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.)

Comments

Magazine article too

[syphoon]

Linux Journal had an article covering this in its Jan. edition.

Re:pc to pc

[MagicFab]

Well...

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:

• remote whiteboard
• remote desktop control

I also like all the configuration options, though somewhat too advanced for beginners.

Cheers,

F.

Remember to check if it's legal.

[WanderingGhost]

... your relatives and friends live in a country with decent network infrastructure.

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:

• They can't guarantee all the bandwidth they have announced. (Read your contract: how much of the bandwidth do they guarante? 10% in case of Telefonica's "home" service). Ther are some other technical reasons too (like, having ADSL or DSL makes a considerable difference);
• Most companies offering DSL are also telcos... And voice over IP would certainly cut their revenue.

Re:Serious Poll Question...

[fruey]

I make calls all the time. If you live in a place where international calls cost too much, then a quality sacrifice is fine.

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.

Re:Linux is still just a kernel.

[termos]

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.

Re:SpeakFreely's been around for years.

[JimDabell]

Speak Freely is a program for communicating between two computers. See the FAQ.

GNOMEMeeting lets you phone normal telephones.

Re:Serious Poll Question...

[JanneM]

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.

Mitel Networks doing some cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Mitel Networks is doing some cool stuff with VoIP and Linux. They're not very good at marketing it, but still, check it out. Especially the tie-ins with their SME Server product (Linux-based small office server - see E-Smith's old site.

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.

Card v/s software-only

[sonamchauhan]

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).

Re:You have to buy a card though

[Anonymous Coward]

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.