Slashdot Mirror
Finally: PC-to-Phone Calling from Linux
Greg Herlein writes "There is finally a way to do direct PC to Phone calling from linux: GnomeMeeting
now supports decent quality, low-cost VoIP calls to any real phone in the world. It's about time." The calls are through a company called MicroTelco; read this FAQ page to learn more about it. (And don't forget TheKompany's approach to IP-telephony-with-Linux, using a Sharp Zaurus plus Net2Phone.)
And it supported strong encryption on the phone calls, too...
Admittedly somewhat less user friendly, but it's been around for years.
GnomeMeeting has potential, too.
Linux Journal had an article covering this in its Jan. edition.
What tools can i use to do pc-pc calls over linux?
GnomeMeeting itself... it supports the H.323 standard, which for example NetMeeting supports aswell.
This means that you can do PC-PC as in GnomeMeeting-GnomeMeeting, GnomeMeeting-NetMeeting, GnomeMeeting-AnyH.323CompliantSoftware. In theory at least...
The PC-Phone thing is an additional service.
.: Max Romantschuk
I attended a demo/conference about this this weekend and there was WiFi access in the room. I connected to the same (external, public ils.seconix.com) server as the presenter's and we were visible to see each other's presence/config, while he was chatting with another GnomeMeeting user using video (both of them on Mandrake Linux). I was using Netmeeting under Windows 2000 pro.
It's my understanding that GnomeMeeting is originally for PC to PC text/audio/video conferencing, compatible with H.323 clients (like Windows Netmeeting ), but has been extended for PC to phone calls. GnomeMeeting however didn't seem to have the following features Netmeeting has:
I also like all the configuration options, though somewhat too advanced for beginners.
Cheers,
F.
Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
And if your ISP's terms of service do not prohibit voice over IP...
For those living in Brazil (and other countries, maybe?): most DSL providers (the one which offers the DSL link, not the ISPs who authenticate you and offer e-mail, DNS servers, etc) won't allow you to use voice over IP. Reasons seem to be:
In my experience, net2phone is as good as some international phone calls I have made with a regular phone anyway. You *must* have good ping times to the phone provider's gateway though, otherwise it sucks. Also, a decent modem or broadband is needed. Software modems (winmodems) give crappy quality.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
I have been rated down a lot now, and I am no longer sure who acually did read on their web-page. Quote:
The libraries and applications should also compile on Windows 95/98, BeOS (thanks Yuri!), Linux PPC, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86 (thanks Roger!) and Solaris Sparc & x86.
It should mean that it available for many other systems than just Linux, I would claim my first comment to still be 100% true.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
A major - and often overlooked - factor is the quality of the microphone used. The build-in mics of webcams or the mic of cheapskate headsets are really too lousy to make for decent sound quality, as they introduce so much distortion and noise that the codec is ill-equipped to handle.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Unfortunately, most of it is commercial ... although the SME server software is open source and available from the E-Smith developer site. Still, their voip stuff looks standards-based, so hopefully it interoperates with other stuff.
From the article:
5.2. Why do I currently have to buy a Quicknet card if I want to do PC-To-Phone calls?
All providers need the G.723.1 audio codec to be able to do PC-To-Phone calls. That codec is patented and can't be added directly into the GnomeMeeting code. However, buying a Quicknet card offers you other features that will also be useful if you are not doing PC-To-Phone calls.
(Emphasis mine).
Hm, only one vendor is listed on the Gnome meeting website -- their cheapest card is US$109.
On a Windows PC, you don't need a card - the soundcard and CPU are sufficient for PC-to-Phone.
I guess Microsoft pays the codec royalties -- and a copy of Windows XP Home off pricewatch.com is US$90.
*Grin* I think only hardcore Linux users will followup on this article.
I wonder if it's possible to convince the telcom company they're using as their gateway ("MicroTelco") to accepts voice calls using a free codec (the new Ogg Vorbis voice codec comes to mind).
H.323 is more complicated than other protocols because it uses two tcp connections and several UDP sessions from a single "call".Only one of the tcp connections goes to a well known port; all the other ports are negotiated and thus temporary. Furthermore the content of the streams is far more difficult for firewall to understand than existing protocols, becuase h.323 encodes packets using Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1)
#3 pencils and quadrille pads.
I have worked for Net2Phone for years. I can tell you that if enough requests came in, they would gladly make a Linux client. It is a simple cost/benefit equation.
A lot of our hardware runs embedded Linux.
PC-to-Phone calls are still not ready on Linux, and they cost money to do. According to the GnomeMeeting FAQ: Step 3: Register a MicroTelco account on http://www.linuxjack.com.
However, when you go to linuxjack.com, it says that they will be adding accounts for MicroTelco on their site SOON (marketing word for "whenever"), and you can't just use a regular MicroTelco account like you would on Windows.
This is only really good news if you'd use voip-voip, or if all this proprietary technology actually works.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14