Very interested to read about the Siemens cordless phones and access to Skype. However, try as I may I cannot find that these instruments are for sale in the UK. If I purchase one from the continent, i.e. an M34 Gigaset and a S 445 will it work in the Uk and will there be English manuals and power adaptors.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Dragonfly

Hi there,

Have you looked at http://www.i-fones.co.uk/

Regards Roger

Thanks Roger,

Have you got experience with this product? If so, could you let me have your thoughts on it?

Regards,

Neville

Is this or a similar product available in the United States (or for use in the US)? This is precisely what my brother and I want.

I believe they use a different telephone technology in Europe than we do in the US - and their DECT phones won't work here I don't believe. Try the PhoneConnector ($39.95). Works with Skype and several other softphones. Plugs into a computer USB port, operates as a unique sound device in Windows (meaning no interference with the sound card), and allows connection of a standard phone to Skype. I plugged in a 2 line base unit with a couple remote handheld units, hooked my regular phone (POTS) line into one base connection and my Skype phone line from the PC into the other base connection. Now my phone rings and automatically answers when I pick up no matter which line the incoming call is on (POTS or Skype), I can call out on either line (POTS or Skype) from the base or the remote handset units, and I can walk around the house while making Skype calls to boot. Best of all worlds :>)

Readers will be interested to know that I have received an e mail from Siemens which states that they have no plans to release Gigaset M34 in the UK.

Why not? I ask.

Dragonfly

Hi Neville,

Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you, Christmas got in the way.

No sorry I don't have one of the phones in question although it's high on my wish list. The only thing is that I do like using a headset when I'm actually at the computer as it lets me talk and type etc at the same time. I guess that with a handset I would miss that.

All the best Roger

I just bought one of these phones from Denmark and got it up and running over Christmas. It certainly installs very easily and as far as I can tell should work well. The reason for my hesitancy is simply that I installed it at home for me to be able to call home for free when abroad and so far I haven't yet had a chance to try it with Skype!!! It works perfectly well as an ordinary DECT phone when connected to the POTS line and my only criticism is that the numeric keys have to be pressed very firmly to be sure of connecting. As an aside, I've been experiementing with a SIP VoIP conection from Sipgate so my Dual phone at home has three lines - Skype, SIP and POTS. Pretty neat, eh?

The price from i-phones seems pretty reasonable - I paid a total of Euro 122 including postage for mine which is about GBP 85.

Actually, there's also another option available to connect regular (including cordless) phones to Skype. Its called the Chat-Cord ($29.95). This one is a little more cumbersom, but if your a bit technical and want to get this done on the cheap (don't we all :>) then it's worth it.

The Chat-Cord itself works on both Windows and Linux, but the Chat-Cord dailing software works only on Windows XP (to date anyway). [I should have mentioned in my earlier post that the PhoneConnector only works with a Windows OS]. The Chat-Cord dialer software keys off the windows XP main sound card (I'll explain in a minute).

This is not so bad if you have one of those cheapie sound cards built into your motherboard (I do) that you immediately turned off and replaced with a better sound card (which I did - a Philips Acoustic Edge :>) You can in fact install 2 sound cards on Windows XP and they won't interfere with each other - provided the sound software you are utilizing has the ability to select which sound device its going to work with: and most multimedia software today has that capability (like WMP and WinAmp - look in sound output plugins).

The Chat-Cord itself is a physical set of cables that plugs into the microphone and speaker plugins in your sound card, with a third plug that just passes the sound card speaker output on through to your speakers (plug your speakers into this one if you're only using one sound card). It also has a USB connection (required for most phones - but not all) that provides power for sending a wakeup call to the attached telephone.

The tricky part on this one is the software installation, and I hope they'll fix this real soon :>( - but to get a clean installation with two sound cards I had to first uninstall and physically remove my Philips Accoustic Edge sound card, then turn on and install the onboard sound card and its driver (SIS7012, AC97), then install the Chat-Cord dialer software AND set it up to get it working with Skype the way I wanted it to with my motherboard sound card. After all of that, I then had to reinstall my Philips Acoustic Edge sound card.

Trying to install the Chat-Cord dialer software with both cards installed just wouldn't work for me. It would install the first time, I'd set it up okay, and it would work. But as soon as I did a reboot, I ended up with error messages about 'hanging up the phone', and the dialer software just wouldn't run.

Once you get the second sound card installed, make sure that the Windows Audio sound setting (input and output) is set to utilize the motherboard sound card (or the card you want Skype to use) - because whatever is set up as the windows primary Audio sound card (inout and output) is the sound card that the dialup software will key off of when it starts up - NOT the sound card (input and output) you select in the Skype options (which is what the dialer software SHOULD be keying off of). So the sound card selected in Skype (input and output) and the Windows XP Audio sound settings (inout and output) should be the same. If you don't do this, you will get the error message about hanging up the phone the next time you start the dialer software.

One of the drawbacks of the Chat-Cord dialer software is that it doesn't make the physical phone itself ring on an incoming call. At least, I haven't been able to figure out how to make it do that yet. But once you have this set up, you can go into Skype and set up the sound card you want incoming calls to ring through (a separate setting from the input/output sound card), which will obviously be the sound card that you have your speakers attached to.

Well, that's my experience. I've installed the Chat-Cord on my Windows XP box and the PhoneConnector on my girlfriend's Windows XP box. In each case I've hooked into a 2.4 GHz vtech 40-2420 4 line phone base unit (but it only has 2 physical line inputs? - haven't figured that one out yet :>) that comes with 1 40-2421 remote cordless unit (no handset on the base unit). These things are pretty cheap right now because they've just been discontinued. I picked the base unit and remote handset up for $57.00 bucks, which ain't bad for a multi-line, expandable setup. So far, no conflicts with our wireless networks. Our regular phone and Skype lines are both plugged in, and it can automatically answer an incoming call no matter which line its on. Dialing is a breeze. Dial the number and hit the appropriate line button (regular or Skype). The PhoneConnector is clearly the more user friendly option, just like using a regular phone; and its easier to install and get working correctly. But the Chat-Cord works too, its $10.00 cheaper, and its probably just fine for those of us without fear of computers :>).