VoIP Phone Review: Linksys SPA 2102

The linksys SPA 2102 is the cheap solution for any VoIP provider. This ATA (or analog telephone adapter) allows you to plug in any analog phone into the adapter and use it to place SIP calls. Most of the features can be provisioned from a web portal using a computer, or manually through the phone. It has 2 ATA phone ports, a WAN port, and a PC port.

The web portal is easy to navigate and use, and the phones themselves are easy to plug in.  The cable ports are color coded (stupid proof!) allowing you to make removal and re-installation easy for remote customers.

Linksys really holds the market on autoprovisionable phones.  Their website allows you to download a configuration utility that is easy to use, and encrypts the configuration files, so that they can only be opened by the phone with a targeted MAC address.  If that isn't enough, the phones provision string also allows you to enter variables like $A (which will be replaced by the GPP A field) or $MA (which will be replaced by the phones MAC address).

The security and ease of provisioning makes these phones an easily deploy-able and cheap VoIP solution.

The phone itself works well with most analog phones.  It has some basic CID hiding features, and options that can be changed with ease.  The call quality is good (not HD).

Cons: If this ATA is not placed behind a VoIP aware router one way audio issues are common.  The only method of QoS the ATAs can perform is bandwidth throttling (which can only be used if all internet traffic is plugged in behind the phone).  Unfortunately the ATAs permanently limit any givin connection to 10mbps.

Overall Rating

B-