Rogers and Fido have announced a new Wireless Home Phone service where you plug your existing phone line into their Wireless Home Phone unit (which costs $29.99 to purchase), then get the following features:
Fido says the cost will be $10/month for this service for existing customers, but $25 per month for non-Fido users. You will be able to take the home phone device with you anywhere on the Rogers/Fido network.
If you’re able to carry portable AC power with you, this could be a cheap $9.99 per month ‘cellphone’ hooked up to a regular telephone. It won’t fit in your jeans pocket though! Some downsides of a network-based home service is in the event of a network outage or power outage, you won’t have a home phone line.
Let us know if you’d be interested in this service from Rogers.
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I thought, that if you had access to the regular cable phone from rogers you couldn’t get this. Now Fido? cool I might do this, and bail on rogers home phone, since 10 bucks is cheap.
plug it into your car. Carphone.
That would be pretty cool. Retro car phone!
Well also, it means you can take it where ever you want, so hang with your friends for the weekend, take the phone. go out to the cottage, go half way across the country. cool deal, might order this and dump rogers, save me 50 bucks
I was thinking exactly that…
Hmmmmmm. Not a bad Idea !!
I’m wondering if this could be plugged into my existing telephone network in the same fashion as my current Rogers Home Phone. The only issue would be power outages.
Fully disconnect your home wiring from the outside bell wires, plug phone cord in between the base station for this service and any jack in your house, and you’re done – house-wide service same as before.
I know this is what Bell does with their Fibe phone service (this is what I currently have).
However, I just chatted with a CSR and apparently this service can only be used to feed one handset. It will not enable your whole house as you’ve described above.
Could also be the CSR is an idiot and has no clue.
But couldn’t you just easily connect the Home Phone base to a cordless handset base that powers multiple phones?
That should definitely work. However, it is not clear if you could power multiple independent phones. Multiple older corded phones for example.
Hmm yeah, I see what you’re saying. wonder if a splitter would work.
Ideally, you would be able to do what @Oshawapilot said which is to basically feed your house wiring with this phone service.
Using splitters would not really help if your various phones are spread throughout your house.
The CSR is an idiot and has no idea. 😉
There is absolutely no way that they could limit this type of hardware to service only one handset – it’s completely out of their control what you hook up to it, or how it’s wired.
The only possible limitation is the REN, or the “Ringer equivalency number” the hardware physically can support. This is a rating for the maximum number of handsets that this unit could ring at once, since ringing requires significantly more power vs anything else. Google it.
All that said, most modern hardwire handsets draw but a fraction of the power of the old-style handsets (with physical bells), & most telephone hardware such as this will support numerous handsets easily.
My Primus VoIP box in my basement drives five handsets throughout my house with zero problems, and unless you have more than that I wouldn’t anticipate any problems whatsoever with this hardware either.
Exactly what I was hoping to hear. I know this is how Videotron and Bell Fibe drive their service.
So with this, I would simply disconnect the phone wire from my Fibe modem and plug into the Rogers modem and I should be good to go.
Also, would this be compatible with alarm systems?
The key element is to make sure that your internal home phone wiring is completely isolated from the traditional bell telephone POTS wiring that would normally service a home – The two will not play nice together, and small hardware like this inside your home will lose the fight. 😉
Compatibility with modem-based services like fax and home alarm systems could be dodgy – although it wouldn’t surprise me that it should work if the service charades as an analog telephone line well enough. I know that I am able to send faxes through my VoIP service with Primus successfully, even though they don’t officially support it.
A major potential benefit of using this sort of hardware for your home alarm is that it’s almost effectively cable cut proof – unless they cut the power to your house, which in itself can be dealt with with the addition of a UPS on the hardware, it would be impossible to disable your home alarm system by just cutting your phone line outside the house.
Would it be a safe assumption to say that if Bell’s Fibe phone service (provided via their Fibe modem and thus disconnected from the traditional POTS Bell connection) and ,previously, Videotron’s cable phone service, both worked with my alarm system, that this service should also work?
