Best way to connect 10 ooma phones

[WayneDsr]

Since you have no other internet connections, just VOIP I don't believe you need to consider QOS, since the entire bandwidth will already be dedicated to VOIP. The bottle neck will not be on your end, but will be on the SAT's end. If you can maintain low scores on jitter you should be ok. MOS score of 3.5 isn't bad considering you're on SAT. If all 10 units were used at the same time, I could see some possible echo or digital voice issues. Fix would be to tell your residents; "if you call is bad, wait a few minutes and try again. The system is overloaded"

I have DSL here and 3 ooma devices. I have 5.4 meg download and 640 KB upload and have had all 3 devices in use. PLUS internet with no problems. Given though that DSL is a wired system, MOS score at 4.

Also, make sure none of your residents make use of their internet port and attach a laptop.

Wayne

[coastalcruiser]

Since you have no other internet connections, just VOIP I don't believe you need to consider QOS, since the entire bandwidth will already be dedicated to VOIP. The bottle neck will not be on your end, but will be on the SAT's end. If you can maintain low scores on jitter you should be ok. MOS score of 3.5 isn't bad considering you're on SAT. If all 10 units were used at the same time, I could see some possible echo or digital voice issues. Fix would be to tell your residents; "if you call is bad, wait a few minutes and try again. The system is overloaded"

I have DSL here and 3 ooma devices. I have 5.4 meg download and 640 KB upload and have had all 3 devices in use. PLUS internet with no problems. Given though that DSL is a wired system, MOS score at 4.

Also, make sure none of your residents make use of their internet port and attach a laptop.

Wayne

Very helpful Wayne! +1. Good to here from someone who has done this, albeit on a different scale. Good advice on the overload notification. And hadn't yet thought about that network port being live on each telo. Gonna have to stick a wad of chewing gum in there or something (or more reasonably, block all MAC addresses except the telo boxes. ;>

[Cyberchat]

...

OK. This is actually quite simple to explain. We are getting a brand new satellite dish for this project. It will be dedicated to ooma. It will be our "Ooma dish" (who knows? we might even stencil an image of "Uma" Thurman on the dish as our mascot, as that is who I think of every time I say "Ooma". Ok, not every time). We already have other satellite dishes, connected to a wired and wireless network, and distributed around the property. But this is a separate project here on the frontier, and we want to give it every possible chance to work.

So, to distribute 10 portions of this new satellite will be straightforward. The 10 residences are all in close proximity, and we will just hard wire a home run Ethernet run from each residence to a central location, which will house:

a) the satellite modem
b) a dinky router to do NAT & DHCP
c) the [theoretical] qos switch that will evenly distribute the bandwidth to all ooma telos

There will be no wireless on this system, no Internet access, and no billing issues. The owners of the property are providing the service. Land lines are as rare as everything else here, so WildBlue and Ooma are godsends. Exclamation point.

So to get down to it, as you confirmed my suspicions that there is no native management for an Ooma community, and the idea of plugging the telo straight into the modem is out in this case, it becomes a case of 3rd party bandwidth management. After reading a few ooma posts regarding the varying quality of consumer QoS switches I really appreciate the link you provided. Have you had good luck with that switch (with the understanding that whatever you have done with it is not what we are going to do with it, but if you know it is good with QoS, and perhaps has a means to set the total up speed (which I hear is important to ooma), that would be good to know.

Which brings me back to my question of -- if architected properly -- can I make this pig fly? I am calculating that we theoretically have the bandwidth. Assuming roughly 64kbs upstream speed required for each telo call (a number I got from another ooma post) my math looks like this:

1.8mbs up equates to 1800kbs, when divided by 64 equates to 28.1kbs chunks. That's theoretical 28 simultaneous calls, which is triple our max need, and would therefore be a nice cushion. So in my noob nievity it would seem that, yes, this pig can sprout wings. ?????

Thank you for your interest.

At my residence, I use the Netgear N750 WIRELESS DUAL BAND GIGABIT ROUTER WNDR4000. Here's a link to its specs:
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wi ... R4000.aspx#

In addition to the WNDR4000 router, I use a number of Netgear gigabit switches deployed at various points in our residence. Although you have a separate satellite link for Internet data services, you might find the wireless access of the WNDR4000 useful to both manage the OOMA VOIP network as well as a backup to your internet data services.

