I’ve long been wanting to play with VOIP technologies more than I have now. There just seemed like so much promise and interesting things that could be done with it. Well, that’s certainly true. After all the advertising that ATT CallVantage did over the olympics, I decided it was time I look back and see how the various players in the market were doing. Price wise, I decided it was hard to beat Packet8, so I ordered their Freedom Unlimited plan for $20. I’m planning on ditching our normal POTS line which costs nearly the same amount for no long distance and no features whatsoever after we’ve tested the voip solution for a month or so. While it doesn’t look like E911 is up and running on our area at least, we can always switch back to the analog house line and use 911 on that in an emergency. I’m pretty sure you can use 911 even if the line doesn’t have an account on it, right?
For the rest of the Chewy Goodness that will truly live up to the “Gratuitous Tech” title, read on.
I was relatively impressed that most of the voip vendors are using hardware boxes that convert an analog phone into a voip phone. It makes sense in that it’s probably cheaper to produce and makes people more comfortable with the new technology in that it’s still using their same phone. Regardless, the DTA-310 is a fairly simple devices that appears to do the job quite well. It was shipped to me with the newest firmware on it (DTA version 1.0 US (8×8 001239)) and the only problem I’ve had with it was with my parent’s older dlink (DI-614+ revA) router. A quick firmware upgrade resolved the problem (namely, the router reset it self every 10-30 seconds or so). My guess is that that is a side effect of the DTA’s attempts to do NAT traversal (anybody who can find me the redacted part of that document–see the last page–gets extra special bonus points).
As for fun hacking and tricks with the packet8 service, here’s what I’ve done so far. First, I figured I’d investigate the device itself. There is a password protected page called “Advanced Configuration” under system. It’s apparently tied to a unique identifier for the device, so there’s no default simple password. The device itself doesn’t advertise via an http Server field what type of embedded device it is. If I have more time I’ll look through the flash image for more than just the text strings (which are interesting enough to begin with).
The device also has port 47055 open, but nmap with version detection can’t figure out anything interesting about it, so there’s some potential for investigation there too.
Once I was done assuring myself there was nothing boneheaded about the security of the device, I decided to get about to actually using it.
Phone calls on it sound great, and while it’s not quite as clear as a regular telephone, it’s close enough that it’s hard to tell the difference most of the time. The account I have comes with unlimited long distance and local, call-waiting, caller id, call-waiting caller id, three way calling, voicemail, and probably a lot more stuff I haven’t even discovered yet.
When reading some other interviews and online resources, I found out a few interesting things. First, there’s a way to use a softphone with packet8 to make calls from any internet enabled computer. Of course, that method probably violates the Terms of Service (look at #7), but then I found another way to do it in an interview with Bryan Martin, the CEO and Charmain. He mentioned that he uses the call forwarding feature with FWD.
A brief explanation; Free World Dialup is a free online directory that allows its users to connect a variety of open sip software and hardware to their directory, and even has peering with a variety of others systems. If anyone wants to try it (though I’m not always online), my FWD number is 487427. The FWD client is free and pretty nifty.
The coolest part, however, is that I can set my Packet8 phone number (352-505-4472 currently; I’ll be using LNP to transfer my current number sometime in the next month) to forward to any phone number in the world. Then I can dial my packet8 number from within FWD, and the call gets forwarded. All for free. Of course, I have to login to a website and change the forwarding number, but a cross-platform script using curl (already on most linux distros, in linux, make sure to get an SSL compatible version, and then download the SSL dlls and drop them in the same directory you put curl.exe — on the curl download page the SSL dlls are below the rest of the downloads).
So now I’ve got a little icon I can click on my desktop which opens up a popup asking for a phone number (simple WSH file) that calls the batch file that does all the curl action. My phone number is automatically forwarded, my FWD client is opened and run to call my home number, and 10 seconds later the script goes back and resets my forwarding to nothing.
So… long story short, I can use my laptop anywhere I have internet access to make a long-distance call anywhere in the nation. For free (well, considering I ws going to do the $20/month for my home line anyway). There is the minor inconvienance that I have to set my number to forward for a short period of time, but the script takes care of that fairly handily.
I’ve been using Vonage for almost a year now. Most of the problems I’ve had can be traced back to the Netgear WGR614v3 I’m currently using — router resets and other goofiness that as you mentioned are best solved with firmware upgrades. Virtual phone numbers (in the US and Canada) and unlimited long distance to Canada have saved me (and K’s parents) oodles of money. Granted, your wife is not Canadian, but expect to see Vonage expand to the UK and beyond in the near future.
Left by Greg on September 13th, 2004
I ditched my home phone line a while ago. I discovered I only made 5-10 calls on it a month, and the price was ridiculous for that kind of service. I use my mobile phone most of the time anyway. When I called to cancel, the phone company tried to dissuade me based on the 911 argument, but I dismissed it. I have only ever called 911 once in my life, and it was from a mobile phone after I witnessed an automobile accident. If I’m too incapacitated to tell the 911 operator my address, I’m probably screwed anyway.
Left by Matt on September 14th, 2004
E911 service is still available on your copper telephone line even if you have no account with the telephone company. You can also use any cell phone, whether it is activated or not, to call 911 in an emergency. There is a program with most wireless stores to donate your old cell phone, which is then deactivated and provided to causes such as battered women shelters for uses in emergencies.
Left by Kevin Morris on December 12th, 2004