This is my first attempt at a how to so please leave me comments and questions.
How to make calls for free* or cheap
(*free as in no added cost you already pay for Internet and have a PC, etc)
Use this how to at your own risk, don't blame me if your head explodes or your dog catches fire because you read or try this at home..
1A
Find free sip provider and sign-up for an account.
Callcentric
sip2sip
sipgate (free number, this is the simplist method)
voipuser
ekiga
or a really big list at voip-info.org look under peer2peer make sure it says 'Free' and 'Sip' in the description.
I've had good luck with Callcentric and sip2sip . Callcentric has lots of nice features. I've have no luck with ekiga. I'm messing with sipgate atm so far so good.
If you are using a sip provider that gave you a number you can skip this step
Free Washington State phone number from IPKall so people can call you from a PTSN(Public Telephone Switched Network)
or there might be a local sip broker # you/your people can call.
so that sets up the call in from a land line part at this point you cannot call out to a PTSN but people can call in. Now if you get/have google voice you could get a local number and add your Washington State number from IPKall (or from sipgate, etc) to your account. You must have a phone number (of some sort) to sign up for google voice. To make free calls from google voice just login and click the call button put in the number you want to reach, first it will ring your what ever number you used and then call that number.
1B
For unlimited incoming calls from the PTSN use callcentric Cheap DID and pay $4.50/month for a local Number plus per min rates. For the US to US calls you would have to use 782 min to spend $20(including the $4.50). That $4.50 is after 911 fee and taxes. This is great for people like me, for you people like my mother who can spend 3 hours a day on the phone you might want to get the Unlimited plan or check out some reviews on other VOIP companies in you hood. I'd stay away from 8x8 aka Packet8 and Vonage. I would also cross reference the company with this page to see if they play nice with sipbroker. This means anyone with access to a sip account(lots o free ones, see above) can call you directly from a soft phone or call via local sipbroker #.
On Callcentric they have "call treatments" at the moment I have it setup to go directly to voice mail during the hours I should be asleep. Or if you have an ex that wont leave you alone you can have it based on caller id have "Error message: Number disconnected". If its someone you do want to talk to you can have it forward it to your cell or direct work number. They have excellent customer service and a nice trouble ticket system. I don't think they have a number to call but the response time is pretty good.
2A
find a soft phone and buy a headset.
I recommend USB (I blow up my mic port all the time.) Should work in WindowsXP/Linux/Mac with out the need to install drivers.
I'm using Twinkle sip phone and have a Logitec notebook headset
I've used SJ Labs soft phone on my old windows PDA before(is ok) and have tried Articulation on my treo 755p it sucks Articulation not the treo... if you have an ipod touch you could try this, requires a $60 bit of hardware :(
or
2B
Buy ATA(analog telephony adapter) and hook it to a real phone. I own a Linksys PAP2T it works well. I have a DECT 6.0 wireless phone that I can add up to 6 handsets. It uses 1.9 GHz so to not interfere with Wifi or bluetooth.
If you have money to burn you can get a cordless sip phone like this.
You just plug it into your router and plug in your phone.
Remember the quality can be affected by your bandwidth and latency. If you have any p2p software running be sure to limit the Up and Down speed as well as number of connections allowed. Bit torrent is great for downloading large files like Linux Disros, OpenOffice, etc.. but it can suck up all your bandwidth.. G.711 aka ulaw is probably the codec you will be using, it uses about 85 kbps or 0.085 Mbps. Stop all you downloads/steaming media and check your speed here. You may want to check at different times of the day. For instance if you have cable Internet you may notice a big slow down around the time the kids are getting home from school..
To check latency open a command prompt or xterm and ping the sip server by issuing the command 'ping sip_server' the less time the better. For example callcentic has a specific ping server the output will look like this:
$ ping ping.callcentric.com
PING ping.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=1 ttl=245 time=100 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=2 ttl=245 time=97.3 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=3 ttl=245 time=98.8 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=4 ttl=245 time=99.4 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=5 ttl=245 time=98.2 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=6 ttl=245 time=100 ms
64 bytes from www.callcentric.com (204.11.192.10): icmp_seq=7 ttl=245 time=99.8 ms
^C
--- ping.callcentric.com ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 7 received, 0% packet loss, time 6008ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 97.307/99.235/100.916/1.134 ms
fyi. with linux you have to hit ctrl-c to stop pining.
or there is a site that will test your broadband for jitter and packet loss. You will most likely have a little jitter but if you have alot of jitter or any packet loss there may be a real problem. If you have cable the can test the connection from the modem and tell you if its on their side or yours. I was suffering from some major packet loss and it ended up being a faulty splitter on the out side of the house. Who ever hooked up the cable the first time didn't know that a indoor splitter uncovered on the outside of the house was a bad idea.
http://myvoipspeed.visualware.com/
**Disclaimers: Unless your paying for it you will not have E911 support so dialing 911 will not help you. Most people have cell phones if you are on food stamps or what have you you probably qualify for Safe Link. Fucking poor people get all the breaks(kidding!). I'm not sure I agree with this program but thats a different blog.. Also any cell phone that operates on a band that is still active can dial 911 weather you paid the bill or not. This toddlers family knows all about it..
If your a true geek and want to go further down the rabbit hole check out these sites:
http://nerdvittles.com/
http://trixbox.org/
http://www.voip-info.org/
