Telstra T-Voice 503

Good phone but can be unreliable – I have owned the Telstra 503 for about 4 years. Recently the internal speaker failed and I could only use it with the external speaker. Telstra have been hopeless in their assistance after I bought a new Telstra Handset (202) which was absolutely useless as the external ringtone didn’t work so I didn’t know when it was ringing or not. Still no success with Telstra so I’ve given up having a home phone and just use my mobile.

Useless phone – Worst phone ever for a NBN specific phone. Constantly searching for the router. Unable to make or receive calls. Turn router off and on, reconnect and a day later it's searching again. Do not purchase this product!!!

A product that should not be on the market – I should have been cautious about a Telstra rebranded product. But for $48 I added it to the new Telstra Smart Modem Gen.2 NBN plan buying them outright. Other than a very basic quick start guide it appears there is no manual with a 'troubleshooting section for this phone, maybe it would not need one if it did work as advertised... This phone does not have any cables to connect to anything, it is a pure digital DECT phone pairing with the Modem which becomes it's base station.

After charging the phone 'Registered' fine with the Telstra Smart Modem so I started navigating through the menus, add contacts, personalising it, rang a few people to get some idea about the voice quality especially it's speaker.

The phone is sluggish to respond as every command seems to bounce to and back from somewhere in 'ether space', but still fine for infrequent use.

The audio quality is only acceptable with a lot of digital artifacts noises, friends reported my voice sounding very 'tinny/metallic' not affecting intelligibility, so I was happy with that.

And that's how far I got using this phone because within 48 hours it kept losing the Modem connection displaying 'Searching" which never ends and drains the battery within an hour. Recharging is also slow.

The only command working while in 'Search' mode was 'Register', pressing the key forces teh phone to Register but after a few minutes gives up because there is no Modem it can find and it reverts to the never ending 'Searching'. ET would have been very frustrated unable to call home...

Unable to find troubleshooting guides for this phone and dreaded calling the Telstra 'apologies' department I did what I do with iPhone apps that stop working: delete & reinstall.

I removed the phone batteries for a few minutes while accessing the Telstra Smart Modem via web browser, there I could see the phone (handset) still registered, so I unregistered and tried to Re-register the phone, it did not work until I switched the Modem off & on again, waiting a few minutes for the Modem to boot up. Then I was able to register the phone again and it worked. But within 48 hours I had to do this 4 times, every time I reached to used the phone it was uselessly disconnected from the Modem/base.

How can Telstra sell such a product at any price?

How would 'normal' people with no in depth computer skills or patience for ultra unreliable products handle such things?

So within 48 hours of purchase I made 5-6 calls, spent about 2 hours messing with it then threw it in the rubbish bin.

Avoid this product!

Disappointing performance and sound – This NBN Gateway T503 handset is slow to use and has poor voice quality. We upgraded our handset in Mar 2018 and based our choice that the previous Telstra PSTN DECT's like T7400 and older Telstra's phone quality has normally been exceptional. This T503 model communicates with the NBN Modem. Trying to use the phone book, search missed calls and other features takes 3-4 seconds to get information. GRR!! The T503 Speaker phone is distorted and sounds horrible too. Now using handsfree is avoided.

It is not "High Definition Calling" as it is claimed.

The old analog DECT from Telstra was crisp and fast to use with its base unit plugged into the NBN modem. It may have faded buttons but we' rather use that with our NBN.

Don't waste your money, get an analog DECT that plugs into the phone port!!