I haven't personally used the Netgear GS116E PROSAFE® PLUS 16-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH or firewall/VPN devices in the link I sent you earlier. However, I have used multiple generations of consumer Netgear routers and switches for decades with very good success and no problems which is why I pointed the link toward Netgear. I, too, worked for decades within IT. At work, however, we pretty much used Cisco technology with a smattering of other vendor special purpose boxes for firewalls, filters, etc.

From your description of dedicated usage of this satellite setup for the OOMA VOIP services, you can probably get away with just a router, a switch and without using the VPN firewall.

The Netgear GS116E PROSAFE® PLUS 16-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH might be a good choice for you. It provides:
- Network monitoring, traffic prioritization and VLAN
- 16 ports deliver up to 2000 Mbps of dedicated, non-blocking bandwidth per port
- Simple network set-up on top of plug-and-play connectivity

In particular, the traffic prioritization will be important to you. Also, the VLAN functionality which would allow you to segment (separate) your LAN into multiple segments to manage collisions and congestion will likely be important to you.

Here's a couple of links within OOMA's support site for information about QoS which you might find helpful:

Configuring Quality of Service
https://www.ooma.com/app/support/config ... ty-service

Learning more about Ooma Quality of Service (QoS)
https://www.ooma.com/app/support/learni ... ervice-qos

A word of deployment caution, is to provide as much physical separation between the OOMA Telo's and any other electronic devices, especially wireless devices, as possible including separating multiple Telos. The Telo seems to be vulnerable to both wireless signals as well as electronic emissions from transformers, powerstrips, ... In your case, it would seem logical to deploy each of the ten Telos into each of the residential using locations. If any of your Users opt for the OOMA Premier service with two telephone numbers (two "logical", not physical, lines) you can more fully utilize the functionality with the Telo co-located with the User.

Another thought is that since your environment utilizes generators/alternators for primary power, you might want to consider acquiring some consumer UPS devices or at least some quality surge protectors to protect your LAN equipment and especially the Telos. Another thought is that if your power isn't continuously available (24x7) you might experience some hickups when OOMA schedules rollouts of new Telo microcode versions if they happen to coincide with your power outages. It might be a good idea for you to have a conversation with OOMA's customer support group and asking to be connected to some engineering knowledge (beyond first-level customer support) to discuss your deployment and how to optomize it.

Good luck!

[Cyberchat]

I meant to include this in my earlier post:

The Netgear ProSafe Plus Switch, 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet (GS116E) can be purchased on Amazon for $174.99.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... rds=GS116E

[coastalcruiser]

The Netgear GS116E PROSAFE® PLUS 16-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH might be a good choice for you. It provides:
- Network monitoring, traffic prioritization and VLAN
- 16 ports deliver up to 2000 Mbps of dedicated, non-blocking bandwidth per port
- Simple network set-up on top of plug-and-play connectivity

In particular, the traffic prioritization will be important to you. Also, the VLAN functionality which would allow you to segment (separate) your LAN into multiple segments to manage collisions and congestion will likely be important to you.

I spent a few hours perusing various QoS switches and ended up choosing your recommendation. I think Netgear made a silly engineering choice using Adobe Air to mange the device, rather than a simple web server, but in that price range it seemed a good choice. It is a shame they don't offer a similar unit that is just 10/100, because that is all we need obviously, but the 10/100 units I looked at all were missing the ability to set the port speed, which I am thinking may come in real handy.

Here's a couple of links within OOMA's support site for information about QoS which you might find helpful:

Configuring Quality of Service
https://www.ooma.com/app/support/config ... ty-service

Learning more about Ooma Quality of Service (QoS)
https://www.ooma.com/app/support/learni ... ervice-qos

As it happens I had come across those documents already. The thing missing, especially in the latter link, is the consideration of what you termed an ooma "community" of telos. So the [initial] approach I'm taking is to forego informing each ooma device of the total bandwidth, and instead lie to each individual telo about what bandwidth is available by setting each port to a specific speed. And rather than simply divide the available bandwidth by 10, since up speed will likely vary, the idea is to set each port to minimum the telo needs to carry on a quality call. What I don't know at this point though is if I can tell each unit to use the entire amount of bandwidth it senses and not try to reserve bandwidth for traditional Internet use. If I can convince each box to use all it senses for its own selfish purposes that may be ideal.

