How to get free incoming and outgoing calls on your android phone, and maybe Iphone too: Never use your voice minutes ever again.

So, for a while i’ve been wondering, with all the free sip services and unlimited data plans on cell phones and with google voice becoming so popular, how can I get these to work in harmony? I finally found the answer. I can use a sip phone service, a sip routing service, my google voice number, and sipdroid android app to make free incoming and outgoing calls all day long…. for free, as in beer. I know what you’re thinking, geez… that’s alot of services you just named. Well, you’re right, but hey… free doesn’t come easy now does it. Luckily, getting the services is free and it only requires you take some time to set them up. The reward is a ton of savings on your cell phone bill. In fact, it would be wise to just switch to a pre-paid plan and only keep your data. The best part is, all outgoing calls will show your google voice number and anyone calling your google voice number will be routed to your sip number and call your phone using sipdroid (runs in the background like a champ) !!!

as an aside:  I think this should work with an iphone or a jailbroken one.  As long as you can find a sip phone app like fring or something analogous to sipdroid, this should work the same.

SO, WHAT DO I NEED?
Essentially, there are four things you’ll need, aside from unlimited data plan:

1) A google voice number — get one here

2) A free sipgate account — get one here

3) A free sipsorcery account — get one here

4) SipDroid on your phone — Download sipdroid from the android market

In short, this is what’s going to happen:  Sipsorcery is going to route any calls you make through google voice and google voice will route the call back into sipgate.  This makes the call a free incoming call.  Here’s why this works for outgoing calls.  It works because google voice operates by you sending via data a signal to google voice to call you.  Once google voice calls you, it then connects you to the number you dialed.  So essentially, whenever you call someone, you are actually telling google voice to call you.  Now, if you have your free sipgate number set as the number google voice forwards calls to, all calls you make via google voice will be free incoming calls on sipgate.  This is the same if someone calls your google voice number.  Google voice simply routes it to your sipgate number and its free.  Now, normally, sipgate would charge for calls from landlines.  But, when its a voip call like through google voice, its free.  Amazing right?

Yeah yeah… so how do I do it?!!!

I’ll admit, it took me a few days to figure it out, but I’m going to share my knowledge with you.  It turns out its really simple to do and there are great tutorials available.  I’m going to link to the steps that worked for me and direct you to the tutorials I used.  I’m too lazy to write it all out, but it is pretty straight forward.  I think it should take you no more than 20-30 minutes if you follow my directions.

First things first:  Sign up for google voice.  If you have an android phone, you should be able to do so immediately by downloading the google voice app from the market.  If you don’t have an android phone, why are you reading this?  Oh yeah, b/c you still want to make free calls from your computer lol… ok… fine.  Go apply for an invite or ask someone who likes you to invite you.  I’m not going to do that, unless you pay me some money.  I only have a few invites in my war chest.

• Make sure you pick an awesome number b/c this will probably end up being your default number no matter what phone you have (land line phone, cell phone, voip phone, sip phone, whatever… Google can forward to any number).   Example, I spent about 5 hours running through the numbers to pick one that spelled something meaningful to me and my profession.
• Once you have your account set up, enjoy your free text messaging lol… move on to step 2 before you break something.

Next, set up your sipgate account.  Pick another number, not as important to have a personalized number b/c your google voice (hereinafter “GV”) will be the caller ID number, plus there isn’t much of a choice.  Once you have a number and you’ve confirmed your account from you email inbox message, go to settings in your sipgate account.  On the right hand side, click to add a VoiP phone.  Not exactly sure what you have to type in but all you want is to have an icon show up in the phone settings for “your name” section, just make sure there’s an icon.  You should be able to scroll over the icon and have an options menu pop up.  Clieck on SIP credentials and make sure there is a SIP-ID: and SIP-Password there– you will need this for sipsorcery. Ok, so, if you have this, then open another tab and set up your sipsorcery account.  Keep in mind that ID and Password.

Sipsorcery Account:

You should set up your free sipsorcery account now, just register and download and install microsoft silverlight if it requires it.  Now, Log into your account.   At the top, to the left of the sipsorcery witch logo you’ll see SIP accounts, Sip providers, Dial Plans, Calls, and Console.  We will be setting up Sip Accounts, Sip Providers, and the DIal plan.

