VoIP Services and Softphones

Looking at my monthly phone bill I decided to start testing VoIP options on the internet. I already had a good USB Headset from Plantronics so I just needed an account and the softphone software to begin. After researching some options documented on a Lifehacker.com article:
http://lifehacker.com/5848002/five-best-ways-to-use-a-regular-phone-for-internet-calls

I decided to choose a service which didn't require a hardware device (ATA or Gateway)...where I could leverage my headset to confirm the voice quality and DTMF capabilities. Reading the comments on the Lifehacker article I found a decent service calls voip.ms

Registration was easy and only took a minute or two...I then downloaded a softphone application for my Ubuntu Linux system...Ekiga was my choice.

Here is a screenshot of the Ekiga softphone app:







Configuration was pretty easy....here are the steps:

• Start the Ekiga Softphone

• Go to Menu Edit and select Accounts option.

• Now go to Menu Accounts and select Add a SIP Account

• Fill in the information according to your account
  • Name: John Smith (Your Name)
  • Registrar: atlanta.voip.ms (One of our multiple servers)
  • User: 100000: (Your VoIP.ms Account)
  • Authentication User: 100000 (Your VoIP.ms Account)
  • Password: ********** (Account Password)

• Click on OK Button

• Now Click on Close Button

• You are now ready to start making calls

I was pretty impressed with the call quality and clean DTMF while testing with the following digit patterns:
97 Voicemail
**275 SIP Broker Peering (e.g: **275*011188888)
4443: Echo Test
4747: DTMF Test
1-555-555-0911: Test CallerID and e911 Test