How To Set Up Att Modem

Overview

Are yous currently using an AT&T U-verse bundled service and are getting frustrated with what seems like ever increasing monthly bills?
Did you know that you could instantly reduce your neb past more than $400 per year by replacing the U-verse voice service with a third party VoIP service?
Take you lot already thought nearly doing this but have concerns virtually how to brand this alter and setup a tertiary political party phone service?

The answers to these three questions is quite oftentimes a somewhat surprising "YES". So what is stopping people from replacing U-verse voice with a tertiary party VoIP service and saving money? Delight read on and nosotros volition explain exactly how to go about this and what the pro's and con'due south are.

The AT&T U-verse product offers Television, Net and Phone services and competes with companies such as Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner and Cox to be your provider of choice. In virtually cases, your selection of cable or telecom provider volition be limited to two or three options based on your location. Nosotros will now accept an in depth await at AT&T U-verse service while primarily focusing on the best phone service option, setup and configuration that works with the U-verse product. The scenarios nosotros will look at are listed as follows:

Voice service as part of your U-verse bundle (bundled in a triple play package with Net and Television).
Phonation service divide from your U-verse service (for this discussion nosotros will exist focusing on Phone Ability VoIP service). In this section nosotros will go into item on the following subjects:

Identifying the best dwelling house network setup - basically where yous should plug your telephone adapter in to get the best performance.
Decide if Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is the correct choice for you - this section looks at the BYOD process.
Linksys PAP2T equally your ATA - Evaluation of Phone Power service with a PAP2T device from Linksys.
Grandstream HT502 as your ATA - Evaluation of Phone Power service with an HT502 device from Grandstream.
Free lease ATA - A wait at some pro'south and con's of going with a leased adapter from a service provider.
Manual configuration of an ATA - Information on how to manually configure an HT502 ATA with Phone Ability service.

Practice you have AT&T U-verse? Let us know what you think of the service and what you utilise for your phone calls past adding a comment.

Include Vox service as part of U-verse Bundle

There are quite a few options for people to choose from when selecting a TV and Internet service. These options include services offered by cable, telecom and satellite companies. There are even more options to cull from when selecting a phone service, but the proficient news is that if you like to bundle these services with a single company, then it is easy to do so, and AT&T offers very competitive packages. The disquisitional affair is that you Do Not stick with your regular land-line as it is likely costing you in the region of $sixty per month including taxes and surcharges.

With U-verse, AT&T will provide a router that will act every bit your master control system. This device is usually a 2-wire 3800-HGV-B. The Internet is continued via the RJ-11 phone line and is a DSL type service. The TV is interconnected throughout a house via co-axial cable. The telephone is straight continued to a phone port on the ii-wire device. As such, there are no other items of equipment required for both telephone and Internet, while a dissever gear up-top box is required for each Tv that is continued to this master controller. The two-wire router also acts as a wireless access signal to enable a wireless network throughout your home.

Accessing the 2-wire device

The device has a user interface that tin can be accessed by entering the post-obit url in a browser window 192.168.1.254 - If yous have a basic network setup, there should be no need to e'er access this menu after the installation technician has prepare everything upward for yous.

The bottom line

Whether you decide to bundle your vocalization service with U-verse or not, the bottom line here is that you demand to get rid of the old country-line phone service if you still have information technology. However, bundling with U-poetry is not necessarily the best selection then allow'south wait at using a VoIP service for your phone that is unrelated to your U-verse.

Voice Service kept dissever from U-verse - Telephone Ability VoIP and U-poetry

Let's assume that you currently take the triple play bundle from AT&T that includes U-verse vocalization. The service is working well merely you have taken a closer look at your monthly bill and realized that the phone service part of the packet is costing yous $40 per month. Although a nice reduction over a land-line service, information technology is still extremely costly when compared to VoIP service offered by a company such as Phone Power, for around $6 per month for the first two years (please annotation that near residential VoIP providers offering monthly service packages for under $x per month). And then the option is obvious and you make up one's mind to cancel U-verse vocalism and sign-upwardly with Phone Power or a similar service. What you lot may not have realized is that this will impact your home network setup and you lot need to exist careful about how and where you add together the new service. Let's now look at how to setup VoIP with AT&T U-verse Net service.