Sip account –> Click on SIP accounts.  You should see one sip account already in there under the SIP accounts.  If you do not, click ADD and follow the instruction below

1. type in your sipsorcery (hereinafter “SS”) username in the owner and Username section.
2. type in your SS password in the password section
3. type in sipsorcery.com in the doman
4. out Dial plan leave as default
5. in Dial plan leave as default
6. Keep alives (I have it checked, but I don’t think this is necessary)
7. keep network ID blank
8. IP address ACL keep it blank
9. tick standard
10. click update

Sip Provider — Click Sip provider.  This is where we’ll enter the sipgate information for efficient routing of calls.  Click ADD, the button is just under the word “Donate”, as in to me… b/c I’m broke and writing really long tutorials to save you money lol : ) .  Now, you’ll see a form box just like in the Sip Accounts page.  Enter the following:

1. Provider Name :  sipgate
2. Username:  This is the SIP-ID we talked about earlier.  Go back to your sipgate browser tab, scroll over the icon you created in sipgate, pick sip credentials, and copy and paste the SIP-ID into the Username field in Sipsorcery.
3. Password:  This is the SIP-Password right below where you have the Sip ID.  Remember, the sip ID and password are not the same as what you use to log into sipgate.  So, don’t try using your login information in sipsorcery, use the information provided under sip credentials.  Everything you need is there.
4. Server:  type in sipgate.com (this will become sip:sipgate.com after you tick the register box, but don’t tick it yet).
5. leave the register contact box blank for now and click on advanced settings just under it.  Make sure its all blank and input 3600 in the Register Expiry box if it is not already there.
6. Ok, tick the register button and you should see it say Update successful in the box above Id.  Also, you should see the register Contact box turn into something like “sip:yourusername@sipsorcery.com”  If you don’t see that in the register contact box, then type it in and re-tick the register box.

Congratulations, you have now linked sipsorcery to sipgate.  You can go back to the sipgate page and check to see if the VoiP phone icon you created earlier shows a green “online” under it.  If it does not, scroll over the icon and click on activate in the option menu.  Now it should be activated.  Refresh your page by pressing F5 to make sure the changes took effect.  If you still don’t see the “online” under your VoiP phone don’t get frustrated.  This may not come “online” until you finish the very last step.  So, please follow the rest of this tutorial and after you have your sipdroid application set up, the green online status should come up on your VoiP phone icon.

* now, you probably linked your sipgate phone initially to your cell phone when you registered.  You can scroll over that Cellphone or landline icon and deactivate it for now.  Or you can keep it active if you want, but whenever someone calls your google voice number later or your sipgate number, it will get routed to your cell phone and charge you minutes on both your sipgate and cell phone accounts.  I recommend making sure it is inactive by clicking deactivate in the options menu.

You are almost done… can you smell the sweet scent of victory.  Let’s go, just a few more steps.  We need to set up a dial plan in Sipsorcery, Set up sipdroid on your cell phone, and set google voice to forward all calls to your sipgate number.

SipSorcery Dial Plan:  This is what messed me up initially.  I found that I test out the hack too soon.  IT WILL NOT WORK UNTIL YOU SET UP THE DIAL PLAN SO DON’T BOTHER TRYING.  Only thing you’ll see happen is your minutes being charged and your sipdroid disconnecting right away if you’ve jumped ahead and tried to set it up.

OK– so the sipsorcery dial plan, right.  Go back to your sipsorcery browser tab.  Click on Dial Plans right next to the siprovider and sip accounts links.  You should already see a default dial plan in your Dial Plans box.  If you do not see one, go ahead and click add.  For the Dial plan name, call it Default or whatever you want to.  Leave trace email address blank.  Click ruby for the script type.  DO NOT CLICK UPDATE YET.

Do you see the big green box below that says XXXXX(“hello world”) ?  You do?  Good, we will be deleting that and replacing it with a script.  Luckily, you can just copy and paste it.  So, follow my directions so you don’t end up breaking your gravitational field and sucking us all into the black hole of doom.  DOOM I SAY!!!

