[LAU] VoIP advice?

[cdr]

On Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 05:57:14PM -0800, Ken Restivo wrote:
> I'm interested in using VoIP on Linux, instead of getting a landline phone or having to get slimed by dealing with the evil cellphone carriers and their lock-in contracts and shady "deals", etc.
> 
> What's best practices for VoIP on linux without any landline?
> 
> i.e.
> 
> 1) What services are cheapest and most open for connecting to the PSTN?

voxbone for incoming and teliax for outgoing work here. havent really bothered to look around in about 16 months, maybe the landscape has changed a bit..

> 2) What free/open clients are available that will work with them?

ekiga works here..

> 
> For example, do I need to run Asterisk or can I just use ophone and/or gnomemeeting or equivalent?

you can run ekiga and it will accept remote/incoming SIP calls and can register to your outgoing asterisk for making calls

for incoming you'll probably want a real asterisk, for recording messages, which means a static IP and run one yourself. or, if you go with something more consumer-oriented than voxbone, they'll run that asterisk for you.. which simplifies config in general since theres one asterisk for everything, and you dont have to config/run it.. (asterisk config is pretty wonked out, has its own scripting language etc)

> 
> Almost all my calls will be going to/from the PSTN, and I'll only be making/receiving them rarely.
> 
> -ken
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