With recent discussions here over ATA's, I'm surprised at how many would go this route over just getting an IP Phone with multiple handsets.
As a former user of some rather expensive ATA's with eight channels and eight phone ports, I only use a single OBI ATA for faxing from my Color Laser MFP and have been with various IP DECT systems for years now. I do not miss the DTMF Talk Off for one which is a fiddle factor for many who tinker with ATA settings. It would be possible to hook an AT&T four line DECT phone to a four port ATA and have all four lines work from the same account depending on the equipment but this is still expensive and may not be as seamless as an IP DECT phone would be. Most people in households have a multi handset single line DECT phone attached to either an ATA or a landline or just a cellphone on their person and no home phone at all.
You really aren't taking full advantage of VOIP with an analog phone attached to an ATA, eg, the number of channels that can be used by a single account except for the AT&T four line example I gave earlier might come close. In a large household nobody would ever miss a phone call since when person A is on the phone and a call comes in, the other handsets ring and can be picked up by person B even if person C is also on a phone call with a third handset. If your account supports more than three channels, Person D could pick up a fourth handset and call the local Pizza Delivery service while A, B, and C, are on separate phone calls. This is with ONE phone number (DID) and ONE account. This would be impossible with a multi handset DECT cordless attached to a single ATA port. The cost of bandwidth for these four calls? Under 400kbs.
Google Voice is NOT an adequate reason to favor an ATA over an IP Phone either, both can be designed to handle it directly or use a Google Voice gateway as many of us do. Also, I would not bet the future on free Google Voice calls as we are at their mercy and Google changes their mind almost as often as a fickle woman.
Some of these IP Phone setups with multi-cell are capable of a few hundred handsets and well over one hundred simultaneous calls. I still do not know why I did not switch to an IP Phone sooner.
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