Legit Reviews

Free Homebrew VoIP with Google Voice and Intel Atom

Google has revolutionized the Voice Over IP world by providing a free phone number that allows a user of Google Voice to associate all of their various phone lines to a single number. Now besides the well known features of voice mail and free SMS text messages, there is another hidden gem with Google Voice that could revolutionize the telephony industry by providing free VoIP service to anyone!

To satisfy my performance needs, I am now going to put together a low-power server built around an Intel Atom 230 processor in order to install PiaF natively to get the best performance I can out of my homebrew VoIP solution using Google Voice. With a budget of about $225, this article is going to give step-by-step instructions on how to build your Atom-based server, install and configure PBX in a Flash, and finally configure your Linksys SPA-3102 ATA.

Article Title: Free Homebrew VoIP with Google Voice and Intel Atom
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1058/1/
DIGG THIS: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Free_Homebre ... Intel_Atom

Just want to let everyone who reads the article that setting up a PBX server is not near as hard as it might look. It takes a bit of time, but the first time I ran through these instructions on a virtual machine install, I was up and running in about 4-5 hours. Not bad for giving yourself the option to make and receive calls on an analog phone from your Google Voice number. Obviously, the second time through these instructions took much longer because I was taking notes for this article... plus I added in the bit on how to make 911 calls through my traditional phone line that my DSL service is over.

Hope these instructions help our readers out and save some bucks in the long run! Feel free to post any comments!

Thanks Justin. I might consider doing this, though I'd prefer not to running a computer all day (have to find a place to put it and I don't want to deal with the noise--unless I can make one completely silent). Any way to interface with google voice without using the asterisk server? Are there any ATA's that will work directly with google voice without any other hardware?

gwolfman wrote:Thanks Justin. I might consider doing this, though I'd prefer not to running a computer all day (have to find a place to put it and I don't want to deal with the noise--unless I can make one completely silent). Any way to interface with google voice without using the asterisk server? Are there any ATA's that will work directly with google voice without any other hardware?

It is not possible to communicate to Google Voice directly through an ATA at this time as far as I know. That is why this is considered the most elegant solution so far. However, that's not to say that Google won't add this capability in the future, but that is just pure speculation at this point.

The server is very quiet, but there are two fans running. Neither of the heat sinks get hot at all on the Atom board, so it would be feasible to not use the case fan just to lower potential noise even further. If you get a micro-ITX board with wireless built in like an offering from Zotac, you could tuck the Atom server out of the way so long as you are in range of your wireless router... just another alternative ;)

True, wireless would help. Maybe I can get power under my house or in a closet somewhere. What's the footprint of the OS & PBX installation? I might be able to use one of my old flash drives instead of a HDD.

gwolfman wrote:True, wireless would help. Maybe I can get power under my house or in a closet somewhere. What's the footprint of the OS & PBX installation? I might be able to use one of my old flash drives instead of a HDD.

Gook question... I'll check when I get home.

Illuminati wrote:

gwolfman wrote:True, wireless would help. Maybe I can get power under my house or in a closet somewhere. What's the footprint of the OS & PBX installation? I might be able to use one of my old flash drives instead of a HDD.

Gook question... I'll check when I get home.

Any news on the size? .... of the installation that is.

My apologies, I didn't get a chance to check this out last night. Not sure if I will get a chance tonight as I am heading out of town for the weekend soon after I get home from the office.

I called Amy and walked her through the steps to get the size footprint and here are the results:
On the root partition '/', the install is using 2.2GB. So a 4GB flash drive would work, 8GB would be better as far as the minimum goes. If you try this, let us know. I'm not for certain how the install scripts are written, so it would be good to know if installing to a flash drive would work!

Illuminati wrote:I called Amy and walked her through the steps to get the size footprint and here are the results:

pbx_hdd_usage.jpg

On the root partition '/', the install is using 2.2GB. So a 4GB flash drive would work, 8GB would be better as far as the minimum goes. If you try this, let us know. I'm not for certain how the install scripts are written, so it would be good to know if installing to a flash drive would work!

Hmmmm. I happen to have a 4GB flash drive left over from my Christmas stocking last year. It's very tempting.

gwolfman wrote:

Illuminati wrote:I called Amy and walked her through the steps to get the size footprint and here are the results:

pbx_hdd_usage.jpg

On the root partition '/', the install is using 2.2GB. So a 4GB flash drive would work, 8GB would be better as far as the minimum goes. If you try this, let us know. I'm not for certain how the install scripts are written, so it would be good to know if installing to a flash drive would work!

Hmmmm. I happen to have a 4GB flash drive left over from my Christmas stocking last year. It's very tempting.

Just do it. ;)

Looks like I've run into a snag.... no google number and it's invite only.

Just ask for an invite and they will send you one: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

How long does it take? Do you have to use a gmail e-mail address to register? or can I use mydomain.com with my e-mail served via google apps? I tried the latter option but haven't received a reply yet.

For the invite purpose, you can use any email... I don't remember if there was a restriction to only using @gmail.com emails... while it does need to be a google account, I think your google apps email should work.

I think you should get your invite within a day or two.

Illuminati wrote:For the invite purpose, you can use any email... I don't remember if there was a restriction to only using @gmail.com emails... while it does need to be a google account, I think your google apps email should work.

I think you should get your invite within a day or two.

Thanks, if I don't get one by early next week than I'll create a gmail account to try that one.

If only GV worked up here in Canada

Looks interesting, I'll have to check into this.

still waiting for a reply for my google voice account..... I'll let you know if I eventually get one.

Bad news guys. According the the SIPgate website, the only free thing they have is the first 60 min of service. after that its 1.9 cents a min.

I guess nothings free after all.