That's all chalkboard stuff though. We will see.

A word of deployment caution, is to provide as much physical separation between the OOMA Telo's and any other electronic devices, especially wireless devices, as possible including separating multiple Telos. The Telo seems to be vulnerable to both wireless signals as well as electronic emissions from transformers, powerstrips, ... In your case, it would seem logical to deploy each of the ten Telos into each of the residential using locations. If any of your Users opt for the OOMA Premier service with two telephone numbers (two "logical", not physical, lines) you can more fully utilize the functionality with the Telo co-located with the User.

Another thought is that since your environment utilizes generators/alternators for primary power, you might want to consider acquiring some consumer UPS devices or at least some quality surge protectors to protect your LAN equipment and especially the Telos. Another thought is that if your power isn't continuously available (24x7) you might experience some hickups when OOMA schedules rollouts of new Telo microcode versions if they happen to coincide with your power outages. It might be a good idea for you to have a conversation with OOMA's customer support group and asking to be connected to some engineering knowledge (beyond first-level customer support) to discuss your deployment and how to optomize it.

I don't imagine the telo boxes would accommodate a POE feed in the cat 5 run. That would be most helpful here, in terms of interference as well as supplying battery backed power, but I have not noticed anything regarding POE thus far.

We have 24/7 AC, but it does go down at times.

I have an email into Ooma support regarding the 10 phone project.

thanx again!

[coastalcruiser]

Also, the VLAN functionality which would allow you to segment (separate) your LAN into multiple segments to manage collisions and congestion will likely be important to you.

Oh. VLANs. I have never used them, although I sort of understand the principal. But I wonder, would VLANs help here? Let's see... if the telos make a full duplex connection to the switch, the boxes can send and receive at the same time, which I guess may help call quality. And once the switch populates its MAC address table it will never repeat packets on to any port other than the one destination port, which will be the router. So I am thinking this will be a mostly collision free network just based on the home run Ethernet runs and the switch. So where would further segmentation with VLANs come in? I am not challenging your suggestion at all, rather I just happen to be contemplating VLANs lately in terms of how they might benefit the few networks I manage.

jim

[Cyberchat]

Also, the VLAN functionality which would allow you to segment (separate) your LAN into multiple segments to manage collisions and congestion will likely be important to you.

Oh. VLANs. I have never used them, although I sort of understand the principal. But I wonder, would VLANs help here? Let's see... if the telos make a full duplex connection to the switch, the boxes can send and receive at the same time, which I guess may help call quality. And once the switch populates its MAC address table it will never repeat packets on to any port other than the one destination port, which will be the router. So I am thinking this will be a mostly collision free network just based on the home run Ethernet runs and the switch. So where would further segmentation with VLANs come in? I am not challenging your suggestion at all, rather I just happen to be contemplating VLANs lately in terms of how they might benefit the few networks I manage.

jim

Jim,

This message is based on the presumption that your LAN topology would look like this:
1. Satellite Modem
2. Router
3. 16-port switch
4. ten (10) OOMA Telo's, each on their own switch port

VLANs in terms of your planned configuration and usage, one Router and one Switch for VOIP only, would provide little to no benefit in terms of the reasons VLANs were originally conceived and created. Minimizing collisions, minimizing broadcast domains (and broadcast storms) and the grouping of hosts (connected devices) with a common set of requirements do not really apply to your situation. Collisions are not an issue because Ethernet switches made this a non-issue since each switch port is effectively a collision domain and broadcasts aren't an issue because of the single devices connected to each switch port. If over time your usage of this network evolves into multiple types of information, voice, video, data, …, then VLANs might become more relevant.

However, since the NetgearProSafe Plus Switch, 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet (GS116E) which we've been discussing does contain VLAN functionality I believe it can be leveraged to eliminate a potential issue about which the members of your community might be passionately concerned and that issue is "Security". The apartment model of services has been fraught with problems since the beginning of the multi-tenant model (pre-Roman in history). Whether its noise, utilities or shared common spaces/resources if they're not deployed/managed in an obviously fair and equal manner then disputes can erupt. When it comes to something as personal as telephone calls its very important that privacy be unquestionably maintained. Mini-wars erupted in neighborhoods and rural areas from shared telephone party-lines a few decades ago.

