Free? Unlimited? Phone? Calls?
What’s this you say?
Yes, Free!
Free as in "beer" not as in "speech". And by that I mean no money out of pocket 100% no cost at all, Free.
Unlimited?
Well, almost. There is a transfer limit of how much data you can transfer. Whoa! “Hold on” you say, you said phone calls, what this about "data"? Calm down, I'll get to it.
And phone calls?
Yes "Phone". Lets just say yes but its only for incoming calls. You get a phone number that can receive calls but if you want to keep it 100% free you want be able make any calls out.
So basically, it works out like this; you get a free phone number that people can call you on. You can talk for up to 5000 minutes per month and you can make calls to Toll-Free numbers.
If you still want to know more, keep reading.
Things you will need to have:
1. High Speed Internet.
This one is non-negotiable. Since this "hack" basically uses VoIP for calls, it is essential that you have high speed Internet.
2. A Computer.
This is also pretty essential. Although you don’t "need" to have one, it sure is hard to do the setup online without one. You "could" use your smart phone to access the websites needed, but honestly it would be like pounding yourself on the head with a 10-pound sledge hammer to comb your hair just because you didn't want to spend the money for a comb. Do yourself a favor and just have a computer.
3. An IP Phone
There are a few options you have for this. You can buy a dedicated IP phone that plugs into your Ethernet, you can buy an adapter for you regular hoe phone, you can use software and a headset on your computer, or you can use an app if you have an iPhone or an android. Choice is yours. Personally I prefer the analog adapter. The one I like is the Linksys PAP2. Its about 20 bucks on ebay and allows you have two lines. Not two phones, two LINES. Which in the IP phone world means EXTENTIONS. Anyway, pick your poison and get one. For now, you can use XLITE which is a free software for your Winbloze or Mac.
4. An IQ of over 50.
You must be 10% smarter than a jar of mayonnaise to be able to comprehend most of the topics, Like “Internet” and “VoIP”
Lets get started.
So the way this works is that you sign up for a free GoogleVoice account. Then you sign up for a free SIP termination account. Next you sign up for a free SIP transfer account. Lastly, you sign up for a free account with PBXes.org which is a free hosted phone system.
Confused yet? I will explain.
GoogleVoice is free, they are giving out free phone numbers for you to use. What can you do with a stock GoogleVoice number? Lots. This is an excerpt from the googlevoice site:
Google Voice enhances the existing capabilities of your phone, regardless of which phone or carrier you have - for free. It also gives you:
One Number
Use a single number that rings you anywhere.
Online voicemail
Get transcribed messages delivered to your inbox.
Cheap calls
Free calls & text messages to the U.S. & Canada.
Super low rates everywhere else.
After you get your free GoogleVoice number, you will need to forward it to your cell phone for now. We will change that later. The GoogleVoice number is going to be your main number for receiving calls and for voicemail. As cool as GoogleVoice is, it still isn’t a phone. We need a way to pick up acall if someone calls us without having to use our cell phone minutes. We also want to have a completely indepentet phone from our cellphone. So now we go get our free phone number that is NOT our cell phone number. IPKall is a service that will give you a valid phone number for receiving phonecalls and sending those calls to a VoIP service of your choice. Since we don’t have a VoIP service and we don’t want to pay for one, we will make our own. We sign up for another free account from SIPSorcery.com. This company provides a way to take the SIP calls from IPKall and send them to a phone system capable of handling calls. Since we don’t have a phone system and we don’t want to pay for one, (you can see where this is going), we head over to PBXes.org and sing up for their free hosted phone system service.
So now that you are even more confused than before, read on and follow the steps.
Step 1 – GoogleVoice
Sign up for GoogleVoice. Head over to https://www.google.com/voice and sign up for a new account. If you already have a google or gmail account, DON’T USE IT, sign up for a new account. I used something like jasongvaccount@gmail. You want to use a new account because if you do use gmail, it will interfere with your calls when you check your mail.
Pick a phone number you like and log in when its all setup. You will need to add your cell number for setup but we will be changing that once we get to step 2. Once you have everything working in GooleVoice, test it by calling your googlevoice number form another phone. You cellphone should ring. GoogleVoice is pretty damn cool in its own right but it requires another phone to use the features. We will be eliminating the need for a paid phone.
Log into your GoogleVoice account and go to settings. Click on Calls and make sure you turn off call screening, turn on caller ID, and leave the rest on defaults.
Step 2 – SipSorcery
Go to https://www.sipsorcery.com/mainsite/Home/Pricing and sign up for a free account. Go ahead and use your googlevoice email for the sip sorcery account. It just makes it easier to keep track. Once you sign up you will get the sip server details you will need for the next step.
Step 3 – IPKall
Go to http://phone.ipkall.com/ fill out the info for a free number. Here’s a tip, the 425 area code gets you a number the fastest. Fill out the information and use the SIP server information you got from Sip Sorcery.
Make sure you use the same email address again. Its just easier to keep track. Once you get your number , you should be all set for the last step.
Step 4 – PBXes.org
Go to https://www2.pbxes.com/config.php. Guess what you do. That’s right, sign up for a free account. Once you have your account, login and follow the steps to configure.
First thing you need to do is add an extension so you can test it. Click on extensions and click add. Click SIP. Pick an extention number like 1000, and type in a password. Click submit and then click the red apply bar at the top.
Before you can configure your new phone system, you need a phone. I know what your thinking, “I have a phone!” No you don’t. Well maybe you do, but it most likely wont work. You need an IP phone.
See item you require number 3 above. I suggest testing it out with XLITE.
Open Xlite and go to preferences. Add an account.
UserID will be your account name – your extension. S if your account name is: mypbx and your extension is 1000, your userid will be: mpbx-1000.
Type in the password. Type in the same userID in the Authorization name.
Click OK.
Now make a test call. Dial *98. That’s voicemail. If everything worked, you should now hear that you have no voicemail.
Great. Your phone server is working.
If you try to make an outgoing call now, you want be connected, but that’s fine. We need to configure our phone server to accept the calls.
In PBXes, click on trunks.
Click Add Trunk, Add SIP trunk.
Name the trunk SipSorcery.
Username: your sipsourcery username
Password: your sipsorcery password
Register: YES – Incoming and outgoing.
Click submit, then click the red apply bar at the top.
Log back into your googlevoice account and click on your number to go to settings. Click on phones. Click add another phone and add your IPKall number. You will need to verify it.
If all goes well, Google voice will try to call your IPKall number which will be routed to your SipSorcery account wich then passes it to your phone server which then passes it to your XLITE software phone. In a matter of 10ms, your computer is ringing asking you to verify your new number with googlevoice.
Now, you can call your googlevoice number and it will ring into your software phone.
Free incoming calls!
The only thing you need to do now to make this more practical, is to get a telephone adapter like the Linksys PAP2 so you can use your real phone.
You can add up to 10 extensions to this setup.
You can also install an APP on your iphone or android that will allow you to receive calls over wifi wherever you are.
If you miss a call, it will be sent to your googlevice account and the voicemail will be emailed to you and also transcribed into text.