1. Click on THIS LINK and open it in a new tab.
2. Highlight and COPY everything on the page I linked to beginning from “AREA CODE” and all the way until the word “end.”  That is basically everything below this line:    #Click “View raw file” in the lower right for best ……
3. Now Paste that into the sipsorcery page in the box below “update” and make sure you overwrite that little blurp talking about (“hello world”).   Now you will have to do a little light editing by inputting your google voice information into the script you just pasted in there.
4. where it says AREA CODE = ‘put your area code here, dur dur not your zip code you fool, pay attention’.  I put my sipgate area code here.  I’m not sure whether it makes a difference whether its your google voice or sipgate area code.  Probably not since there’s no such thing as national long distance in the VoiP world.  But, both my GV and sipgate area codes are the same.  Go with sipgate if in doubt.  If you have issues later on, try changing it to the GV area code.
5. where it says GV_USER = ‘your google voice username goes here’.  That is most likely just your gmail email address
6. where it says GV_Pass = ‘ your google voice password goes here.  That is probably the same as your gmail password.  I know I know, you’re scared to just put your info into sipsorcery like that.  If you’re scared, set up another gmail account, invite that gmail email to google voice and use that new google voice account for these settings.  There, Ya happy?  Geez.
7. where it says CB_NUMBER = ‘this is your sipgate number’.  It must be 11 digits… so its 1 + (area code) + phone number.

Ok, below that you’ll see options for speed dial.  I didn’t change these, but if you want you can go ahead and fill those numbers in like you did in step 7.  1 + area code + number.

—> note, everything that is to the right of a # sign is just a note.  It is not part of the script.  I’d keep it for future reference.

well, that’s it for the sipsorcery account. Just Click update and you should see it say, “update successful” in the box above ID.  If its not successful, re-copy and paste and put the info back in like steps 1-7.

Google voice forwarding:  Go into your google voice account at voice.google.com.  Log in.  Now go to settings at the very top right of the page.  Click on “add another phone”.  Call it Sip or Sipgate or Osama’s Cave if you want.

1. In the number field, type in your sipgate phone number.
2. In the phone type, pick gizmo or pick mobile.
3. Whatever type of phone you just picked, make sure you uncheck the “receive text messages on this phone” in text settings.
4. click advanced settings.  Here I chose to to tick NO on the direct access to voicemail when dialing my GV number.  I don’t know what will happen if you allow this function.  And you can also customize when the sipgate number should ring whether on weekdays or weekends or not.  If you want 24/7 free calls, I suggest just letting it always ring for both weekdays and weekends.
5. Click Save
6. At this time, you may want to uncheck forwarding calls to your cellphone number and and leave only your Sip number as the forwarding number.  At this point its totally up to you but I foresee a wormhole developing if you have google voice forwarding to your cell phone and to your sipgate number at the same time b/c both your sipdroid and cellphone will try to ring at the same time.  Please, save us the trouble and forego trying to travel back in time for another day.

Ok, you’re done with google voice.  One last step and you are free from the oppressive tyranny of cell phone carrier minute restrictions.

Sipdroid — Download Sipdroid from the android market on your phone.  Let it install.  When its done, open up the application.  When it opens up, click your menu button on your phone and go to settings.  Click on Call options and make sure 3G and Wifi are both checked.  You can choose to check Edge as well if you want.  The rest of the settings are all up to you, I left them blank.

Go back to settings and click on Account Settings and put in the following:

1. Authorization Username :  This is going to be your Sipsorcery Username.  Its the same one you use to login to sipsorcery.  You do not need to include the @sipsorcery.com here.  only put your username. Click ok.
2. Password:  This is your Sipsorcery password.
3. Server:  This is going to be sipsorcery.com
4. Domain — leave this blank
5. Username/Caller ID — leave this blank.  I suppose here you can put whatever you want to show up on people’s caller ID when you call.  Maybe you can put in “Barack Obama” and give John McCain a call?  Think he’ll pick up?  I dunno, go try it.
6. Port — you can leave this at whatever the default is, but port 5060 should be good.
7. Protocal — this should be UDP.

That’s it.  Now you should see a little green dot in your notification bar at the top of your cellphone screen.  If you don’t see it, click on Authorization Username and then only click ok.  Do not re-input your information unless you mistyped it.  Now the light should be green.  Now, we want to double check that your phone is hooked up to sipsorcery and sipgate.

