Two colleagues - simple VOIP between PCs

I want a link between myself and colleague. We both have ADSL connections
with fixed IP addresses. Is there a straightward way of linking two VOIP
'phones (or PCs if not) without needing a service provider?

My preference would be to use two VOIP phones.

On 2007-02-04, Andrew <andrew921921921921@andyppppppppppppppppppppaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaa.com> wrote:

> I want a link between myself and colleague. We both have ADSL connections
> with fixed IP addresses. Is there a straightward way of linking two VOIP
> 'phones (or PCs if not) without needing a service provider?

Yes, it should be very straightforward. Essentially both of you would
use

<my_colleague's_username@my_colleague's_IP:port>

Having this in a speed dial would make dialing quick and painless. With
no port number specified the default 5060 will be used.

> My preference would be to use two VOIP phones.

The precise way of configuring the phones/ATAs would depend on the units
used, and if they are behind NAT there may a little extra to add to get
them functioning.

Brian.

On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 23:44:49 +0000 (UTC), Brian <bandj@o2.co.uk> wrote:

>On 2007-02-04, Andrew <andrew921921921921@andyppppppppppppppppppppaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaa.com> wrote:
>
>> I want a link between myself and colleague. We both have ADSL connections
>> with fixed IP addresses. Is there a straightward way of linking two VOIP
>> 'phones (or PCs if not) without needing a service provider?
>
>Yes, it should be very straightforward. Essentially both of you would
>use
>
><my_colleague's_username@my_colleague's_IP:port >
>
>Having this in a speed dial would make dialing quick and painless. With
>no port number specified the default 5060 will be used.
>
>> My preference would be to use two VOIP phones.
>
>The precise way of configuring the phones/ATAs would depend on the units
>used, and if they are behind NAT there may a little extra to add to get
>them functioning.
>
>Brian.
I would set up a DMZ, to the IP of your ATA, in the router. After you
have got it working you could disable the DMZ and try using port
forwarding if you wish.
If you were to go via a provider, which you can do for free, you would
have the advantage of being able to leave a message if your colleague
was unavailable. I would recommend Voipfone for its reliability and
call quality. An 056 number is provided, if you want to use it, but,
for your purposes, you would just use the SIP address.

Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

Andrew wrote:
> I want a link between myself and colleague. We both have ADSL connections
> with fixed IP addresses. Is there a straightward way of linking two VOIP
> 'phones (or PCs if not) without needing a service provider?
>
> My preference would be to use two VOIP phones.

On public IP's or natted?

If they are on public IP's, then just buy a pair of either linksys
adaptors (such as pap2t) and set them up in hotline mode to the IP
address:port of the other end.


If you are natted, then much much easier to use a service provider.
Because, however much faffing around you can do, port forwarding and
stuff, if you use a service provider, the phones will just work.


Also, if you use a service provider, if you move the phones or travel
around, your calls will follow you.

You could always just install SER or asterisk on a colo box somewhere
and become your own service provider.

Or use Free World Dialup (FWD)

Tim

In article <cs2dnYr9ldFN-lvYnZ2dnUVZ8qeknZ2d@eclipse.net.uk>,
Andrew <andrew921921921921@andyppppppppppppppppppppaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaa.com> wrote:
>I want a link between myself and colleague. We both have ADSL connections
>with fixed IP addresses. Is there a straightward way of linking two VOIP
>'phones (or PCs if not) without needing a service provider?
>
>My preference would be to use two VOIP phones.

Get 2 that support direct IP dialling. Grandstream budgetones are cheap &
cheerfull and support this if you want to spend the minimal on it.

(or start with soft-phones on your PC as a proof of concept)

You're stuffed if you're on dynamic IP addresses though, unless you can
let each other know what your IP addresses are - maybe using a dynamic
IP address system thingy DynDNS or something like that.

If you're behind NAT, you may also have to port-forward various ports
through your firewall to the phone device (eg. 5060 and 10000 through
20000, but the 2nd lot depends on the defauls of the phones to some
extent)

If all else fails, you can use IP phones and an external "Virtual PBX"
type of system, but you'll probably have to pay a subsciption to use
this service

Or just use Skype with a USB "phone" ...

Gordon

Thanks for all your help guys - that's a big help.

We do both have fixed IP addresses, so that's no difficulty. The thing I'm
interested in is a quick call from one person to another, given that we'll
both be sitting at our desks.

We work in IT support and it is common to have a conversation that goes on
for a long time, hence the need to do this using something that's not going
to cost a packet. I also need to support end-users and want a good voice
quality line.

From what you've suggested - I would like to buy some physical phones. We
both have Netgear DG834s and of course these have NAT and a DMZ. The DMZ
option sounds perfect.

