Yes, you can! Our SmartVox platform works from just about anywhere where you can plug your phone into power and plug it into network. Note that some phone models (namely the Cisco SPA525G2 and some Grandstream models) have wifi capabilities, but most of the phones we use do not. So you will need to have wired network capabilities.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Original power cord that came with your phone
  • A network cable long enough to reach from the phone to your network router or switch
  • An available network jack on your router or switch
  • The phone itself

Make sure you’re plugging your phone into a network jack that is capable of reaching the internet. See this document to help identify which jack to use. Also, make sure that the router that is on that network is providing IP addresses to devices that are plugged in. For most home networks and many small business networks, this is the cable modem or wifi router that is the heart of your home network. For larger businesses, there may be other devices that provide this (through what is called a “DHCP server”). In either case, it is beyond the scope of any assistance that SmartVox can provide.

Once you are plugged into power and have network connectivity, the phone may reboot once or twice because it sees a new network. This is normal. When it’s done, it should be exactly like it was at the original location, including all menus, voicemail, access codes, call routing, extra features – everything!

The only thing that may be different is call quality. Home networks (especially) are typically not tuned for voice communications and also have extensive streaming, downloading, and other large network activity that competes with bandwidth for voice traffic. This may cause your calls to stutter, echo, or drop pieces of the conversation. Unfortunately, there is nothing SmartVox can do about this because we cannot control your home network. However, some routers have the ability to prioritize some traffic over others, which may help alleviate some of these problems. As this is specific to the router model and version, this is also something that is beyond the scope of any assistance that SmartVox can provide.

Hopefully, you won’t have any problems, and things should “just work.” If they do not, and you simply cannot get the phone to connect, then please contact us and we’ll try to help out as best we can.