Recently we had a customer who needed to move office and downsize. The requirement was to provide email and telephone services for three users at a location adjacent to the proprietors home, previously they had occupied an industrial unit with tens of users.

The costs of removing or replacing their telephone system alone would run into a couple of thousand pounds, and the ongoing costs of telephone calls and line rentals needed to be far less than they had been paying.

As we saw it this was grist to the mill, we could provide VOIP lines and an e-mail server, as the location was remote we elected to take over the customers existing Broadband connection to his home, to use as a “backup” in event of problems.

Because Openreach (BT) could not provision a line to the customers’ property using the existing phone number for us (this takes 15 days), we asked BT to transfer his existing number but just one line (he previously used a block of 4r through his PBX. This they promised in a week but in fact took 4 days longer.

To handle the customers’ communications we selected a Funkwerk TR200aw.

To quote Funkwerk:

“The Funkwerk TR200 is a multifunctional gateway designed for versatility and flexibility with a huge variety of professional features from routing, WLAN and telephony”

It looks good doesn’t it? An ADSL Router, that will support VOIP telephony as well as all the traditional features of a wireless router, and will integrate a normal PSTN phone line into a “mini PBX”, all for £350-ish.

Well if it sounds to good to be true, that certainly has been our experience.

We supplied the customer with a number of Funkwerk IP phones and three and then a fourth SIP trunk line, giving the users a direct VOIP line each and keeping their existing BT number as a customer line, backed up with our Broadband on the line and a link across his courtyard to connect a PC and phone in the main house with a secondary ADSL line (routed to a different central pipe). This would seem a fairly robust setup at a fraction of the price he would pay elsewhere.

First problem. The Funkwerk TR200aw does not work properly with normal phone lines – if a call was made in from a BT line and answered on the IP or if a call was made out to BT line, the user experienced a loud echo of their own voice a millisecond or so behind speaking, that overrode the person at the other end, making normal conversation impossible.

We had purchased the router from a distributor who didn’t offer technical support, but no problem, prior to purchasing I had spoken to Funkwerk’s International Sales Manager, who had assured me we could get support from them. In fact it turned out that UK support was initially handled by their main UK distributor, the guys there did what they could but clearly weren’t particularly familiar with the product, and no doubt were miffed we hadn’t got the product via them.

In desperation we bought a second unit from this distributor (more expensive, but no-one else seemed to have stock). We connected this up at our premises and lo – exactly the same problem.