In theory it’s possible, but I don’t think that you will get a CSM knowledgeable enough to actually confirm or deny compatibility – I know that with VoIP service it can be hit or miss, and a cellular-based solution like this also adds in many digital to analog conversion hurdles that could cause problems. It really comes down to whether or not the adapter that they are using to connect analog telephones to the digital cellular network is designed to handle these sorts of connections or not – if anybody can find out the specific hardware details I could certainly look it up
I’m betting the CSR has no clue. I current have Rogers Home Phone. It should be as simple as unplugging that unit and plugging in this one. It wouldn’t know if it’s connected to one phone or a whole house. Still not sure about the power issue though. My Rogers Home Phone atleast has a battery backup.
Holy crap, something new from a cellphone company that is not only innovative, but well priced!
I’ll be all over this – its even cheaper than what I’m paying for VoIP with Primus now.
One must wonder why this service, which seems more or less a cellphone connection for your wired telephone hardware can be had for so much less than a comparable “regular” cellphone.
I wonder if this work for just one outlet or work on multiple ones.
Also if alarm system will work on this or not.
Did you read ANY of the responses? This was discussed, at length.
wow it took them for ever..third world countries have had this for a while now
what happens if you take the SIM out and use it in the cellphone ?
Anyone know about this? I suppose as long as the cell you were using has the same size SIM they wouldn’t be able to stop it?
I’d be almost certain that they would have some sort of ESN lock in place that prevents the Sim card from working with anything other than the analog adapter included with this service. Without some safeguards having been already put in place I’m sure many people would do exactly that, so I’m fairly confident suggesting that they’ve already thought of this situation, and ways to block it.
It should work, but you wouldn’t have any of the other features, like data or even texting
Nice move, I was paying 25$ with Videotron for a home line and now it’s 10$ unlimited canada wide ! I am just wondering if it’s compatible with alarm security systems..
I am paying $22.50 (old plan) with videotron and thinking to switch to fido for this great offer. The Videotron CS trying to give me $14.50 but not able to include unlim. canadian LD, which Fido does. I guess nobody can beat that promo yet.
I think you’ll find your alarm system won’t work with it
Now if they could only offer internet, the speeds on LTE are pretty good, I don’t know why they don’t offer internet, that’s reasonable. 100 for 10 gigs is not good for home use.
So I just spoke with a rep, this plan is for Out of Province customers only.. Not available in Ontario. If your area has Rogers cable, you will not be eligible for this plan.
That’s a load of crap, I just spoke to 2 Fido CS agents who confirm it’s available anywhere there’s Fido service, Ontario included.
It’s pittiful how woefully misinformed so many CS agents are.
On FIDO it is available everywhere. The comment said ROGERS doesn`t. This is because Rogers does NOT offer it anywhere they already provide home phone service. Just stick to Fido and you`re good to go.
So maybe it works for Fido customers but not for Rogers customers
Hi
I have read your information ,Thanks for sharing information for Network-Based Wireless Home Phone Service
Been doing this since 2007 with a telular sx5t phone cell with TELUS. We have a cheap plan with unlimited evenings and weekends for $20/mth +HST since we are never home during the day. We have 4 cordless handsets powered through the main base.
I tried tying in a house alarm with out any success after trying many times.
I came across this site because I just subscribe rogers wireless home phone and have a lot headache. I am searching solutions for my phone settting. First home phone does not ring. the adapter has two outlets. so I plug in two telephones. One decades old could ring. one is my previous home phone which has caller id and is for me to talk. Rogers CSRs have no clue what’s going on and all they can do is reading their manuals which I believe their tech department even did not know too much about the product either. Second problem is my intercom did not work properly. Guests at the door can hear me but I can not hear the guests. To be fair I can open the door, but I just do not know whom I am inviting. Today I tried different settings to let this huge system wtih two power adapters ( one for my home phone), two telephones and one moderm to work. I put in the sim card in my existing rogers cell, it works!! I am going to return the moderm which costs $30 and my headache, and just use a old cell phone to receive home phone. Later on I might buy a cell phone to home phone dock if i am happy with this service( obvious not for now). For those peopel who want to add cell phone with unlimit airtime, no text, no data, just sign up a home wireless phone. Cheap. I have been taking to rogers dealer for repaire, it worked at the store too.
The cheaper service from TALKIT.CA is very good too, just $80.00 a year and unlimited within Canada.
Bah! Where ARE THESE THINGS?? I CAN’T SEEM TO BUY ONE!