David's World

November 25, 2007

Phone mom from the laptop - free SIP phones on the Gizmo network

For over two years I've been using my laptop as my long-distance phone. I've been calling people around the world, to be precise, mostly my mom and dad. I used Skype initially, then the slightly-cheaper Gizmo, and now I've graduated to general SIP soft-phones.

The last step has been necessary because Gizmo stopped working from home - it can't get through the chain of wireless routers and ADSL modems that we're using, despite various firewall-tweaking attempts. The symptom: I can't hear the people I'm calling, but they can hear me.

However, I managed to get a free Voice-over-IP SIPphone software called XMeeting to work nicely with Sipphone.com, the same guys that make Gizmo Project. Gizmo (and Sipphone) allow you to call normal phones as well at low rates, so if you've topped up your Gizmo account, you can use any SIP Phone. XMeeting, other than Gizmo, is free as in beer and free as in freedom - it is developed by volunteers. And for me, it actually works better than Gizmo. Ekiga is an alternative for Windows and GNU/Linux users.

Here's how to configure XMeeting. First, you need your account number at Sipphone.com. You can find out by logging in to my.sipphone.com or by looking at your profile page in Gizmo ("SIP number"):

Under "Locations", I have set the STUN server to stun.sipgate.net, which has worked well for me (alternatively, stun01.sipphone.com works, too). Note that this STUN server thingy helps the server to talk to you. Depending on your network, you might be able to get better voice quality without this. I set the Network -> UDP Port Range to 5004-5005, but I reckon that doesn't matter much given that I've got a NAT and Leopard's firewall in between.

I have enabled ISP, "use this proxy": proxy01.sipphone.com, with the 1747... user ID and the password):

Calling out then works if you enter your number like this: +4479103.....@proxy01.sipphone.com (for a UK based mobile phone).

This will work with other SIP phones as well, also on Windows and even on PDAs (and mobile phones). Don't forget that Sipphone.com will charge you for connection attempts as well - so take care when messing around.