Panaikulam

Imagine you have a cordless phone in your home and it rings. You pick up the phone. Wow! what a surprise? The person on the other end is your family member from other end of globe. You both talk for hours together. No cost. No bill. All completely free!!! Very hard to imagine right?

Explanation of typical VOIP set up

But it is true and it is completely possible. Let me explain how I am using this service and saving money in a brief manner before we go into detailed steps. For a good introduction about VOIP and the technology, please see the wikipedia article about VOIP and mobile voip.

• Connect a router in between your modem and PC and configure it to autoconnect to internet without the need of PC.
• Connect a VOIP adapter to router and configure it to autoconnect to the free VOIP service.
• Connect a cordless telephone to the VOIP adapter.

The investment for hardware is around Rs 5000. Once you buy all the things and set up everything perfectly, it works great. And all the calls are free afterwards.

Let me explain things in a detailed step-by-step manner.

1. First, you need to have a broadband internet connection. The other party also should have broadband connection. Broadband means anything above 100kbps up/down should work fine. Here again kbps means kilobits per second not kilobytes per second. 1 byte = 8 bits; 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes. So usually, a 512kbps connection should theoretically give a download speed around 62.5kB (kilobytes). I think broadband is available at Panaikulam. But I am not sure about the speed.
2. Then, let us analyze the broadband connection types. Mostly it would be either DSL/ADSL or Cable modem type. In these two types, there will be a modem which is connected to PC/laptop via USB or ethernet cable.
3. We need a router here. I bought linksys WRH54G (wireless router for home network) in Chennai for around Rs. 2000. We are going to place the router in between your modem and PC. There will be a ethernet cable coming out from your modem. Connect this ethernet cable to the router. From router, there will be few more ethernet slots for output. So, connect your PC to one of the slots through an ethernet cable. For detailed instructions and user guide on WRH54G, please visit the linksys website.
4. We also need a VOIP adapter here. I bought one from linksys (linksys PAP2) for Rs. 2700 online from ebay. Here, you must check that this VOIP adapter is unlocked. Usually it is sold in US for Vonage company VOIP subscriptions. So, it comes as a locked one for Vonage. In India, the unlocked versions are available so that we can configure this adapter with any VOIP service provider. So, from the few ethernet output ports available in the router, connect one to the VOIP adapter.
5. The VOIP adapter (linksys PAP2) has two output telephone sockets. To one of the sockets (usually line 1), connect your cordless phone. Now, the hardware connections are over. Next, we need to configure the router and VOIP adapter.
6. Start your PC and power on router and VOIP adapter. Make sure that your PC is connected to the router via ethernet cable. Open internet explorer. In the address bar type this IP address (this is supposed to be the IP address of router), 192.168.1.1
7. You will get the configuration screen. Here you need to configure the internet connection. Enter your user name, password, type of connection etc. For detailed instructions, please refer the user guide for linksys WRH54G.
8. Usually the ADSL and cable modem connections will be of PPPoE type. So, select that option and enter the required credentials. Also, select the connections to be always on. This is to ensure that the internet connection will be on as soon as you switch on the router and modem. The router will dial the connection by supplying the user id and password. You don’t have to do anything once you configured this. You don’t need PC also to dial your net connection. Save the settings and close the browser.
9. Then, open the browser again and type the following IP address. 192.168.1.100 (supposed to be the IP address of the linksys PAP2 VOIP adapter. Please, remember that these IP addresses will change sometimes. If the required configuration screen is not coming, then go to network connections. You will find the router icon there. Click on that and you will find the devices/computers attached to it along with their IP addresses. Find the one for VOIP adapter.
10. Now, probably your PC must be connecting to net. So go to www.callcentric.com and register for a free account. They will give you  IP freedom plan for free. Note down the number they give you and follow the instructions in their website to configure the linksys PAP2 VOIP adapter.
11. If eveything goes well, you will get dialtone in your cordless phone.
12. Ask your relative or set up the same connection at other end including a free callcentric account in other person’s name.
13. So, now two phones at two ends connected via braodband internet. Dial the other person’s callcentric no from your phone. The phone will ring and once the other person picks up the phone, you can talk, talk and talk forever. All calls are free between these two phones.

I am using this technology and the call quality is really good. I have installed the hardware setup at Chennai only and from Malaysia I am using the x-lite softphone from PC to call India. It works great. Please refer for detailed instructions about configuration of x-lite to use with callcentric.

Apart from callcentric, there are lot of free VOIP services available. There is one called as Indivoip claiming to provide good call quality for India and Gulf countries. I have not tried this yet. There is also interoperability with many of the VOIP providers since they all use same technology (SIP). That means, you can call from callcentric account to a gizmo account. For detailed instructions on this please see sipbroker.

For those, who blinked several times during reading these instructions, don’t lose hope. There is still a way for you people. There are few VOIP providers who sell their VOIP adapters preconfigured to work with their VOIP service. They sell only the adapters. As usual, all calls are free between the two phones. They are ipvaani and phonegnome.