linphone

[B. Henry]

I use linphone daily, mostly from the linphonc commandline interface, but occasionally from the graphical interface.
It is the best and most accessible SIP phone available in my opinion, and think most screenreader users agree.
Exact configuration varies between SIP providers.
I'd recommend using the wizerd to create a free linphone account to start learning your way around the program. 
I use two accounts myself, actually have a couple more, but do not use them, and there is no reason for most people to have more than a couple of 
accounts. 
Linphone.org for instance is good for SIP to SIP calls, but has no payed option. You will need a payed account to call landline and celluar phones, i.e. 
like you can do with skype out. I also have a phone number so folks can call me from regular non VOIP phones. 
I use callcentric.com for talking to people on traditional phones. It costs me two dollars a month to  maintain my phone number so I can get incoming 
calls from landlines and cell phones, and buy credit $5 or $10 at a time to pay for my minutes. 
Rates per minute are the same or very similar to skype rates for out going calls, e.g. it costs me about 2 U.S. cents per minute to call land lines in 
the U.S. and Canada, 3.5 cents more or less for calling Mexican landlines, and about 4 cents to call Mexican cell phones. Actually calls to landlines in 
Mexico City are cheaper, but don't remembe exactly how much they cost.
Rates vary around the world. They are generally much cheaper in countries where there is an advanced phone infrastructure, and are more expensive where 
phones are less common, e.g. calls to many African countries are very expensive, andcalls to Japan, Thailand and many European countries are the same as 
calling the U.S. Wioth callcentric you do pay per minute to receive calls, 1.5 cents from the U.S. You cn also pay a few dollars more per month and get 
unliited incoming calls free of per minute charges.
It costs $6 a month for an unlimited incoming plan as oposed to skype which costs $5 per month for a phone number if yu pay at least 12 months at a 
time. The disadvantage of skype is that you have to pay a connect charge, think it's about 10 U.S. cents, so a one or two minute call can be much more 
expensive per minute.
Again, each VOIP provider has its own set of services. With call centric I can get voice mail messages sent to my email address as mp3 attachments, or 
listen to them by calling my voicemail with linphone or any other SIP client. 
Their web interface is quite nicely accessible. 
There are many other services with similar sets of features and similar rates, but be careful, other providers can be mulch more expensive, especially 
when it comes to per minute charges, easily 5 and 10 times as expensive in some cases, others maybe double, and some will have good rates for some areas 
and terrible ones for other zones and countries. 
The linphone GUI can be a bit confusing I find for making and receiving calls, but is the easiest way to configure your acocunts. 
The commandline interface is very easy for making and receiving clls, and I have been working on a helper that cleans up your history eliminating many 
typos and duplications while keeping favorite commands such as numbers you frequently call always available. 
it's not  quite ready for prime time, but the basic cleanup functionality is well tested/I've been using it for over a year now. 
I'lltry and get this packaged soon. 
Storm Dragon  has a short tutorial on setting up linphone from the commandline on his thoughts of a dragon blog, 
http://stormdragon.tk
I don't have the exact direct url for the how-to handy, but search on the website using keywords like skype or linphonne, i.e. I think the original 
article may haave been talking about skype alternatives.
Linphone and SIP have many advantages over skype, i.e. you can call any SIP phone from any other. SIP providers can communicate with one another, you 
can directly call SIP phones using their IPs.
Correctly configured encryption should be better using SIP, and linphone can handle the good VOIP encryption protocol.
Sound quality is often better with skype, i.e. there is often a bit of an echo with Linphone and similar programs even though they do use error 
canceling functionality. That being said, linphone lets you choose between many audio and viedo codecs, and in some cases you may find your calls sound 
better than with skype, but I usually do not find this to be the case.
If you are going to be using linphone with Ubuntu or Vinux, you will probably want to add a repository to your software sources to get all the possible 
codec support and have encryption working correctly with out hving to build some things from source, but I'd just go on and install linphone and its 
dependencies from the standard repos, and then if you are going to be using it I'll send you the  information on installing the linphone repo for ubuntu 
basd distros.
  
   

-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  Daniel Crone wrote:
Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 10:29:19AM -0500

> Hello.  I would like to hear from anyone who uses linphone, and can explain how to use it.
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