Go to your sipsorcery page.  Log back in if you have to.  Click on SipAccounts again.  Scroll down to the box that lists your sip bindings.  You should have a new entry there.  That means that your sipdroid application is communicating with sipsorcery.

Go to your sipgate page.  Check to see if your VoiP phone Icon is still online and Active.  If so, you are all set my friend.  Go ahead and use another phone to call your google voice number.  It should ring your cell phone.  Give it a few rings.  It takes a couple rings for it to forward from GV to Sipgate to sipsorcery to your cell phone.  Say something to make sure the call quality is good.  Ok, now try calling from your sipdroid application.  Check the sound quality.  Now, here’s the loveliness.  On your cell phone homescreen, long press on the screen like if you were going to insert another widget.  Click on shortcuts.  Scroll down and select “toggle google voice”.  Put that icon somewhere easy to access.  Now click the icon until it says “make all calls with google voice.”

Great, now open your regular stock dialer like as if you were making any other call.  Make a call, pick someone or just call your home phone or something.  Watch as sipdroid opens up automatically.  You just made your first free phone call using this hack.  Enjoy your freedom people, times are changing.

If you like my tutorial, please spam it across the interwebs, twitters and so forth.  And please leave a comment if you have any questions.

FROYO 2.2 for nexus one with custom recovery now available!!!!

well, patience pays off. Paul at modaco posted his update of froyo that is pre-rooted and can be flashed with amons custom recovery. you can get it here.

PRE-ROOTED CUSTOM FROYO ROM AT MODACO

CONFIRMED: FROYO ANDROID 2.2 RELEASED OTA TODAY DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE!!!!

Today Tech Crunch published that it had received an OTA update of Froyo, the new Android 2.2 OS for Nexus One and other upper class android phones. To prove their claim, they posted some pics of the phone’s about section in settings.

Everyone over at XDA-Developers is anxiously waiting on the release or leak of Froyo, to the point they are savagely tearing each other to shreds over the issue. Anytime someone posts a tweet or article about froyo’s release half get excited, a fourth say system.img or GTFO, and the remainder flame the newbs for getting they’re hopes up. What’s all the hype about? Who cares about some update from google?

Well, there’s plenty to be excited about!
Some features known to come in froyo are as follows
* 2 to 3 times improvement in JavaScript.
* 2 to 5 times better performance of Android on the same hardware!
* USB and Wi-Fi Internet Tethering.
* Microsoft Exchange integration including auto-discovery and remote wipe
* New services just as data backup APIs for carriers to move your data from one device to another
* New and improved browser.
* Compass support for Google Maps in the browser, no need to launch the Maps app anymore for compass support.
* Improved Google Voice Search, recognizes long and complicated sentences easily.
* Full Flash support in the web browser!
* Real-time language translation!
* V8 Codec support, a new standard for online media by Google.
* A widget that helps you search your Android device, apps for market and much more!
* Ability to search within app data.
* Improved crash reporting to developers.
* Over the air application downloading via non-mobile store version from any PC on to your device.
* Streaming your non-DRM home music library straight onto your Android device.
* Purchase your music over the air from a non mobile destination right onto your device.
* Install apps on your SD-card, finally it’s here!
* Auto-update apps!
* Car Docking!
* An improved Android market, buy your apps and games from the web Android Market and send them straight to your phone.
* Use voice gestures to trigger apps
source: techPP and google I/O

Well if all the rumors weren’t enough to make someone go crazy, the techcrunch article was the last straw. But fear not fellow androidians. I confirm the update is rolling out very slowly right now. I just received my update and you should get your’s soon too. And BTW, it is sweet… and delicious… but yet refreshing at the same time.

how i felt when i got the update

more undisputed evidence the update is coming out quickly here

Post Below when you get your update!!!

if you don’t want to wait and you want to use the dump files to concoct you’re own rom before google actually releases it, you can get the image here. It was posted by a good friend of mine close to the android development team.

OKOK, all jokes aside. The update is done, confirmed, and available as an update.zip. Here is the xda thread that will tell you how to do it.

Here is the download for the update.zip. As I understand it, you must rename the file to update.zip AFTER you should install the ERE27 version of stock android on the nexus one. This update is for the Nexus one. The site came up needing me to verify its certificate, but its fine. Thanks XDA and he who dumped this one the android world.

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