A lot of the stuff described in this document requires a Gizmo5 account, which are difficult to come by. Registrations are closed and there's no invite system, so someone has to actually give you the credentials to an account they already have to transfer it to you.
I have SIP set up on my Nexus One, replacing the default GSM phone functions with SIP stuff over the data band. Here's what I use:
2. An account with sipgate: http://www.sipgate.com/ Free signup gets you a real phone number, same calling rates as Google Voice, decent web interface. It has some features that are more powerful than Google Voice, but no transcription.
3. An account with pbxes: http://pbxes.org/ (Warning, their landing page has Flash with very irritating sound, yuck) pbxes acts as a programmable in-between for SIP communications, like SIP Sorcery as described in the article posted here.
You connect sipdroid to pbxes, which connects to sipgate:
Your phone (sipdroid) <---> pbxes.org <---> sipgate
pbxes acts as a much more powerful wrapper around sipgate. Sipgate will connect your SIP calls in and out of landlines, and pbxes gives you more powerful control over the SIP-only stuff. Even if you don't want to use the power features of pbxes, I still recommend connecting sipdroid to it instead of directly to sipgate or another provider, as pbxes has implemented a little trick that can save you a ton of battery life on your Android phone when connecting to it with sipdroid. You can read about it here: http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
The hardest part of setting this up will be filling in the information for your sipgate account correctly through pbxes' web interface. It's a little clunky and unintuitive. There's a guide here: http://seethisnowreadthis.com/2009/07/11/get-sipdroid-to-wor...
End result of all of this: Google Voice-priced calls, higher quality audio than GSM phones, same latency, same drop call rate, still have E911 service through normal GSM bands if you need it, programmable caller id, scriptable phone routing, near-perfect phone integration on Android. Ditch your voice plan.
I've heard a lot of complaints that call quality with VoIP on Nexus One is awful -- tons of latency, lots of clipping -- it sounds like this isn't your experience?
I've seriously considered trying out a data-only plan with T-Mobile, plus one of the pay as you go plans to fill in coverage gaps, but the bad reports of VoIP on the Nexus One have held me back.
I haven't had any problems. Keep in mind I haven't tried any of the other VoIP clients for Android -- Skype, Nimbuzz, etc. Only sipdroid. But I've used it over plain EDGE/GPRS on my Android dev phone (G1) and had no quality issues to speak of, other than the occasional dropped call, which can happen on normal GSM anyway.
As far as I know, the 'official' Skype client for Android is still 'Skype Lite' or something, which costs you minutes on your cell phone plan to use, and might connect over GSM as well (I'm not sure). It wouldn't surprise me if this craptacular idea tarnishes people's perception of VoIP on Android.
Oh really ? Sipdroid does support G.711mu only, which a) never fits into narrow GPRS/EDGE bandwidth, b) incredibly sensitive to network fluctuations, lags and packet loss. So I believe you are a little bit unfair in regards of Sipdroid voice qality :-). Even Speex and G.729 hardly fit into poor GPRS/EDGE, trust me as experienced VoIP developer.
Also Sipdroid has a bug in RTP class which introduces huge latency, somehow they don't event want to fix it although they were pointed to it many times.
sipdroid only supports ulaw, which doesn't work too well. Although I like their interface better, it seems like they should support speex over ulaw. SipAgent supports speex and has generally better incoming call quality, but with a crappier interface. Also, instead of using sipgate, you can get a free number from ipkall as well. I hooked up the ipkall number to google voice so that I can send/receive calls from the same android device.
Talkonaut for Android does support Speex (also many other codecs including G.729 through GTalk2VoIP gateway), it is not as complex in setup as Sipdroid. And you are right, it's easier to obtain free ipkall DID then point it to any SIP URI you like. Wonder how soon Google bans ipkall for breaking their business model :-).
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 29.2 ms ] threadI have SIP set up on my Nexus One, replacing the default GSM phone functions with SIP stuff over the data band. Here's what I use:
1. The Android SIP client, sipdroid. http://sipdroid.org/
2. An account with sipgate: http://www.sipgate.com/ Free signup gets you a real phone number, same calling rates as Google Voice, decent web interface. It has some features that are more powerful than Google Voice, but no transcription.
3. An account with pbxes: http://pbxes.org/ (Warning, their landing page has Flash with very irritating sound, yuck) pbxes acts as a programmable in-between for SIP communications, like SIP Sorcery as described in the article posted here.
You connect sipdroid to pbxes, which connects to sipgate:
Your phone (sipdroid) <---> pbxes.org <---> sipgate
pbxes acts as a much more powerful wrapper around sipgate. Sipgate will connect your SIP calls in and out of landlines, and pbxes gives you more powerful control over the SIP-only stuff. Even if you don't want to use the power features of pbxes, I still recommend connecting sipdroid to it instead of directly to sipgate or another provider, as pbxes has implemented a little trick that can save you a ton of battery life on your Android phone when connecting to it with sipdroid. You can read about it here: http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
The hardest part of setting this up will be filling in the information for your sipgate account correctly through pbxes' web interface. It's a little clunky and unintuitive. There's a guide here: http://seethisnowreadthis.com/2009/07/11/get-sipdroid-to-wor...
End result of all of this: Google Voice-priced calls, higher quality audio than GSM phones, same latency, same drop call rate, still have E911 service through normal GSM bands if you need it, programmable caller id, scriptable phone routing, near-perfect phone integration on Android. Ditch your voice plan.
I've seriously considered trying out a data-only plan with T-Mobile, plus one of the pay as you go plans to fill in coverage gaps, but the bad reports of VoIP on the Nexus One have held me back.
As far as I know, the 'official' Skype client for Android is still 'Skype Lite' or something, which costs you minutes on your cell phone plan to use, and might connect over GSM as well (I'm not sure). It wouldn't surprise me if this craptacular idea tarnishes people's perception of VoIP on Android.
Also Sipdroid has a bug in RTP class which introduces huge latency, somehow they don't event want to fix it although they were pointed to it many times.