Not being charged for local and long distance calls is indeed a long sought freedom for me. We have been spoiled by so money FREE services being offered these days (skipping the argument about whether there is a huge indirect costs it comes with). We take free email service as our constitutional right, didn't we pay for every single postcard or envelop we posted letter or holiday cards to our loved ones. We still do ...but they are negligible compared to amount of emails that we exchange every single day. This actually gave me an idea that would save our post office from bankrupty.
How about commercializing the postage stamps by advertisers. How about a Coke or Pepsi stamp. Pampers stamp for new parents or kellogg stamps for family. Every 44 cents stamp will yield additional at least 10 cents from advertisers, I guess. Anyway, this blog is not about saving our beloved Post Office, but setting up a free local and long distance phone service.
I have been using Vonage for more than a year and have been pretty satisfied. It offers free unlimited international calling in addition to local and long distance phone calls in US for a reasonable 33 bucks a month(they advertise 24.99 but you really end up paying 33 bucks with all taxes and all). This is nothing compared to what I paid for my overseas calls back in 1998/1999 which was about $3.24 a minute.
Since, I was not utilizing my existing phone service to its fullest, I started looking for alternatives recently. Ooma was certainly an option which has an upfront $200 costs for its adapter. A lot of goodies come with it but I was really looking for something cheaper. While looking for cheap VOIP adapter, I came across the Google Voice blog which gave some neat idea about hacking some linksys voip adapter to use with free google voice service. I remember having signed up for GV when it was made public in July of 2009, I wanted to give it a try. Some more price comparison in ebay and amazon pointed me to a simple VOIP adapter by a less known company called Obihai. I was happy to find out that this adapter was made specially to be used with GV service. 134 5 star reviews on amazon, that's a great testimony for such a low profile, least advertised product. The maker of this product provides clear instruction on configuring GV with Obihai adapter.
Why did I need this adapter?
Well, I need something that I could plug my analog Panasonic phone, corded or cordless and use it like any landline phone. You could use Google voice to make calls from your computer, but that's not convenient and you have to keep the computer running 24x7. Obihai adapter allowed me to connect my existing analog cordless panasonic phone to it and that's it. Here is what you do to get it up and running when you get the adapter in mail:
How about commercializing the postage stamps by advertisers. How about a Coke or Pepsi stamp. Pampers stamp for new parents or kellogg stamps for family. Every 44 cents stamp will yield additional at least 10 cents from advertisers, I guess. Anyway, this blog is not about saving our beloved Post Office, but setting up a free local and long distance phone service.
I have been using Vonage for more than a year and have been pretty satisfied. It offers free unlimited international calling in addition to local and long distance phone calls in US for a reasonable 33 bucks a month(they advertise 24.99 but you really end up paying 33 bucks with all taxes and all). This is nothing compared to what I paid for my overseas calls back in 1998/1999 which was about $3.24 a minute.
Since, I was not utilizing my existing phone service to its fullest, I started looking for alternatives recently. Ooma was certainly an option which has an upfront $200 costs for its adapter. A lot of goodies come with it but I was really looking for something cheaper. While looking for cheap VOIP adapter, I came across the Google Voice blog which gave some neat idea about hacking some linksys voip adapter to use with free google voice service. I remember having signed up for GV when it was made public in July of 2009, I wanted to give it a try. Some more price comparison in ebay and amazon pointed me to a simple VOIP adapter by a less known company called Obihai. I was happy to find out that this adapter was made specially to be used with GV service. 134 5 star reviews on amazon, that's a great testimony for such a low profile, least advertised product. The maker of this product provides clear instruction on configuring GV with Obihai adapter.
Why did I need this adapter?
Well, I need something that I could plug my analog Panasonic phone, corded or cordless and use it like any landline phone. You could use Google voice to make calls from your computer, but that's not convenient and you have to keep the computer running 24x7. Obihai adapter allowed me to connect my existing analog cordless panasonic phone to it and that's it. Here is what you do to get it up and running when you get the adapter in mail:
- Make sure you have a Google voice phone number activated. You need to make at least one outgoing call from your computer using this number. That activates your GV.
- Connect your broadband or high speed DSL line and your phone to the Obihai adapter
- Go to www.obitalk.com and register
- Follow the prompt for enabling GV - enter your gmail credential
- Test both incoming and outgoing call
Comments/suggestions? share your experiences...have a great day !
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