How to add your New ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) to your Home Network

A telephone adapter is a relatively simple device that is used to catechumen analog signals to digital signals (and vice versa). Despite this simplicity, there are really a number of different makes and models to choose from. If you are interested in comparing some of these adapters and the features, please read our comparison of abode phone adapters.

We take provided a lot of information in this section and admit that it can be confusing. As such, if you want to simply skip our long explanations, then we recommend that you connect your ATA into your home network as per choice 3 or 4 below.

Outset of all, lets look at some options for where to add the ATA to your domicile network. This might seem pretty obvious at get-go, but if you beginning to think well-nigh the potential options, it can become confusing, as each method tin directly impact your call quality in either a skilful or bad mode. Our home network setup page goes into the details of some setup options, just for this discussion, permit's look at a few specific options.

Option one - Connect (via Ethernet) the ATA directly to your 2-wire 3800-HDV box and but have the phone connected to the ATA. No downstream network devices from the ATA merely at that place are network devices downstream from the ii-wire. The setup diagram for this scenario is every bit follows:

Option two - Connect (via Ethernet) the ATA directly to your ii-wire box but too connect your home network to the LAN side of the ATA. This setup requires an ATA with both a WAN and LAN Ethernet port and nada else is connected the 2-wire router. The setup diagram for this scenario is equally follows:

Selection iii - Connect the Ethernet LAN port of the ATA to a carve up router and connect the Ethernet WAN port of the ATA to your 2-wire box. This means your entire network (excluding the 2-wire box) is downstream of the ATA, then information technology is disquisitional that the ATA supports QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritize the voice traffic over the data traffic. The setup diagram for this scenario is equally follows:

Option 4 - Similar to option (iii) but connect (via Ethernet) a carve up router direct to the 2-wire box and then connect the ATA to this 2d router. For the purposes of this discussion, we are bold that this router supports QoS. The setup diagram for this scenario is equally follows:

Placement of the ATA in your home network is a disquisitional decision, as putting it in the wrong location could touch on your voice quality, and you may beginning to blame the VoIP provider for having lousy service, when it is not their error. Our research on the 2-wire 3800-HGV indicated that it does not have configurable QoS, so at that place is no apparent way to perform voice traffic prioritization. The following tabular array looks at each of the aforementioned options:

Potential Outcome	Option ii	Option 3	Selection 4
Avoids potential for voice traffic contention with network traffic going to 2-wire box.	(contention with wireless traffic)	(if ATA supports QoS)	(if 2d router supports QoS)
ATA is Non a single point of failure for your entire domicile network.
Recommended setup

Although option iii introduces a unmarried point of failure in your home network, we practice not consider this to be an event worth worrying nearly, as if your ATA goes down, you can simply featherbed it and connect your 2nd router directly to the 2-wire box. We recommend option 3 if you have a dual Ethernet port ATA and option iv if you have a single Ethernet port ATA.

Should I become with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Phone Adapter option?

If you make up one's mind to skip the free ATA charter from your VoIP provider (nosotros have used Phone Power for this evaluation), and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) instead, you will need to perform the post-obit steps:

Perform a hard reset on your ATA to get it dorsum to the manufactory default settings. This ensures that the admin password is the default password for the device.
Add together the adapter to your network and ensure that all of your existing laptops, PCs, etc can achieve the Internet.
Contact Phone Power (we recommend using their live chat feature) and inform them of the make, model, serial number and MAC accost of your ATA.
Run the synchronization script to configure the ATA with the Phone Power SIP credentials. This information tin be found hither for all supported adapters.
Access your two-wire router (remember this is done by entering 192.168.i.254) and move your ATA device into the DMZ. Instructions on how to perform this can exist institute at this location. This is an of import step every bit otherwise the firewall in the 2-wire may block ports and prevent the vocalisation traffic from communicating correctly with the telephone adapter.
Wait x minutes and your telephone service should be up and running. It takes a few minutes for the ATA to be correctly configured and for the FXS phone port to register with the Phone Power server.

