HN Explorer

Ask HN: Voice over IP solutions?

25 points by darklajid ↗ HN
I know a lot of you are traveling more than me, and this topic came up a couple of times in connection with Skype. I'm looking for advice for a voip solution that allows me to call landlines (Europe, mostly) with affordable rates. I'd prefer going with an open solution (i.e. using open protocols if possible).

Bonus points:

- Android client - Video support (yeah.. I guess no luck here)

GTalk doesn't seem to be available. Google Voice of course isn't either (Yay for fragmentation). I'm stuck with Skype for now, but I've to count to ten every time I start it, because it cannot be forced to stop pushing bullsh*t into my face. It wants me to buy a subscription for a phone number usually, today it told me 'The wait is over - You can now make video calls with Skype on your Android phone.'.

Guess what, Skype? No, I cannot. My phone is more powerful than most handsets you DO support, but - still. That's a lie [1].

Please, got about 1 EUR left on Skype, top out is disabled, after that I want to move. HN, save me from this crapware, once and for all.

1: http://ben.sh/SkypeYouSuck.png

26 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 28.7 ms ] thread
georgieporgie
I've used a Sipgate.com account + CSipSimple on the Android, and it's okay. I've only used it over Wifi + Comcast, and it's acceptable but not great.
tshtf
I use the native SIP functionality in Android 2.3, and it works well. Sipdroid is available in the market if you're looking for a solution for earlier Android phones.

There are literally hundreds of providers to choose from. callwithus.com seems to have really good termination rates (http://www.callwithus.com/showrates) and I use them for calling mobiles in Europe. They don't support inbound calls, but there are other providers for that.

You can get free SIP clients for any other platform: Mac, Linux, or Windows.

pagekalisedown
Yup, you'd be a fool to use anything but SIP nowadays. I personally use voip.ms (I don't work for them I'm just a satisfied customer).
darklajid
Whoa. Callwithus seems to help a LOT here. Still, like ~all~ answers, we're talking audio only, but yeah, this would help me a lot.

Thanks!

simonb
Have you tried vox.io [http://www.vox.io]?
darklajid
No.. and going to their website tells me that

- I need an invite

- They are doing.. "stuff".

I've no idea what they are offering from the first couple minutes on the website. Can you recommend them? Why?

jan_g
Service is not open for the public yet, but will be soon. However, there are many invites available on twitter and elsewhere.

Here's one: http://www.vox.io/r/KZZwni

You'll get 0.5€ of free credit which should be enough to test the service and see if you like it or not. Note that you need a real (existing) number for validation purposes (you'll receive an SMS with validation code), unless account is validated, calling isn't possible.

Apart from regular calls there are also other features like syncing with google contacts, anonymous calling (service generates a link and you can email it to someone and they can call you without registration), CLI.

darklajid
Thanks a lot. Used that link, signed up. Got 0.5 EUR (which is a lot, with these rates. Nice!) and tried a first call.

Call was excellent on my side, very bad on the other side. "GTalk's better", "Lots of noise" and it got dropped after roughly 1:30 with both parties not hearing anything. I hang up after 20 more seconds and verified the results via GTalk with the other side.

First impression: Generous credit on sign up, slick and cool interface, but - yeah - first call was a miss so far. :( In other words: I'd love to love it. Will try again later/tomorrow.

jan_g
Did you try calling the test bot? It's just an echo service that we've provided with which user can test if the connectivity is ok between his machine and vox.io server (and if mic settings are ok). Also, you can try to call yourself (I mean your mobile/fixed number), just to check the quality of audio. We try to route the calls through high quality gateways but sometimes a call is still not good.
darklajid
Ah, so you're affiliated? :)

No, first thing I tried was a 'real world test', calling a German mobile number from here (Tel Aviv, Israel).

jan_g
Yes, I am. I thought it was obvious enough without a disclaimer ;). I don't know who simonb is, though, and I wasn't planning to even answer your question since you want video calls and we only have video for vox.io to vox.io calls. There's no support for 3g video calls.
sorbus
A bit of googling turns up Truphone - it has fairly cheap calling to landlines and mobile phones (says that it starts at 2.1c/min), and free calling to other people using their app. No video chat, though it does have an Android client (in fact, it has clients for every major platform, both mobile and not, so that's a huge plus).

http://www.truphone.com/en-US/Products/Tru-App/

Then there's another thing called Fring, which seems to be mostly a group chatting application but allows you to call normal phones too. Has video chat, which seems to be the main thing they're promoting, and an Android client.

http://www.fring.com/what-is-fring

I can't recommend either of them - as I said, I just used google to find them - but they seem like they might work for you.

gst
I use CSipSimple on Android with VoipBuster as SIP provider for outgoing calls - this works really well.

