topic Re: Digital Voice adapters in Home Phone

Digital Voice adapters

Kincavel — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 12:37:49 GMT

As I write this, I'm awaiting delivery of a TalkTalk Digital Voice analogue telephone adapter (or ATA) to facilitate the switch-over of my landline phone from copper wire to VoIP. I understand that my phone cable will connect to a port in the ATA, which is then connected to my wifi hub via an Ethernet cable. No problem there, as my phone and hub are both in close proximity in my home office -- aka one half of my dining room! -- where I also have a spare electrical socket for the ATA.

However...

That configuration will not allow me to carry on using my living room extension, and the 'official' advice is that TalkTalk don't 'do' extensions, like it or lump it!

Couldn't help noticing that BT offers an ATA that communicates wirelessly with the hub, on the face of it a much more elegant approach that DOES allow the use of extensions via a (wireless) ATA for each phone. Unfortunately, that is a proprietary BT solution. So...

At the risk of being overly simplistic, could I use a third-party wireless ATA to preserve my living room extension (where I also have spare electrical socket capacity for an ATA)? If so, could anyone please recommend one that is TalkTalk-compliant?

Thanks in anticipation, and apologies if the question has been asked and answered elsewhere.

Kind regards

Re: Digital Voice adapters

Karl-TalkTalk — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 12:44:00 GMT

You cannot use a third party ATA, however you could use a phone base station connected to the ATA and use wireless phone handsets.

Thanks

Karl.

Re: Digital Voice adapters

Kincavel — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:01:44 GMT

Thank you for your swift response. Not what I wanted to hear, but it's what I half-expected, so fair enough.

The option of using cordless phones with the base station connected to the ATA had occurred to me, but with me it's a case of 'been there, done that' as far as cordless goes. I've tried various cordless phones over the years and none of them have been particularly reliable or long-lasting. They all went though 'rechargeable' batteries at a rate of knots besides, and having to replace them so frequently quickly became a royal PITA... though perhaps I'm just being lazy!

No extension for me, then, but my landline is so little-used these days that I suppose it's really no great disadvantage.

Cheers and kind regards

Re: Digital Voice adapters

Bettyga — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:18:44 GMT

Excellent question - I'd also be interested to see an answer to this. BT Openreach visited my mothers house yesterday to convert her to Full Fibre, but they could only re-connect one DECT phone (which has two extensions and all appears to work OK) via an analogue phone port on her existing modem (previously covered up by a sticky label. She has another phone that was an extension, which she would dearly love to get connected again due to it having Emergency Features that old folk find very useful (essentially an emergency dialler linked to a pendant which she normally wears). Again, would love to see an answer to your question - and that BT solution sounds very attractive !

Re: Digital Voice adapters

siphosethu-TT — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:21:41 GMT

Hi there @Bettyga, please start a new thread so we're able to assist you. Thanks