by pts@fazekas.hu at Mon Sep 5 10:22:51 MET DST 2005 pts' tutorial for initiating free phone calls using VoipBuster ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ VoipBuster provides an internet-based telephone (VoIP) service with quite low rates. Landline numbers of some target countries (including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States) are completely free to call. To see the exact rates (in Euro-cents per minute), see http://www.voipbuster.com/en/rates.html . This tutorial tells you how to set up your computer so you can use this service. Note: the call isn't free for Hungary anymore since 2005-07-09, but it's now 1.1 ct land line and 19.4 mobile. This is a lot cheaper than skype or e.g. Gizmo. But not free anymore. (Reported by Robert Laussegger.) Account setup requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Internet access (unrestricted by firewalls, any speed) -- web access -- Windows XP or Windows 2000 operating system (running inside vmware on a Linux host is OK -- I don't know if you need special configuration) -- a VISA (or VISA Electron) credit card or PayPal account with at least EUR 1 on it (EUR 1 will be used for paying) -- setup should work if you're behind a firewall which allows www access only, but I haven't tested it yet Usage requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you want to initiate a phone call, you need: -- Internet access (unrestricted by firewalls, about 19 kilobytes/sec free bandwith: 9.5 kilobytes/sec uplink and 9.5 kilobytes per sec downlink -- slow ADSL is OK, modem dial-up networking is too slow; the home page says minimum 8 kbytes/sec both uplink and downlink) -- Windows XP or Windows 2000 operating system with the VoipBuster application installed _or_ Linux operating system with Kiax installed -- a sound card with input and output capabilities; a the home page recommends a full-duplex sound card: if yours is produced after 1998, it is very probably full-duplex -- sound card driver properly installed (standard Windows sound card drivers and Linux ALSO sound card drivers are OK, Linux OSS sound card drivers are usually useless) -- microphone and earphones connected to the sound card (it is best to buy a combined microphone + earphones, also called multimedia earphones or headset -- so your hands are free when you're using them) -- knowing the phone number you want to call (including international prefix, area prefix and the number) -- 300 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM (pretty arbitrary, but these should be enough) -- if you are below a masquerading firewall, it should enable outbound UDP connections on UDP ports 5060, 11112, 10300 .. 10311 and 6901 .. 6920. If the fireall is iptables, you should allow UDP packages coming backwards if they are ESTABLISHED or RELATED. -- aumix installed under Linux -- alsa-tools, alsamixer etc. are _not_ required under Linux Limitations ~~~~~~~~~~~ -- You cannot receive calls with VoipBuster yet. Use the non-free SkypeIn service of Skype for that. -- You must call a landline or mobile phone number -- your peer cannot receive your call on the internet. Use Skype instead if you want to make fully internet-based phone calls. -- You cannot call any number in the world. See http://www.voipbuster.com/en/rates.html for a list of supported target countries. -- You cannot call special, high-rate numbers. -- You cannot call emergency numbers (such as ambulance, police or fire department). -- Calling mobile numbers is usually expensive: about EUR 0.2 per minute. -- If you call a non-free number, you are charged in the beginning of each minute. -- You must stop your downloads and other bandwith-hogging applications (or control them with traffic shapers such as tc under Linux) during your phone calls, because otherwise quality drops, and you won't be able to understand what the other party says. -- The quality of the call can be quite bad, depending on the network conditions. Sometimes it is much worse than normal phone (and you have to listen very carefully if you want to understand what the other party says), sometimes it is just OK. -- There is a two-way delay between 100 ms and 200 ms, which is perceptible, but not too bad -- so you have to wait a little time before the answer to your question arrives, and you have to remember that the other party doesn't hear your reaction immediately, but only after a 100 ms delay. -- The reception volume is usually low, even if you max out volumes on your sound card. -- You should not make your reception volume too high, because that would generate an each for the other party, which is very bad psychologically, and disturbs her thoughts while speaking. Try to keep your reception volume as low as possible, at the lowest level you understand what she says. -- The system aborts your call if you reach 60 minutes. It is not a big problem since you can initiate a new call immediately. -- You have to be extra careful not to call an expensive number -- because once you call it, it will subtracted from your prepaid balance. And thus, if your balance drops below EUR 1, you won't be able to make free calls more than 1 minute anymore. Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Fulfill the account setup requirements (see above). 2. On a Windows box, download and run the installer setupvoipbuster.exe from http://www.voipbuster.com/en/download.html . 