has been running quite well even at DSL speeds of 240kbps up/150kbps down (this is post-Taiwan earthquake which is affecting broadband in the Philippines now). It has been running continuously for about 4 days now with no issues. The learning curve was quite steep for me, but it entertained me during the holidays. I cannot comment on the router side of the device because I am not using that at all. The voice side seems to work quite well. Definitely not a plug-and-play device though.

References

References which helped me during the setup were:

The voxilla.com configuration tool for the SPA-3xxx: http://voxilla.com/tools/device-configuration-wizard/linksys-spa-3xxx-configuration-wizard-806.html

The JMGJason guide to the www.jmgtechnology.com.au/spa_3000_guide.pdf and http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/429813.html

Added:  Sunday, December 31, 2006
Reviewer:  Dr. R. Martin A. Vil
Score:
hits: 53421
Language: eng

  

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Posted by gjsmith on Mar 06, 2009 - 08:55 PM Your rating: This VoIP adapter is a good way to connect to the PSTN if you are a very small business or residential user. If you are a business and need to connect a VoIP system to the PSTN you should use an FXO VoIP gateway.

Posted by Summer on Dec 27, 2008 - 11:47 PM Your rating: With the land line to this gateway/router you can forward your land line calls to anywhere in the world for free. All you need is to have a Ucilia gateway plugged in you land line and an other Ucilia phone any where you want! Scenario: You live in Rome and you are going for a vacation in Maldives. You purchase a gateway and an ip-phone, plug it to your land line and to the Internet. Then you travel to the Maldives, plug the Ucilia phone in the Internet there and all you calls will be sent through the Internet to your ip-phone for free, just as if you were at home!! The callers will never know where the phone is actually ringing, it is an immediate and transparent forward. Great way to never miss a call or allow people that are calling you, to call you internationally for free! See this to http://forums.ucilia.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19. With a little creativity you can save a lot on calls!