IP Telephony using a SIP 2.0 Server
IP Telephony is when your broadband connection handles much of the actual phone call. A computer program makes the call and handles the sound. Most often this computer program will connect to a IP Telephony server that makes the actual phone call for you. Thus, through your broadband connection you can, for instance, call any phone in a whole country for as little as 10c a call from a PC to a landline phone for an unlimited amount of time. (Higher rates pertain to calls to mobiles).
PCTTY v1.84 and above is compliant with many SIP 2.0 IP telephony servers when the COMISDN TAPI TSP is installed. After this TSP is installed and configured correctly, you then have to select the correct line in the TAPI Device/Modem Combo box in the Properties Dialog Box. This will often be something to the effect: 'IP Line 1 Channel X'.
In order to configure the ComISDN TAPI Tsp correctly, you will need to do the following:
-
On the NETWORK tree item in the TSP's configure dialog box (go to PHONES AND MODEM OPTIONS in CONTROL PANEL, click on ADVANCED tab and select 'ComISDN Service Provider' and then click on CONFIGURE).
- Tick 'Use SIP Account'
- Type in Your SIP Server User name. (This will be some user name your ISP has provided you so that account billing can take place).
- Type in Your Password
- Type in the domain name of your SIP 2.0 server (mine in Australia happens to be: tpgphone.tpg.com.au).
- In LINES in the treeview of the configure box you may have to select 'CCITT G.711 A-law' in the Protocol field. (TPGI customers in Australia need to do this).
- In SOFTPHONE in the treeview you select ENABLE in the 'Device Usage' drop down list, and you need to tick 'Enable automatic use of the microphone and speaker'. Otherwise you will not be able to access the sound of the phone call.
- Please Remember: when you want to save your settings in the ComISDN Tapi TSP configuration dialog box, click on "FILE" in the top menu and then click on "ACTIVATE CONFIGURATION". You can exit from the configure dialog box by clicking on "FILE" in the top menu and then clicking on "EXIT".
Once you have downloaded and installed the ComISDN TAPI Tsp , configured it, and selected the proper line in Tapi Devices/Modems combo box of PCTTY, then you can dial a phone number and an IP Telephony call will take place through your broadband connection, instead of through a voice modem.
The ComISDN Tapi TSP is free for a 30 day trial, so download it, get it to work with PCTTY, try a few IP telephone calls, and see if you want to buy a license for permanent use of the TAPI TSP. That is around 220 euros for a 2 line Voice license. The French Company involved usually only sells to professional sound people, so it currently does not have a "1 line license" for the amateur PCTTY enthusiast. However, when I approached them to buy a 1 line license they happily made an exception for me, so if you do they probably will for you as well. You need to order the "Comisdn SIP CS" product. Contact sales@comisdn.com for more information. Details on ordering and payments are available at ComISDN.
There are other SIP TAPI tsps on the Internet and you are welcome to try them, but of the four I tried, only ComISDN worked. The call is quite good and the character recognition is even better than landline to landline. PCTTY has been tested on the TPGI IP Telephony system in Australia. On this system it only costs 10c a call to any landline phone in Australia instead of 25c a call within the local city in Australia (as landline charges are). (Mobile charges at TPGI are 28c a minute, and overseas calls vary as to country but are only 2 cents a minute to the mainland USA!).
There is a problem with PCTTY and IP telephony. On some VOIP phone systems, the phone company will end the call if 60 seconds go by without PCTTY emanating sound (somebody typing something). If this is a problem with you, please contact COMISDN and ask for the silence suppression fix that they provided for Paul Cheffers (securecottage.com). This will fix that problem.
In order to use any IP Telephony you need to have at least 128kilobits of UPLOAD capacity in your broadband connection. A Dialup connection is not fast enough to adequately do IP Telephony. I use a broadband connection with 1.5megabits of download and 256kilobits of upload. This works well and is recommended.