However, you should be aware that unlike with Skype the SIP packets between your phone and your provider aren't encrypted. So if you use this on a public WiFi, everyone with sufficient skills would be able to listen to your call.

patrickod
I would recommend going the SIP route by setting up an Asterisk box somewhere and buying a DID and upstream capacity and then using it with whatever clients you want. Asterisk can be run on a whole load of hardware and I know of a few people who run it on their home routers (beefy enough as these routers are, they're far from industrial standard) and so far I have yet to hear any complaints from them.

I've been using the Android native SIP client with an asterisk box and it works really well. Be aware though that it doesn't allow you to make calls over cell data, but rather limits you to making/receiving calls on Wifi only.

In terms of upstream providers the only one I know of in Europe is Blueface[2] as a few of my friends at home in Ireland use them in their homes

[2] - http://www.blueface.ie/residential.aspx

viraptor
There are loads of local providers available, so I'd recommend just looking for one located in a country you're in the most. Or even open a couple of accounts and make sure they all redirect to a single one for incoming calls.

They offer various levels of quality, so be sure to try it a couple of times first... Majority of the providers seem to be only resellers - many of them not understanding the technology behind it, so if you care about good support, check if you're looking at a reseller or an actual provider.

If you want to call internationally a lot using local providers, you are very likely to run into issues with quality, callerid presentation, availability. Solving those is quite tricky and it's sometimes easier to get another account in the country you're calling to, rather than fighting the issue with your current company.

(sorry for not giving any specific examples, but in my experience there's no optimal global solution - spend some time trying to find out what works for you)

darklajid
Ah yeah - I like the idea. But that's not gonna work. Just moved to a country where I don't know the language, don't know the alphabet and - frankly - no one likes to talk in english unless pressed, although the locals say otherwise. So - I need another solution.
fez
I set up an Elastix PBX with a VoicePulse.com SIP trunk. Elastix is Asterisk and free. The GUI looks pretty good and I was able to get everything set up in a couple of hours. I have never set up a PBX in my life.
darklajid
Thanks, the Asterisk suggestion comes up a lot. I had a server like that in the past (more as a PBX and directly attached to the phone network, not using voip). Maybe that makes sense again.

VoicePulse.com is - inappropriate. They seem to be highly US centric (according to their plans and site) and I want to call from the Near East to Europe, mostly. So - not for me I guess.

wavesound
I had an elastix box for a while and after watching a few vulnerabilities go unpatched and getting hacked twice I gave up on Elastix... http://www.elastix.org/en/component/kunena/116-security/6078.... Switched to PBX in a Flash and while its more secure, the user interface is clunky and requires you to use a number of custom closed-source scripts to keep everything up to date...
DeanCollinsLCC
asterisk on your home server with a SIP client on your android/laptop etc
darklajid
This on its own won't help me. I need to call land lines and mobiles. If this would be just about a very restricted set of people I probably could direct them to use some technology. But - it's not. I need to call people that are 'offline'.
petedoyle
I think SIP is definitely the way to go. A while back I was looking for a provider in the EU and found voxbeam.com. Their servers are in Amsterdam and have good connectivity. Traceroute to sip.voxbeam.com to get an idea of the latency you'll see. They also do point-to-point audio so if they hand your call to another provider's server, they get out of the media stream (reduces latency).

One potential issue with SIP is that you might have issues behind some firewalls. Not sure how big a deal that is in practice while traveling (I think its probably fine). If not it might be useful to use Asterisk+IAX. I'm not sure what Android clients exist for IAX.

I ended up building an Asterisk box on EC2 EU-WEST-1 (Ireland), which, at ~20ms from sip.voxbeam.com, doesn't add a ton of latency. It works fine on a Micro instance, which is free for a year if you don't already have an AWS account.

mike-cardwell
Check out localphone.com. You can point a VOIP client at their service, but you don't have to. You can also just phone whatever their local number is in each country and bounce through that. So you end up paying for a local call in the country you're in, and a local call in the country you're phoning.
seanmccann
Can anybody recommend a look VOIP desk phone under $100?
yannovitch
http://progx.ch/home-voip-prixbetamax-3-3-1.html

will give you a comparative of a lot of VoIP provider, which usually can provide you a DID.

For the video side, what I'm doing with more or less luck is to use the Jingle protocol, used by Google Talk, on Asterisk. This one is doing a gateway. So depending on what is available on each side, the video functionalities are rather video SIP to video SIP, video SIP to Jingle or Jingle to Jingle.

I'll post soon an article on my blog to explain how to do so.

Yann