Linux Dojo

You may already know that for some time now Google has been offering free local phone numbers and unlimited free calling within the continental United States through their "Google Voice" service.

What you may not know is that by leveraging Google Voice and some other free services, with a little bit of thrifty ninja kungfu you can be making and receiving totally free phone calls from an ordinary telephone, without Ma Bell! Heck! You can even get Grandma doing it, and she'll hardly know the difference!

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Google Voice allows you to forward your free phone number provided by Google to any other phone number  you like by just going through a simple verification process to prove you actually "own" that phone number.  For example, you can have Google Voice forward to both your cell phone and your mobile phone, by just adding each one to the Google Voice forwarding set up - it will call you at each number and have you input a simple numeric code to prove you "own" each of the two numbers.  In addition, if you like, you can even use Google Voice for free text messaging and Google Voice can become your voicemail service and will alert you with an email and/or txt message about missed calls and voicemails.

Once this set up is done, receving calls with Google Voice is both free and simple - your friends just dial your Google Voice number and, hiya!, your mobile phone and home phone both ring until you pick one up, or the call goes to voicemail.

However, to make outgoing calls with Google Voice is not as simple.  Yes, it can be done, but 1) it requires you to sit down at the computer and log in to Google Voice (or use a web browser plugin) to dial the phone number you'd like to call, and, 2) even worse, it requires you use an already existing phone service, which means you're still stuck paying for phone service even though, technically, Google Voice calls are free.  Is it possible, Sensei wondered, to overcome these annoyances and get truly free phone calls in both directions without cumbersome dialing methods?

Some months ago, Sensei learned the kungfu to get around problem #2 using an internet service called the Session Initiation Protocol ("SIP").  SIP is actually the original service Skype is based on, and is the backbone of most Voice Over IP ("VOIP") techonology.  Using a free SIP account, readily available from many different providers, and linking it with a second phone number, which is also available for free from a handful of phone number (ie. "DID") providers, it is possible to create a "free phone" from which to make and receive calls with Google Voice.  This "phone" could be a software program very much like Skype called a "SIP client", or it could be an ordinary household telephone plugged in to a cheap, small, adaptor that plugs in to your computer network (more on that later).

This was great for Sensei!  Free incoming calls using a real phone or a program on Sensei's computer just like Skype!  All Sensei's friends had to do was dial a normal phone number - Sensei's Google Voice number - just like they would call any body else and, HIYA!, we were chattin' it up (and Sensei didn't shell out a cent to Ma Bell or to Skype)!

And yeah, Sensei had free outgoing calls too, BUT, Sensei had to actually come over to the computer and log in to Google Voice to dial the call.  Hey, you know Sensei, that was okay with me, but Mrs. Sensei and the little padawan learners... not so much.

Sensei is glad to report that today he can now officially go off the Ma Bell grid - we here at The Dojo now have the kungfu to make free, unlimited, incoming and outgoing calls using a Skype-like "phone", or even our regular ol' ordinary phone we've had plugged in to the dojo wall for years!

Here's how.

Sensei is going to assume that you're pretty smart, thrifty ninja, but maybe new to the world of Voice Over Internet Protocol ("VOIP") and Session Initiation Protocol ("SIP", that Skype-like service mentioned before).  So, let's start from scratch.

1) First, you are going to need a SIP account.  Lucky for us we can get a free one from SIP Sorcery at http://www.sipsorcery.com/.  This is going to make things really simple, since we're going to need SIP Sorcery later on to provide that magic kungfu to allow us to dial out to our friends without logging in to Google Voice.  So, go on over to SIP Sorcery and sign up for a free service level account, and get it activated.

2) Second, you are going to need a phone number to link to that shiney new SIP account from SIP Sorcery.  Now, Sensei has been using SIPGate (http://www.sipgate.com/) for awhile know and really loves it, but at this moment (ie. August of 2011) they are not giving out new free phone numbers - maybe by the time you are reading this they will be again, so check there first.  If SIPGate is not available to you, just get a free phone number from IPKall (http://www.ipkall.com/).  IPKall will give you a free phone number in one of several Washington state area codes (Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, etc.).  Don't worry if none of those are local for you - you aren't going to really be using it except to glue some stuff together behind the scenes.  Just keep in mind that if you do utilize a phone number from IPKall, you have to receive a 30 seecond call on it at least every 30 days to keep it active! If you do not, IPKall will assume you are not using the number and give it away to somebody else.  This will not be an issue with a SIPGate phone number, which is just one reason Sensei prefers using them if possible.

2a) If using SIPGate, sign up for a free account and get your SIPGate phone number.  Once it's activated, go login to SIPGate and go to "Settings".  Using the "+VOIP Phone" button, add a VOIP phone extension.  This will essentially give you a dedicated SIP account just for that extension at your SIPGate phone number; SIPGate will let you use up to 2 extensions with their free service.  Make a note of the SIP user id and password for this extension - you can get them any time by hovering your mouse over the extension's icon and clicking "SIP Credentials".

Now go to your SIP Sorcery account and go to "SIP Providers".   Add a new SIP Provider and input the following information:
Provider Name: sipgate
Username: <Your SIPGate VOIP extension SIP ID>
Password: < Your SIPGate VOIP extension SIP password>
Server: sipgate.com
Register: Check the box

Click on "Add" and you are done; skip down to step 3) below!

