Sipura ATA 2000 Review

Sipura ATA 2000

Plug this unit in and imagine my surprise - an immediate dial tone. I was expecting to have to tackle all kinds of issues relating to NAT, Port Forwarding, Permissions and router firewall circumvention - I had none of that and probably my first ever plug and play experience.

The package arrived with £7.50 in call credit included from gossiptel. This was quickly eaten up calling friends and UK contacts to let them know about my new 0870 number. Having also had a number from VoIP User that was previously diverted to my PSTN number (with occasional issues during peak time, one way

occasions and other small niggles) I found it now worked faultlessly when pointed to our SIP address.

The Sipura ATA 2000 arrived pre configured by Gossiptel and the firmware is updated automatically by their server when required. The unit runs seamlessly and the only negative point one could find to say about it, is that it runs rather hot. In fact VERY hot, almost hot enough to cook eggs on.

The ATA unit is accessed by an IP address entered from a PC connected to the same router. There are eight pages of settings and the ability to configure Line 1 and Line 2 to different services (you will need two separate phones or a specially designed 'two line' phone but as yet I didn't find one on the market). The documentation that actually arrived with the Sipura unit was more or less minimal but having said that I didn't need any and a full technical manual is available as a PDF for download on the website.

Visiting the Sipura website is immediately disappointing because they are already expounding the virtues of the Sipura ATA 3000 which is of course the next model with additional features and facilities. Having said that I gather at the time of writing there is still no 'UK Green Dot' on this model so presumably no UK availability for a while. For anyone needing guidance on configuring line two of their Sipura ATA there is a handy wizard to be found at www.sipura.com/support/wiz.htm

Switching off the ATA for a period (to allow it - and us, to cool off) Is never a problem, on re-connection the unit signs back in and provides a dialling tone within thirty seconds.

Having a good ADSL connection is of course the key to reliable VOIP and I found checking the line using the tools at www.testmyvoip.com provided some interesting information. It made it possible to see the effect of running other 'bandwidth hungry' applications on the network at the same time (programmes like Trillian and other Messaging Clients).

To summarise the Sipura ATA coupled with any good Phone Instrument provides an excellent way to implement VoIP in residential and office situations where there is already a router port available and where it is preferred not to run a dedicated PC.

We decided on an overall rating of 9 out of 10.

Added:  Saturday, September 11, 2004
Reviewer:  John Gray
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Language: eng

  

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Posted by ltjessem on Oct 11, 2006 - 10:13 PM Your rating: I also had a problem with this unit overheating, but after getting a replacement unit it worked perfectly the entire time I tested it. 110% plug&play, worked with no additional setup in any of the 3 (!) routers I was behind.

Posted by dean on Feb 21, 2005 - 04:12 PM Your rating: whisker - interesting, thanks for letting us all know. Worth bearing in mind if you already own one and are experiencing problems. Do you know if the problem has been reported back to Sipura, or should we do so?

Posted by whiskerp on Jan 31, 2005 - 03:52 PM Your rating: Well it was good for a while. The unit started malfunctioning when hot. It would lose registration. It would then fail to reboot until it had cooled down and then work OK for a while. My supplier has had the same experience with his one so is replacing without a quibble. Seems to be a recurring problem then. Have a look at the Sipura 1001. It is cheaper, smaller, still handles two providers but has only one phone socket. In some ways it may be more useful. Peter

Posted by whiskerp on Nov 03, 2004 - 12:26 PM Your rating: I agree that this is a good piece of kit. The information o­n programming all the call handling options is a bit thin in the documentation but the performance of the SPA-2000 is excellent. It works for me o­n sipgate.co.uk (with a free geographic phone number from them too). I register the second line with a local Linux box running Asterisk which has FWD, IAXtel and work connectivity - this also works very well with the SPA-2000. With my new £30 D-link DSL-510T ADSL firewall modem/router from ebuyer I will now run the SPA-2000 24x7 o­nline. I can now cancel my second NTL phone line and save a tenner a month line rental.