Unlimited Free Calling with Google Voice 1. Unlimited Free Calling with Google Voice ............................................ 0 1. Introduction ................................................................................... 1 2. Free Calling from a Landline ............................................................. 1 3. Free Calling from a Cellphone (using the Voice plan) ........................... 2 4. Free Calling with Voice Over IP (VOIP) - Introduction........................... 6 5. The Gizmo5 Project - Background ..................................................... 6 6. Google Voice Integration with Gizmo5 ............................................... 7 7. Gizmo5 Integration with SIP Sorcery ................................................. 7 8. SIP Sorcery Integration with sipgate ................................................. 8 9. SIP Sorcery Scripting ...................................................................... 9 10. Unified Dial Plan ........................................................................... 9 11. Customizing the SIP Sorcery Unified Dialplan ...................................15 12. Connecting other SIP Clients and Devices........................................16 13. Configuring and Testing your SIP Calling Chain ................................21 14. Additional setup screenshots .........................................................28 15. Revision History...........................................................................29 1. Introduction Google Voice is a free service offered by Google and is designed to help you manage your phone calls. When used for its original intended purpose, Google Voice can add unlimited calling to and from US phone numbers to any landline. With a little more effort, that benefit can be extended to cellphones with "calling circles", or plans that allow a certain number of non-free phone numbers to be converted into free calls. With even more effort and a suitable phone, the feature can be further extended to not only maintain free calling even after a carrier decides those calls should no longer be free, but to also maintain free calling while roaming outside of the United States. Finally, with the greatest amount of effort, one or two lines with unlimited calling 24x7 can be added to any home or business. 2. Free Calling from a Landline Google Voice offers two ways to enable 24x7 free inbound and outbound calling for landline phones based in the US. First is a method that works the same way no matter what kind of phone you end up using to make a call. From the main Google Voice web page (http://voice.google.com) you are able to enter phone numbers or choose contacts from your Google Voice contact list. With the phone number entered or selected, click the Call button or link. When viewed on a full PC browser, you will be asked which phone you would like Google Voice to ring. When viewed on a mobile phone browser, Google Voice will dial the phone number currently selected in the "My Mobile Number:" line on the Settings page. No matter which version of the website you use, ensure that your landline is selected as the phone you want to use for the call. Start the call and the selected phone will start ringing. As you don't get the option to choose which phone to ring when using the mobile browser, you must ensure you have the correct phone line selected prior to initiating the call. Once Google Voice calls you, answer the phone. You will immediately hear the ringing sound of an outbound call. This is Google Voice connecting you for free to the number you entered or selected on the website. As landlines don't typically incur any charges to receive calls (except "collect calls" where the recipient is asked to pay), there are no special steps to take to receive calls for free. If you are home quite frequently, don't have unlimited long distance calling on your house line, have access to the web on your cellphone, but don't have a lot of cellular minutes to spare, this is a great way to make unlimited free long distance calls from your home, without giving out your home phone number. Just pull out you cellphone, bring up the Google Voice page, make sure your house phone is selected as your Mobile phone number, and enter or select from the directory the phone number you would like to call. This method works regardless of whether or not your Google Voice number is a local call to your house number since all calls will be inbound to your landline. The second method is entirely different, and is most beneficial if the Google Voice number you selected at signup is a local to you and you don't have long distance service. It is also much simpler to use. Just pick up your phone and dial the Google Voice number you selected. From the main menu, press the number 2 and you will be asked to dial the number you wish to reach. Google Voice then connects you, for free, to the number you dialed, so long as the number is in the US. If your landline already has unlimited long distance or the numbers you call are within your local or regional flat rate calling area, the main benefit of using Google Voice is to mask your home phone. The people and businesses you call will see your Google Voice number on their caller id, and will only need to know one phone number to reach you. 3. Free Calling from a Cellphone (using the Voice plan) Central to Google Voice is the ability to manage your phone calls and SMS text messages. Just as when using your landline, Google Voice can also help you mask your personal cellphone number to other parties,showing them just one phone number for reaching you. With a little planning (and a little cooperation from cellphone companies), Google Voice can help you turn your cellphone into a flat-rate, unlimited use phone line. There are generally two ways this can be achieved. Cellphone usage is priced differently in the US from almost every other country. In general, US cellphone users are charged minutes for both incoming and outgoing calls. The same is true for text messages, although unlimited text messaging plans have been available across all of the major carriers for many years. To help retain and build their customer bases over the years, cellphone companies began by offering unlimited calling to other cellphones operating on the same network. Even that wasn't even enough eventually, and companies began allowing customers to select a handful of out-of-network phone numbers and designate them as effectively being "in network". The out-of-network numbers don't have to be other cellphones or landlines -- users can generally pick any set of numbers they like, and they will never be charged for the minutes used during calls to or from the numbers on the list. As described above, there are two ways in which calls involving the Google Voice Number selected by a Google Voice user can be used to branch out to free calls to any other phone number in the US free of charge. First, the user can access the Google Voice website and enter or select a number they want to call. Google Voice will then call the user at the phone number where the user indicated they can be reached, showing a caller id of the user's own Google Voice number. When the user answers the incoming call they will be connected to the phone number entered or selected at the Google Voice website, free of charge. Alternatively, if the user does not want to use the Google Voice website or does not have a smartphone capable of browsing the web, the user may still dial their own Google Voice number. Google Voice will recognize the call as coming from a phone that is managed by the user, and will offer to play any waiting voicemail or connect them to another number. The user may press 2 and then enter another phone number to which they will be connected free of charge. It may become a hassle for users to dial phone numbers by hand every time they want to make a phone call. Since their introduction, cellphones have always had the ability to have keystroke sequences programmed into telephone numbers stored for address book entries. Two important programming codes available for numbers are the "pause" and the "wait". When a pause is inserted into a phone number, the cellphone will dial the portion of the phone number leading up to the pause. Then for each pause inserted into the stored number, the phone will wait 2 seconds before continuing on to dial the remaining numbers. When a wait is inserted into a code, the phone will again call the phone number stored ahead of the wait code, but instead of waiting a certain amount of time prior to dialing the remaining numbers, the phone will wait for the user to press a key to signify to the phone that is okay to proceed in dialing the remaining numbers. iPhone users who want to simplify dialing but weren't able to grab the official Google Voice dialer have another option. There is a free app called Prefix Dialer. The app can be configured to automatically prepend a dialing sequence in front of the numbers to be dialed when calling an entry in the phone's address book. Once the app is installed, go into the settings, and enter this special sequence: Enter your Google Voice phone number, the letter "p", your pin, another letter "p", the number 2, another "p", and optionally the number 1 (the final "1" seems to speed up dialing a bit, but is not required). For example, if your GV number is 555-666-7777, and your pin is 9999 then you would enter "5556667777p9999p2p1". Then, whenever you want to place a call go into Prefix Dialer & tap "select number". The app then shows you your normal iPhone contact list. Select a contact and dial like you normally would. When the call is placed the app will dial your prefix first, then the number you selected, thus routing the call through your Google Voice account.