I might be dating myself, but I lived through the party-line telephone era. Its an understatement to state its annoying to be having an intense telephone conversation with your girl friend when the sound of your neighbor's Grandfather Clock begins chiming in the background of the call!!! Not to imply that the OOMA Telo VOIP technology is anything like a party-line but you get the picture. (Now that I've conjured up a bunch of interesting images for the readers, back to the main theme.)

So, my thoughts about VLANs being relevant to your current situation was to place each OOMA Telo into its own VLAN, thus creating an environment where the community of Users are assured that not only will each OOMA Telo only respond to voice packets for calls originated by or with that Telo, for even more security not even the packets of their voice communications will travel down the wire to any residence other than their own. Its perhaps a small point but don't be surprised if it becomes a larger point in the multi-tenant model.

VLANs can be both a blessing and a curse when it comes to administering/managing your network of Telos. With everything (all Telos) in one VLAN (the default case) you could assign static IP addresses to each Telo, then port-forward each Telo's “Home Network” setup page to Port-80 within the Telo and it would be accessible to your laptop by simply entering an HTTP address of that Telo's IP address. You could administer all of the Telo's from one network position. Under a separate VLAN approach, you would either have to connect to each VLAN or physically go to each Telo and connect to its “Home Network” port. But this setup is a very infrequent event, probably only an initial setup, so this might not be a big deal for you. But if you have any techy-type of Users in your community, the separate VLAN approach would help limit any exploratory or hacking activities to just their VLAN.

The other features of the switch will probably be much more important to your needs, such as:
Quality of Service (QoS) to prioritize traffic by port or by type of data
Automatic protection against Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks
Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) support for separating traffic, such as offering a guest WiFi network that is walled off from the OOMA Telo network
Traffic monitoring and control through a non-technical graphically based software utility

Deployment thoughts:

You would configure both the upstream and downstream QoS settings within each of the ten Telos to zero (0).

Cat-5e (or better) cables would be connected between the Satellite Modem and the Router, between the Router and the Switch and also between the Switch ports and each OOMA Telo's "To Internet" port.

A telephone handset or base station (for wireless remotes) would be connected to the Telo's "Phone" port. Optionally, a telephone patch cable could be used to connect between the Telo's "Phone" port and a phone jack in the wall of the residence to distribute dial-tone to each wall jack in the residence. Then telephone handsets connected to the residential telephone wiring would be usable with the OOMA VOIP service. You can also use telephone wiring splitters for LIne-1 to connect both a telephone handset and a wall jack to the OOMA Telo's "Phone" port. The OOMA Telo does not provide an electrical connection to the Line-2 wires within the RJ-11 jack of the Telo. If any of your Users opt for the OOMA Premier service and acquire a second telephone number, the second number is “logical” not physical. There are several discussions in this forum about this topic. Here's one which explains how it works:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12974&start=10#p92674

For normal day-to-day operation NOTHING would be connected to either the Telo's "Wall" port (if it exists on your Telos) or to the Telo's "Home Network" port. The only exception is that to perform the initial setup of each Telo you would temporarily connect a laptop PC to each Telo's "Home Network" port to perform the initial setup of the Telo (QoS for example). Follow the instructions in
the "Configuring Quality of Service" page to which I sent you a link earlier in this topic.

Here's a couple of links to Netgear's product information which might help you further qualify the approach we've been discussing:

NETGEAR Extends its Ground Breaking Category of Plus Switches
http://www.netgear.com/about/press-rele ... 105_7.aspx

ProSafe® Plus Switch Utility User Guide
ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/ProSa ... Sept10.pdf

[Cyberchat]

.....

So, to distribute 10 portions of this new satellite will be straightforward. The 10 residences are all in close proximity, and we will just hard wire a home run Ethernet run from each residence to a central location,
.....

Another thought about hardwired connections from a central point to your ten (10) residences, generally you need to make sure each cable from an active LAN component (router/switch) is less than about 328 feet (100 meters). So, you may need some additional "active" LAN boxes (hubs/switches) to act as repeaters if your residences aren't within an approximately 100 meter radius of your central point.