3. Make sure you have a working e-mail address. If you don't want to expose your existing e-mail address, goto http://mail.yahoo.com/, and create a new, free e-mail address, e.g. foo@yahoo.com. 4. Start the VoipBuster application on the Windows box, register yourself as a new VoipBuster user, choose a username, a password, and give your e-mail address (probably the one you've just created in step 3). Make sure you specify the e-mail address correctly, because you won't be able to change it later. 5. If you are using Linux, install the program Kiax. The name of the executable is `kiax' -- it is a small Qt (not KDE) application for initiating VoIP phone calls using the IAX protocol. You can get kiax it from http://kiax.sourceforge.net/ if your distribution doesn't have it pre-packaged. There is no Debian package yet. On Gentoo, just run `emerge kiax' as root. 6. Linux only: make sure that you, as a regular user, have read-write access to /dev/mixer and /dev/dsp (or /dev/sound/mixer and /dev/sound/dsp). 7. Linux only: start Kiax, choose File / Settings from the menu, click ``New Account'', set Account Name: anything, e.g. ``VoipBuster'' (without the quotes) IAX Server: ``iax.voipbuster.com'' (without the quotes) Username: your VoipBuster username Password: your VoipBuster password CallerID Name: anything textual, e.g. your real name or nickname CallerID Number: any telephone number Preferred Codec: U-LAW (?? do others work?) Make account default: yes Do not register: no Click Save&Close. 8. The following steps are not required if you just want to try it and make free phone calls not longer than 1 minute. 9. Make sure that your VISA credit card or PayPal account has at least EUR 1 on it. 10. Wait until a confirmation e-mail arrives. If it doesn't arrive in 72 hours (yes, it might take that long!), go to http://www.voipbuster.com/ and complain at the feedback page. 11. Click on the link in the confirmation e-mail. It shouldn't display ``Failed''. 12. Go to http://www.voipbuster.com/en/buycredits.html , log in, and buy EUR 1 (or more) worth of prepaid credits. It won't work if you do this before doing step 9. Usage ~~~~~ 1. Fulfill the usage requirements (see above). 2. Linux only: make sure that you are not using the OSS sound card driver under Linux. You may run the following shell script (with modifications!) as rootto unload OSS and load ALSA: #! /bin/bash -- set -ex rmmod i810_audio || true # soundcard-dependent rmmod ac97_codec || true # soundcard-dependent modprobe snd-intel8x0 # soundcard-dependent modprobe snd-mixer-oss modprobe snd-pcm-oss modprobe snd-seq-oss modprobe snd-seq-midi-event modprobe snd-seq modprobe snd-seq-device modprobe snd-timer aumix -L -f ~pts/.aumixrc # replace with your own .aumixrc here aumix -mR -m0 -i100 # record with microphone, for Skype and Kaix (voipbuster) 3. Linux only: as a regular user, run aumix (inside an xterm) and make sure your Vol, Pcm and IGain volumes are maxed out, the red `R' (``record from this'') letter is at your Mic. It is OK to keep the Mic volume on 0. You may save your settings by pressing Shift-. 4. Windows only: start the VoipBuster program, log in. 5. Linux only: start Kiax, it will log you in automatically. The term for logging in is ,,register''. You should see a message similar to this in the xterm if you start ``kiax'' from an xterm: IaxWrapper::event_text() Message: Type=1 Message=Registration accepted You can get the same message from the menu: Tools / Log Window. 6. Mount your headset. 7. Dial your number: 00 + country code + area code + sub-number. For example, to call the number 2345678 in Budapest, Hungary, you have to type 003612345678. Make sure you type `00' and not `+' in the beginning. 8. Talk. You will be disconnected after 1 minute or 60 minutes, depending on whether you have EUR 1 in your prepaid VoipBuster account. 9. Adjust the reception (earphone) volume to as low as possible while you still understand the other party. This will reduce the echo she hears considerably. If you hear echo, ask her to lower her earphone volume. Under Linux, use aumix (in an xterm) to adjust the volumes (settings Vol and Pcm). 10. Move the microphone further from your mouse, or lower the IGain volume (under Linux, aumix) if the other party hears you too loud and/or distorted. Be careful: if IGain is zero, she won't hear you at all! 11. If she doesn't hear you, make sure you are using ALSA (and not OSS) under Linux, you have the IGain volume setting maxed out, the computer is expecting input from the microphone (see the red ``R'' in aumix, push space to move it), and the microphone is plugged in to the appropriate socket. Somebody reported that sometimes she won't hear you because of a network problem -- abort the call and initiate a new one then. 12. If you cannot hear her, make sure the Vol and Pcm volume settings are maxed out under Linux, and the earphones are connected to the appropriate socket. Need more help? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read the VoipBuster FAQ: http://www.voipbuster.com/en/faq.html Ask your questions in e-mail directly from the VoipBuster developers, see their address on the home page: http://www.voipbuster.com/ If you have any comments on this FAQ, please let me know: my name is Péter Szabó, my e-mail address is `pts@fazekas.h', plus `u'. __EOF__