Vinay - A VoIP blogger located in Singapore provided this "Ultimate" solution. All credit goes to him.
It has been a quiet 15 days at VOIP Guide. No great VOIP solutions to make free calls lately. Well the wait is over, Its time to welcome perhaps the best voip solution to make free calls. I will be splitting this solution into multiple posts to accommodate exact information related to multiple countries.
I would like to thanks Erion (Canada) for sharing this workaround and his constant followup with me for this great voip solution. I give him full credit for the solution.
Based on my testing(i could be wrong), This workaround will only work for
US/Canada, Portugal, Argentina, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.
Also includes:
Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Seoul, South Korea; Taipei, Taiwan; Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Puebla, Mexico; Warsaw, Poland.
Mobile numbers are excluded except in US(excludes Alaska and Hawaii), Canada, and Singapore.
I couldn't test India or Pakistan numbers but I suggest you guys can test and let everyone know the results. The setup is the same so it shouldn't be difficult for anyone to test it based on the following guide.
Please read the following guide very carefully and do not miss any step or settings:
Register your CellPhone/HomePhone with PhoneGnome
PhoneGnome will ask you to verify your number by calling back on the registered number, so don't forget to that. Follow instructions on screen.
When logged into their website (PhoneGnome) go under the features tab and activate Remote Access. Edit the settings to Ring SoftGnome with Home Phone:Active by ticking the box. Now save.
On the same screen, Click View Sip Settings to see Sip Username, Password, and Sip proxy. Store it somewhere or keep this window open.
Now go to VoXalot
Get an account with a six digit number you like.
Log into your VoXalot account, add PhoneGnome (using Sip Settings- PhoneGnome SIP username/password and proxy you got in step 4) as a provider, but set both Active and Register to No.
Set your codecs as follows ulaw;alaw;g726;g729;ilbc;gsm, Save.
Under Member Details on VoXalot, set Voicemail to No and leave the rest of the settings as is. Save the settings.
Now on Voxalot under Forwarding set to forward all calls to your Cell Number (Number you registered with PhoneGnome without country code e.g 9810222121) and select provider as PhoneGnome. Save.
Now people can call you using any of these local Access Numbers
Now once you are connected, call Access Number then enter your extension (*010+ your 6 digit VoXalot username), wait for about 30 secs and it will connect.
Now those who don't have local access numbers, you can use icall or any other software allowing free USA calls to dial access numbers in USA and then dial phonegnome extension.
I highly recommend everyone try this setup for their own country and let us know the result, so I will update the second part of this solution. More free calls workaround hacks are on the way, I should be able to post them after some initial testing.
Part2. Ultimate VoIP Solution For Free Calls
July 8, 2007 - http://voipguides.blogspot.com/2007/07/voip-solution-for-free-calls-part-2.html
VOIP Guide posted the ultimate voip solution Part 1 last week. We received a lot of feedback from readers. One of the important one was difficulty in setting up this free voip solution. Some reported they can't get this working. This second part should answer some of your questions/concerns and Part 2 is lot simpler to understand and setup.
This solution is designed by VOIP Guide's regular reader, Yogesh Chauhan (Germany) with some help from Gtalk2VOIP founder, Ruslan Zalata. I would like to thank both for providing this solution to us.
In the first part, we discussed about using PhoneGnome number with Voxalot. However, many people found this whole setup confusing, especially the voxalot part. In this solution, We are replacing voxalot with Gtalk2voip. Don't worry. This time It's really easy to setup and use.
The best part of using Gtalk2voip is we can use it from any IM (Yahoo messenger, Google Talk or MSN etc) unlike voxalot, which need gateway numbers to access or a SIP client. Gtalk2voip will act like a gateway for us.
1. Setup your account with PhoneGnome (For instruction read our Part 1 Guide for PhoneGnome Setup)
2. logon to your Google talk messenger (Download Google talk if you don't have it already). Add service@gtalk2 voip.com in your buddy list.
3. open the chat window with service@gtalk2voip.com (You can register with Gtalk2voip and ask for invitation) and type HELP in that chat window & it will give you the list of text command which u can use, and at the last of this list it will give u Your personal account page URL .
4. Go to your personal account page and click on Define your own SIP providers and click on Add to define your SIP provider.
5. Give your phonegnome information in this.
Username : (ur phonegnome username ex. soft12345678)
password : (ur phonegnome password)
Host: pgp01.televolution.net
Port : 5060
Techprefix : +
select Reg. to SIP and Enable option and save ur information.
6. Now click on "Define your dialing plan "
7. Click on add button and select your provider phonegnome as ur provider (it will be at top of the list ex.soft- 12345678@pgp01.televolution.net). leave rest of the options default and save the setting.
8.Now click on "Define your Follow-Me number or SIP URI" and in Follow-Me phone numer or SIP URI: type your complete phone no. with + & countrycode which u have given in phonegnome account. ( ex. +4921712345678 where +49 is countrycode for germany).
9.After some time in your SIP provider list, the status of your sip provider status should be Registered, if not so logoff from your gtalk, and login after few sec.
10.On right hand side, under the tab "Your Profile" change Your Codec to G.711-High Bitrate for better sound quality, after clicking the change button twice. above this u can see Your SIPBroker Id is *018XXXXX. This number in red is your SIP Phone no or SIPBroker id.
11. Now Add *018XXXXX@gtalk2voip.com in your gtalk messenger (where XXXXX is your 5 digit SIP No. or is Your SIPBroker ID provided by gtalk2voip.com).
12. To test if everything is working fine call *018XXXXX from any Sip phone or any SIP PSTN gateway phone.(where XXXXX is your 5 digit SIP No. or is Your SIPBroker ID provided by gtalk2voip.com).and you should receive this call 1st on your gtalk and if u do not pick this call for 20 sec this will be fwd to your phone. Remember that u can't call urself from gtalk2voip. so for testing u can ask one of ur friend to add *018XXXXX@gtalk2voip.com in their gtalk and call u for trial.
13. If everything works fine give *018XXXXX@gtalk2voip.com to your friends and after adding this in their Gtalk they can call u, if u r online on gtalk u will receive call on ur gtalk, and if u do not pick call for 20 sec call will be fwd to ur phone. If u r offline then u will get call directly on ur phone in few secs.
14. Making a Call with Google Talk is easy. Just open *018XXXXX@gtalk2voip.com IM window and click CALL.
Although the process involves 14 steps, I personally found it lot easier to setup The best part about the service is We don't need to dial any numbers etc. People from India can also use this service for FREE. Some softphones don't work in India or doesnt allow Indians to make calls to other countries. You can easily bypass this by using this ultimate voip solution.
Again, I am not confident if this will work to make calls to India since PhoneGnome doesnt provide service for India. Although, I would be happy if someone can try and let us know.