This seems to be a hot topic tonight. Kinda ironic, as I was just starting to
get the bug into my head about this. Here are some facts:
The technology is available. Below is a snippet from the VoIP HOW-TO (which
some of you have been quick to dismiss tonight, without really understanding
what you are reading):
"5.1 Hardware requirement
To create a little VoIP system you need the following hardware:
1.PC 386 or more
2.Sound card, full duplex capable
3.a network card or connection to internet or other kind of interface to
allow communication between 2 PCs
All that has to be present twice to simulate a standard communication.
The tool above are the minimal requirement for a VoIP connection: next we'll
see that we should (and in Internet we must) use more hardware to do the same
in
a real situation.
Sound card has be full duplex unless we couldn't hear anything while
speaking!
As additional you can use hardware cards (see next) able to manage data
stream in a compressed format (see Par 4.3).
Under Linux we only have free software from OpenH323 web site: simph323 or
ohphone that can also work with Quicknet accelerating hardware.
Attention: all Openh323 source code has to be compiled in a user directory
(if not it is necessary to change some environment variable). You are warned
that
compiling time could be very high and you could need a lot of RAM to make it
in a decent time.
5.5 Gateway software
To manage gateway feature (join TCP/IP VoIP to PSTN lines) you need some kind
of software like this:
Internet SwitchBoard for Windows systems also acting as a h323
terminal;
PSTNGw for Linux and Windows systems you download from OpenH323.
5.6 Gatekeeper software
You can choose as gatekeeper:
1.Opengatekeeper, you can download from opengatekeeper web site for Linux
and Win9x.
2.Openh323 Gatekeeper (GK) from here.
5.7 Other software
In addition I report some useful software h323 compliant:
Phonepatch, able to solve problems behind a NAT firewall. It simply
allows users (external or internal) calling from a web page (which is
reachable from
even external and internal users): when web application understands
the remote host is ready, it calls (h323) the source telling it all is ok and
communication can be established. Phonepatch is a proprietary software
(with also a demo version for no more than 3 minutes long conversations) you
download from here. "
Now, I know that some of you have been intersted in signing up for a service
(ie dialpad), and just log in and dial away. Don't know of any. Someone
posted some directions to this list regarding getting dialpad to work under
Linux. I'm dubious, but give it a shot. You also may be interested in:
http://speakfreely.org
Never used it. But it is only pc-to-pc, which some of you were opposed to.
If, your top-end goal is to make calls, using the Internet to replace (at
least, in part) your PSTN, and the benefits of a hardware solution are worth
the $$$ to you, then check these out:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/VoIP-HOWTO.html
http://www.linuxjack.com
http://linuxtelephony.org
http://www.openh323.org
http://www.opentelecom.org/
The cards that I mentioned earlier DO allow PC-to-phone connection. Check out
some of the resources above for an explanation of how it all works.
For any PERL hackers out there, check out this month's PERL Journal.
HTH,
Steve
