So I have been wanting to setup some kind of VoIP to real phone (PSTN) server in my house. Mainly so I can call locally (United States) while I'm traveling abroad for free~ So I've managed to break down this project into three sub-projects.
(PSTN) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_network
1) I need a SIP client for android. A free app is preferred.
(SIP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol
2) Software running on a home server. Likely some kind of integrated Linux or BSD distro I can run in a virtual machine. This would route calls, take voice mails, etc...
Options:
http://www.freepbx.org/
http://www.opensips.org/
http://www.freeswitch.org/
http://www.asterisk.org/ (I believe Wendell talked about this one in the pfSense video... not sure...)
3) A free method of connecting my server to real phones (PSTN). A so called ITSP.
(ITSP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_telephony_service_provider
I found this list of free ITSPs: http://directory.didww.com/ Not sure if any are legit. Anyone used one?
The problem is, I have no idea where to begin... Does anyone have recommendations for which three pieces among all possible combinations I should try to splice together? I have a moderate Linux background, so I should be able to read up once someone points me in a direction.
If Wendell wants to weigh in on what he uses in the office, that would be cool~
I used Talkatone + Google Voice for this purpose before the "incident", which worked epically~
(http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/reminder-third-party-google-voice-apps-shut-down-in-20-days/)
Now I am using GrooVe IP Lite, powered by RingTo, for this purpose. It works... technically speaking... But with up to three second end-to-end delays in my experience, it feels like talking with someone on the moon (Relativity, look it up!).
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snrblabs.grooveip&hl=en)
With all these headaches, I decided to hack together my own custom thing. Cool part about doing my own thing is hopefully in the future I can expand it to do other things like:
Texting
Controlling random thing via text or calls (turn on lights, start rice cooker, relay IRC logs, whatever~)
This project would also make a cool DIY video~ *cough* Wendell *cough* Qain *cough*