I want to figure a simple way of being able to dial in on one work
> number and then dial out on another work line.
> The reason is that I want to be able to call international from my
> cell phone really cheaply or free. So I want to make a local call to
> my office and then reroute that call somehow through my VOIP phone to
> wherever I want to dial. This way I get the benifit of really cheap > rates.
> Thanks for any ideas.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The device you want is known as a
> 'call extender' or 'WATS extender'. The name comes mainly from many
> years ago when long distance calls were quite expensive but using the
> office 'WATS line' allowed a long distance call to be 'free'. Essenti-
> ally, call in on a local line, get hooked either to a PBX-type line
> from whence you would dial the WATS code (then out on WATS) or else
> just connect direct to the WATS line itself. A smart user would always
> have a passcode request in there somewhere, to avoid having the WATS
> (or other network services) abused. I got one of these devices once
> from Mike Sandman
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and after a bit of tweaking it
> worked reasonably well. You can adjust it via a capacitor on the top
> so it knows when to answer the incoming line and how long to hold the
> line open, and when to disconnect it. The prototype Mike let me use
> was easy enough to adjust the cap for pickup and disconnect and wait
> to restart. But the volume level was not very good, at least on my
> prototype (some manufacturer was trying to talk Mike into reselling
> these devices), and I do not think they ever got the volume level
> adjusted as desired. It would not make a lot of difference on good
> quality WATS lines or a decent PBX, etc. The transmission level would
> go down a little, but you could live with it. However, I was trying to
> use mine to connect landline, via a PBX to a VOIP line outbound, and
> this was _before_ (or maybe still?) VOIP was able to share bandwidth
> with computers, etc on internet and sound good quality. So I had two
> problems: VOIP outbound (with the older style Vonage TA's) sounded
> dreadful, IMO, and the 'call extender' didn't help it any.
> Commercial or industrial grade call extenders used to be quite
> expensive; you had to be able to amortize its cost versus your toll
> charges; now the cost for a unit is almost nothing; but then again,
> so are toll charges, even international ones. You might check with
> Mike Sandman (mailto: snipped-for-privacy@sandman.com) or check his web site
> httpw://sandman.com and find out if the transmission quality
> problems have been corrected, and does he still have those little
> units. (About the size of a package of cigarette, weight a couple
> ounces; just plug an incoming and and outgoing line into it.) PAT]
You might want to check out the DialMate CM1003 at
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They were flashing a price around $130 when I last looked.
You can read the user manual at
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for more information.