2b) If using IPKall you will input and save the following information in your IPKall account:
Account Type: SIP
SIP Phone Number: <Your SIP Sorcery Username>
SIP Proxy: sipsorcery.com
Email Address: <Your email address>
Password: <Your preferred IPKall account password>

3) Now you're going to need to install a SIP phone program (that Skype-like software Sensei's been talkin' about) on your computer.  A couple Sensei has used successfully are Jitsi and Blink.  Both run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Jitsi is capable of using your webcam to make video calls to other SIP users, much like Skype, while Blink is voice only.  There are lots of other SIP client software programs to choose from, so feel free to use whatever you like.  Once you've selected one, put in your SIP Sorcery username and password and get it connected.  (Incidentally, your "SIP address" looks exactly like an email address; it is "<username>@sipsorcery.com" - other SIP users can call you directly using this address.)

4) Hey ninjas!  You should be able to call yourself from another phone now!  Whip out your mobile and dial your Sipgate or IPKall phone number and it should ring on your computer in Jitsi, or Blink, or whatever SIP client program you set up!  If it didn't work, something went wrong above - go back and retry steps 1) - 3) until calling your number rings on your computer.

5) Now you are going to need that Google Voice number.  Head on over to Google Voice (http://voice.google.com/) and sign up for your account.  Because later on we're going to share our Google Voice password with a third party (ie. SIP Sorcery) and store it in their database, security-conscious ninjas should consider setting up a dedicated Google Account just for Google Voice and forwarding all it's email messages to their main email address.

Get a new phone number from Google Voice in your own local area code and city.

When you get to that stage of the Google Voice sign up, add your new SIP phone number (that SIPGate or IPKall number you just got!) as a phone in Google Voice and verify it (if not taken there as part of the sign up process, go to "Voice Settings -> Phones").  Google Voice will call you on your SIP phone number: when it rings on your computer, you need to answer it and, using the SIP client program, input the numeric code indicated by Google Voice.

For IPKall users, there is an important note here.  Since lots of people use IPKall numbers with Google Voice, and they IPKall numbers are turned over and reused so often, sometimes Google Voice will complain about your IPKall number being rejected because others are already using it.  If Google Voice will let you, use the verification routine to verify you are truly the current owner of your IPKall number; if it won't, simply go to IPKall, log in to your account, and use the "Cancel Account" link.  After, sign up for a fresh phone number with IPKall and try this one with Google Voice.  Repeat until verification with Google Voice works.

Once you've got your SIP phone number added to Google Voice, go to "Voice Settings -> Calls"  in Google Voice and turn off "Call Screening".

Alright, we're almost there thrifty ninjas!  At this point, you should be able to call your Google Voice number and it should ring in your SIP client program on your computer.  You should be able to answer the call and talk to the calling party/phone.  Test it out!

You can also use Google Voice in your web browser to call someone else for free!  After you tell Google Voice the phone number you want to call and select your SIP phone number as the phone you'd like to use to make the call, Google Voice will call you on your computer SIP phone.  After you answer, it will connect the call to the phone number you wanted to dial out to.  Voila!

But what we want is to be able to dial directly from our SIP client phone, right thrifty ninjas?!  Well here's where the secret-sauce kungfu comes in!

6)  Now, get back in to your SIP Sorcery account.  SIP Sorcery allows us to create our own msytical "Dial Plan".  Using the dial plan, we can "fake" Google Voice into calling out for us elegantly right from our SIP phone software dial pad!  Hiya!!  Click on "Dial Plans" and edit the "default" plan.  In the big input field called "Dial Plan Script", delete whatever is already there and replace it with the following:

sys.GoogleVoiceCall("googlevoicename@gmail.com","googlevoicepassword","sipphonenumber","#{req.URI.User}",".*", 1)

Replace the three italicized items with your corresponding information appropriately: your Google Voice account username (in email address format), your Google Voice account password, and your new SIP phone number provided by either SIPGate or IPKall.

Click update.

You can now dial your friend's phone number directly from your SIP phone software using it's 11 digit format!!  So, if your friend lives in San Francisco's 415 area code and her phone number is 555-1234, you can dial "1-415-555-1234" and SIP Sorcery will magically utilize Google Voice to call your friend absolutely free!  (Note that you must use 1-<area code>-<ph. number> format even if calling a number in your own area code.)

I know what you're thinking.... You're thinking, Hey Sensei!  You said we could use a regular ol' phone just like we've been using at home with Ma Bell for years!

Yeah, I did.  And, yeah, you can, my little padawan!  All you have to do is get yourself a SIP hardware device to replace the SIP client software program and plug your phone into it!  Sensei uses the Linksys / Cisco PAP2T-NA himself and has had good success with it.  These babies are available from the big online retailers for under $50.  Sensei will cover details about setting up the PAP2T in an upcoming article, but I think you ninjas are probably smart enough to get started with it on your own: once you've got it connected to your network, simply set it up with your SIP Sorcery account credentials, and you are in business, my thrifty ninjas!  A totally free phone for both incoming and outgoing calls!

By the way, the deliciousness does not stop there, my thrifty ninjas - you must think big!  Search your Android or iPad/iPod Touch app market for a SIP client app, and the Google Voice app, and hiya!, you have free phone call and txt messaging service wherever you've got wifi!  No Verizon?  No problem!  HHHIIIYYYAAA!  Can you hear me now?