BYOD is a proficient option that many people choose if they want to own the adapter outright. However, there are definitely some pro'due south and con's and so proceed reading for more details.

Using a Linksys PAP2T Telephone Adapter

Although the PAP2T device is no longer sold past Linksys (or Cisco), nosotros have included it here equally information technology is even so widely offered by VoIP providers on a free charter footing, and there are a lot of them in apportionment. In the perfect world, you lot should never have to access whatsoever configuration menus on this device, but if you exercise need to, we have included a copy of the PAP2T user manual to aid with this.

When we tested the PAP2T with the Phone Power service, although the device performed consistently well, we were unhappy with the amount of time information technology took for a 7-digit telephone call to exist connected. This was due to the default setting of the Inter-digit long timer existence 10 seconds, which meant that the call waited x seconds after the 7th digit was pressed before dialing. This was an abrasive filibuster and although the setting can exist inverse in the devices admin menu, the admin bill of fare is locked after the Phone Power configuration is run. The only way to be able to manually brand this modifications, is to offset from scratch again and add the SIP credentials for the ATA manually, instead of running the automobile-config script provided past Phone Power. As you tin imagine, this is opening upwards a can of worms for what should have been a simple configuration alter. When nosotros contacted Telephone Power support, they would non provide the admin password. I other mode around this is to press # afterward the 7th digit is dialed and the phone call volition skip the timeout timer and connect immediately.

Another outcome with PAP2T device is that information technology only has a single Ethernet port that must be used to connect to the Cyberspace (or WAN). For this reason, we connected the device direct to an Ethernet port on the two-wire device. Over a long menses of fourth dimension, we constitute that this setup, on rare occasions, experienced i fashion calling issues where a caller could hear, but not be heard. This was well-nigh probable due to the lack of Quality of Service (QoS) configuration on the vocalism path to the Internet. This configuration is as per Option 1 in the in a higher place table.

In summary, we do not recommend this device for use with the two-wire device and U-verse.

Using a Grandstream HT502 Phone Adapter

This Grandstream adapter has the additional benefit of having an actress Ethernet port when compared to the PAP2T. This means that it can exist installed upstream of your home networking equipment and exist an in-line device. As such nosotros installed this device in improver to a 2nd router as per Pick 3 in the table in a higher place. The add-on of a new router to the network enabled united states of america to disconnect all devices from the two-wire router (except for the ATA), and turn off the wireless. The new router was and so connected to the LAN Ethernet port of the Grandstream ATA and all existing network devices were connected to this router. This meant that all wired and wireless data connections were at present downstream of the Grandstream adapter, which effectively means that all traffic must now go through the ATA to attain the Net. The Grandstream adapter performs QoS and prioritizes voice traffic over information traffic, thus ensuring that the domicile network cannot impact the voice quality.

Additionally, the abrasive seven-digit event nosotros had with the PAP2T went away as the default timeout (known equally the "no key entry timeout" in this case) for the Grandstream device is 4 seconds. After running the Grandstream adapter with Telephone Ability for a number of weeks, there are no reported issues.

In summary, we do recommend this adapter for utilize with the 2-wire device and U-verse.

Should I use the Free Lease Adapter offer past the VoIP Provider?

