Internet Phone Service ...why not?

 What do you have to lose by using Internet Phone with Ekiga Softphone.  This is easy to set up and can save you a lot of money by using it.  This is especially a useful tool if you have broadband access to the Internet. Here is a step-by-step approach to setting up your phone.

Skype or Ekiga
Which is better? Well I tested both and here are my impressions of using each. The first thing you need to do is try it yourself as that will be an important aspect.

Ekiga
The biggest thing I like about Ekiga was that it was the default and I assumed as a result that it would be the easiest to get going. Well…it wasn’t. The software install with about 12 steps instead of the 3 steps with Skype. That was one thing I didn’t like as it provided more opportunity for error and then trying to find the error was even more complex. However, the biggest problem I had was trying to get my hardware to be consistent. Yep, I would turn it off and find it did not work when I wanted to use it again. I kept getting error messages about my sound system had a conflict. I experimented a lot trying to find the issue, for me it was setting my sound to ALSA not PulseAudio, the standard on Ubuntu 8.04. So my frustration with Ekiga as that while it was the default, it was problematic and while PulseAudio was the default it did not work. I thought this was the LTS version, I must have missed something.

Compare Skype and Ekiga
Skype Tutorial
Ekiga Tutorial

Start the set up process by going to Applications/Internet/ Ekiga Softphone.  The Configuration Assistant will help you through the process. 

Enter your first and last name so that you set up an account.

You will want to set up an account with ekiga so that you can use the phone.  It is an simple process of providing your name, timezone, username and password.

Take the information that you created in the account to add into your ekiga set up.

Be sure to select the connection to the Internet that you have as the faster the connection will determine what codecs will be available to work with your sound system.

The next step will try to evaluate how your firewall is configured.  There is an autodetection feature that will attempt to work it out for you.

Here it has detected a Port Restricted NAT so it recommends a server type.

Notice the ALSA is the choice for the audio management.  This really is disturbing as you would think you could use the default system of PulseAdio but ..to no avail.  Anyway, this works.

My system has HDA Intel as the sound system.  The other choice was to use Default.  The Default is certainly what you what to try first so that you have a base to start from.

The video manager is for you webcam when you want to use it.  Again, take the recommended settings before you get excited about changing them.

You will see this output if you do not have a webcam.

That's it.

Test the setup by going to the suggested phone address and testing your microphone and speakers. If that works OK you are set.  Now call your friends!!!