[coastalcruiser]

So, my thoughts about VLANs being relevant to your current situation was to place each OOMA Telo into its own VLAN, thus creating an environment where the community of Users are assured that not only will each OOMA Telo only respond to voice packets for calls originated by or with that Telo, for even more security not even the packets of their voice communications will travel down the wire to any residence other than their own.

Thanx for all that background (not all of which I am quoting back). Interesting and informative. And I think I understand your points about VLans, but I am having trouble seeing the security benefit in this application. Would not packets to and from each telo be directed packets to a specific IP (telo <> router and router <> telo), and thus those packets would only appear on the two related ports?

... you could assign static IP addresses to each Telo, then port-forward each Telo's “Home Network” setup page to Port-80 within the Telo and it would be accessible to your laptop by simply entering an HTTP address of that Telo's IP address.

Ah, yes. You just gave me a solution to a problem I didn't even know I had yet. That will be helpful when the time comes.

The other features of the switch will probably be much more important to your needs, such as:
Quality of Service (QoS) to prioritize traffic by port or by type of data

You would configure both the upstream and downstream QoS settings within each of the ten Telos to zero (0).

Yes. the QoS feature for SURE, but I also like the that the switch will let me set the speed of the port. I am not going to assume that a cluster of these phones are are all going to play well together in the same sandbox, especially with their inherent QoS disabled (set to "0"). And I am not even going to assume that the switches' QoS facility will properly manage things, given that every port will have the same priority. So I think giving the telos a "sandbox within a sandbox", if you will, by setting each port to the minimum speed required to make a quality call may better assure that all players get equal access. Of course this is all blackboard stuff for the present. Port speed may or may not end up having value, but I like having it in case it is needed. I will report back to this forum as this plays out. ;>

jim

[coastalcruiser]

Another thought about hardwired connections from a central point to your ten (10) residences, generally you need to make sure each cable from an active LAN component (router/switch) is less than about 328 feet (100 meters). So, you may need some additional "active" LAN boxes (hubs/switches) to act as repeaters if your residences aren't within an approximately 100 meter radius of your central point.

I am fortunate in that no run is longer than 100 meters. As an aside, I was disappointed that the telos are not POE capable. (For those not familiar with Power Over Ethernet, POE capable devices can get their power from unused wires within the Ethernet cable, as opposed to the AC to DC transformer that is normally supplied for the device. The voltage is carried along with the data on the same cable. The advantage is that if you can inject the required DC voltage into the Ethernet cable, which can be up to 300 or feet long, you can place the device, in this case the telo, if it allowed for that, which it doesn't, in a location not near an AC outlet).

Soooo, in our scenario, with the property running on generators, we would normally place a UPS wherever electronics are in use. UPSs not only provide power when the AC goes off, they also provide surge and over/under voltage protection. Rather than purchase A UPS for each telo though, I am looking to see if there is a clever way to do POE even though the telos do not natively support POE. The industry does provide a solution for such equipment. You can buy "POE injectors" that will place the DC voltage on the 4 unused wires of the Ethernet cable (two wires for positive, two for negative). Then you buy a "POE splitter" that separates the voltage from the data when it reaches the device, and you plug the voltage into the same connector the lead from the transformer would normally go. So with the telos, even though they are not apparently designed to accept the supply voltage via the Ethernet cable, with the POE splitter in use they wouldn't know the difference.

I have two design issues for this approach to work in my 10 ooma installation. The telos want 5VDC at 2 amps. And since DC voltage falls off very quickly as it travels through long runs of Ethernet cabling, and the fact that the residences are at varying distances from the source, I need to come up with a power supply with multiple DC taps, and hopefully a way to adjust the voltages at the source so that everyone gets exactly 5 volts by the time the cable reaches each residence. I really want to find such a power supply though, because I hate the idea of having to buy 10 separate power supplies for 10 telos. Seems a waste.

The only alternative I can think of to finding such a fancy multi-output power supply is to use one single power supply capable of outputting, say, 12VDC, 20AMPS. That would be enough power to inject DC into the Ethernet cable of every telo. Then I could use a DC-DC converted at each telo that would drop whatever voltage has arrived there down to 5 volts. But again, 10 separate electronic doohickeys, although they would centralize the AC line conditioning required here, almost seems a waste.

I post this rather lengthy description because although a 10 telo install may be rare, there may be an engineering type out there who rigged a POE setup for their ooma, and may have some ideas for me.... ;>

jim