Nosotros contacted Phone Power and asked which make and model of adapter they are currently providing on a free lease basis with its service. The device offered is currently an Innomedia MTA6328 which has two Ethernet ports, routing adequacy and QoS support, making it appear to exist comparable to the aforementioned Grandstream device. Out of interest, we took a look at the admin guide to find out what the default inter-digit-timeout was and it appears to be set at sixteen seconds. We did not really test this device so would like to hear from anyone that is using information technology and if they have any issues. Please add a comment to let us know.

Although, there are typically some shipping costs involved with a free lease, a great benefit is that it makes the VoIP service effectively plug and play as the device arrives on your doorstep already configured. Only plug it into your network and y'all should be and running and making calls with minutes.

How to manually configure your phone adapter (ATA) with Phone Power.

What if you lot Bring Your Own Device only the Machine-Configuration does not work?

If this happens, then y'all will need help from customer support. Don't panic though as they volition likely walk you through a few uncomplicated steps to manually configure your device such that it can register with the VoIP server. Hither are some of the steps that Telephone Power provided when we tested this on the Grandstream HT502:

To connect to the HT502 device:

Connect an Ethernet cable to the LAN port of the ATA and connect the other end to a laptop or PC.
Get to your 2-wire card to find the IP address of the HT502 and so enter xxx.xxx.30.xxx (your IP) in a browser window.
The default password to access BASIC SETTINGS is 123 and the default countersign to access ADVANCED SETTINGS is admin.

In BASIC SETTINGS tab:

Get to PREFERRED DNS SERVER and enter IP address 208.67.222.222 then hit UPDATE

In Advanced SETTINGS tab

Go to FIRMWARE SERVER PATH and enter provision.phonepower.com:4192/UPGRAYEDD/HT502
Go to FIRMWARE SERVER PATH and enter provision.phonepower.com:4192
Go to FIRMWARE FILE PREFIX and enter 05072013
Get to CONFIG FILE PREFIX and enter HT502Prov.php?hwid=
Go to ALLOW DHCP Pick 66 to OVERRIDE SERVER and set it to NO
Get to E'er CHECK for NEW FIRMWARE at BOOT Upward and select information technology.
Go to Automatic FIRMWARE UPGRADE and select YES and enter 4320
Go to NTP SERVER and enter the address us.pool.ntp.org
Go to SYSLOG SERVER and enter address 208.64.8.six and fix SYSLOG LEVEL to INFO
Select APPLY and then REBOOT

Conclusion and Recommendations

The bottom line here is that a separate VoIP service tin and will piece of work well with AT&T U-poetry Internet and the associated router and modem that comes with it. Hither are some of the key takeaways from this evaluation:

For good voice call quality, it is critical to ensure that you setup your home network correctly and add your new telephone adapter at a point in this network where voice traffic volition be prioritized over data traffic.
A free lease adapter from a VoIP provider volition come pre-configured and it volition be just a matter of calculation it to your network to become up and running.
Although BYOD has benefits in that you lot actually own the device, there is some minimal configuration effort involved. Choose the brand and model wisely though.
Near importantly, we recommend that you lot skip the triple play bundle and relieve yourself a lot money by going with a carve up VoIP provider. At that place is simply no denying that taking this route volition result in much lower costs and many more than calling features. Would you rather spend $40 per month for just a few calling features, or $vi per calendar month for over 40 calling features.

If you need aid with whatever of this setup or configuration, please visit our troubleshooting and setup pages that are listed in the following resources list. If you still need aid, delight experience free to ask us using the comment form below.

References

Domicile phone adapter comparison guide
Grandstream HT502 user manual
Phone Power phone service information

I bought Basic Talk concluding year from Walmart, and my son tried to fix it up on uverse. Every bit luck would have it, my net kept turning off, and now uverse volition not let me connect my Basic Talk box. I had to get the service tech to come out and fix my computer. Afraid to effort it again!

-> Response: It is worth trying this once again, as at that place should exist no issue with BT and Uverse. If the Internet was down then it would explain whatever VoIP issues.

Source: https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/att-uverse-internet-and-voip.htm