The other thing that you've mentioned is using Skype etc. I don't know what
the call quality is like but I've recently tried voiptalk.org and found the
call quality to be rather rubbish. I expect Skype would be similar.

Thanks - any help would be appreciated.

Andrew wrote:
> Thanks for all your help guys - that's a big help.
>
> We do both have fixed IP addresses, so that's no difficulty. The thing I'm
> interested in is a quick call from one person to another, given that we'll
> both be sitting at our desks.
>
> We work in IT support and it is common to have a conversation that goes on
> for a long time, hence the need to do this using something that's not going
> to cost a packet. I also need to support end-users and want a good voice
> quality line.
>
> From what you've suggested - I would like to buy some physical phones. We
> both have Netgear DG834s and of course these have NAT and a DMZ. The DMZ
> option sounds perfect.
>
> The other thing that you've mentioned is using Skype etc. I don't know what
> the call quality is like but I've recently tried voiptalk.org and found the
> call quality to be rather rubbish. I expect Skype would be similar.
>
> Thanks - any help would be appreciated.
>
>

Hi,

Are your connections heavily loaded? VoIP relies on enough bandwidth
available to carry the calls. If they are under load it may be worth
setting QoS (Quality of Service) on your routers.

Any standard voip provider can provide you with a free service where
calls between each user are free and even give you a standard PSTN
number to call each other with, instead of having to call using a long
number such as <person@domain.co.uk>

If you have the network setting correct you will not notice the
difference in call quality between voip calls and standard pstn calls!

Personally I would use a provider to handle the calls, just because you
get more features. See http://www.voicehost.co.uk

Regards,

Ross

-----------------------
Ross Beer
VoiceHost Support
www.voicehost.co.uk

On Mon, 5 Feb 2007 19:15:05 -0000, "Andrew"
<andrew921921921921@andyppppppppppppppppppppaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaa.com>
wrote:

>Thanks for all your help guys - that's a big help.
>
>We do both have fixed IP addresses, so that's no difficulty. The thing I'm
>interested in is a quick call from one person to another, given that we'll
>both be sitting at our desks.
>
>We work in IT support and it is common to have a conversation that goes on
>for a long time, hence the need to do this using something that's not going
>to cost a packet. I also need to support end-users and want a good voice
>quality line.
>
>From what you've suggested - I would like to buy some physical phones. We
>both have Netgear DG834s and of course these have NAT and a DMZ. The DMZ
>option sounds perfect.
>
>The other thing that you've mentioned is using Skype etc. I don't know what
>the call quality is like but I've recently tried voiptalk.org and found the
>call quality to be rather rubbish. I expect Skype would be similar.
>
>Thanks - any help would be appreciated.
Don't get the impression that voip means poor quality because it
certainly does not. It is possible to set different codecs and these
will determine the bandwidth used. Usually the settings will allow use
of more than one codec but with a preference to a particular one. If
your Net connection is poor then you can expect the call quality to
suffer. Skype, taking much more bandwidth than the average SIP call,
is likely to suffer more if the bandwidth is low.
If you are going to use hardware, as distinct from softphones, you
could use either SIP phones or ATAs with standard phones attached.
Another alternative, if you have a phone already on your desk, and
wanted to combine it with your voip phone would be to get an ATA that
will work on PSTN as well - such as the SPA-3102 - not so cheap but it
depends what you want to do. There are lots of cheaper ATAs around,
starting from about £30.
I would still go for using a provider rather than a direct link
between both parties. Most providers do a free service if you only
want a SIP to SIP connection. I'd go for voipfone.co.uk, you might
want, at some future time, to add more people to your contacts. Use of
a provider, together with an ATA or SIP phone, makes this very easy -
you will also get a good voicemail with voipfone and they are
reliable.



Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

Ross Beer wrote:
>
> Are your connections heavily loaded? VoIP relies on enough bandwidth
> available to carry the calls. If they are under load it may be worth
> setting QoS (Quality of Service) on your routers.

And if your routers don't do Qos, you can buy one of these.

http://www.provu.co.uk/converged_ctx600.html

You would need one for each internet connection. Or you could probably
get away with just one end, if only one of your connections is congested.

Not cheap, but they do work really well.

However - they can't do magic. If you have a duff ISP, faulty cable or
something else that causes packet loss under no load, then the CTX600
won't help.

Tim

If you have a MS-windows based computer, I suggest you to try
miniSipServer. It is a SIP VOIP server. And you can download X-lite
which is an excellent and free SIP client. With miniSipServer and X-
lite, it is very easy for you to deploy your own VOIP network.