Tiptel Cyberbox 100

What it is: The Tiptel cyberbox 100 is an easy to use switchbox that sits between your (DECT / 900 Mhz) home telephone, your plain old telephone system (POTS) and your broadband-connected PC or Laptop (sorry, no Mac for now.)

The Tiptel Cyberbox 100 allows you to call anyone on the internet for free using Skype VOIP software and make long-distance calls using your (wireless) home phone at rock-bottom Skype-out rates. If you use a cordless phone in combination with the Cyberbox you are not chained to your PC when making a telephone call.

Setting-up is a snap. Connect your (wireless) home phone to the phone connector on your Tiptel Cyberbox 100. If you have a regular telephone-line you can connect that to the line connector on the Tiptel Cyberbox 100. Connect the supplied USB cable to your personal computer running Skype and Tiptel-Manager and that's it! The whole process takes minutes to complete.

The first time you run Skype after installing the Tiptel manager, Skype will ask you if it is ok to allow Tiptel manager access to Skype. Make sure you select always allow this program to access Skype and you should be all set. It is a real pleasure to call using the Cyberbox. The sound quality is very good and the unit includes an artificial dial-tone for Skype calls so internet calls are very natural and intuitive to make.

Overall we are more than pleased with this product except for the following minor issues:

• The unit does not work with multiple users on Windows XP! This is rather odd, considering Windows XP has been out for years. When two people are logged onto the system, the Tiptel cyberbox stops working altogether. Yes, you can still receive incoming land-line calls but the connection between the Skype and the Tiptel 100 is gone. This problem should be fixed in a future release of the Tiptel manager because it is very irritating and should be easy to fix.
  
• The unit does not handle caller-id for Skype calls so every Skype call starts with the Hello?? Who's there? This could be a limitation in the Skype API but considering the Siemens unit does this we more or less expected it in the cyberbox.
  

Conclusion: It is fascinating to see how fast the international telecom world is changing. Less than a year ago we got Skype and used it with some silly headset that made us look like some call-center operator. Then came the VOIP Voice USB phone that added the telephone-call experience to your Skype calls and now the TipTel Cyberbox 100 adds wireless to the VOIP party and blends in perfectly with your existing home phone setup. We can highly recommend this product for home and home-based business and although it has some minor issues we hope these are resolved in a future firmware update. At 49 Euro this beauty will have paid itself back within 2 months on long distance savings alone.