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At Network Engineering I was told that my question was off-topic there, but that I could ask it here, so here it goes... I hope that it is on-topic.

Current situation

At home I have a Siemens TFE/V adapter (S30817-K936-A313) that connects the doorbell to the telephone switchboard. This way, if someone rings the bell, I can talk to him/her from the house's phone. I can even open the door from the phone by calling to an internal number.

The problem

I want to get rid of the switchboard and use VoIP instead. That means that the doorbell should be connected to the internet, instead of to the switchboard. However, this is impossible with the current hardware I have.

My questions

  1. Is there any adapter similar to the one I have, but enabled for VoIP? I am not asking for a product recommendation, a generic name will suffice.
  2. Are there other ways to connect my current doorbell to a VoIP provider? I am really interested in finding an adapter, instead of buying an expensive VoIP doorbell.
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    Sorry, this question is confusing as "switchboard" refers to a specific device, and VoIP is an extremely generic term... Are you getting rid of a premise based phone system and moving to a premise or hosted VoIP (SIP) system? There are definitely SIP based door phones available, without a "switchboard" where will the call ring and what is necessary to open the door (contact closure?) with your current door lock hardware? Also note that product/shopping recommendations are off-topic on Superuser, I am not sure there is a Stack Exchange group specific enough for this kind of question.
    – acejavelin
    Apr 12, 2016 at 15:07
  • Assuming you need a SIP based solution (a HUGE guess), I think this algosolutions.com/products/doorphones-security/… is probably what you are looking for, other companies such as Viking Electronics or Aiphone make similar products
    – acejavelin
    Apr 12, 2016 at 15:12
  • @acejavelin Thanks for your feedback and sorry for the confusion. I am not a native speaker, but when I wrote switchboard I meant this (does it have a different name than switchboard?). Also, with VoIP I mean being SIP based, as you correctly guessed.
    – aochagavia
    Apr 12, 2016 at 17:43

1 Answer 1

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I have an answer, but it depends on how the Siemens box works. A quick Google search implied that it might be a digital device, which means that this suggested solution would NOT work. I did set up something similar to this for a client in the states, whose door intercom system was basically set up to make an analog phone in their apartment (that was otherwise dead) ring, and then they could press 9 to open the gate. The upstream part of how the door intercom system worked was managed by someone else - this was merely answering the phone and connecting it to a VoIP solution.

If you can connect a regular POTS analog phone to the Siemens device with NOTHING ELSE connected, and it rings when someone presses the doorbell, with the Siemens device providing all the power, you COULD use something like an FXO gateway (an example would be the Grandstream GXW4104) to convert that analog POTS signal from the Siemens box to SIP. From there, you'd have to do some sort of IP-PBX magic (for example, in Asterisk) to get it to ring where you want (for example, to a cell phone, or a desk phone).

This device will basically convert an analog POTS phone line for use with an IP PBX. However, these devices typically aren't cheap (I'd say you're looking at at least $150).

If you can't hook a regular analog corded telephone up to the Siemens box (and nothing else) and have this work, this solution also won't work.

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  • Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, I think the adapter is a digital device as you correctly guessed.
    – aochagavia
    Apr 12, 2016 at 17:56

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