Everybody knows how to make Google Voice work, but what about using the Google Voice to get free home phone line that you can use (without any 3rd party software) to make calls from your N900 too (from anywhere in the world)?

So, what do you need:
1. Google voice account
2. Obi110 ATA ($49.99 on Amazon)

Configure your obi110 ATA with the Google Voice account you have (very easy process, explained on obi's website). Connect your home internet and your home phone to the ATA and you have free in/out calling for US and Canada for your home phone.

To use it from your Nokia N900, just setup a Google talk account and call the Google talk account that it is used for Google voice (they must know each other and the N900 account should be a "trusted" account on obi). Now call the Google Voice account from your N900, the AA (Auto Attendant) will answer.
Once you reach the obi AA, you can press 1 to "continue this call", (to ring the OBi phone),
Or press 2 to "make a new call", (i.e. dial a new number, let's say 1-503-xxx-xxxx or 011-40-xxxx .. ). Make sure to press the # key at the end of the dialing.

That's about it :-)

I have this setup at home, and I'm very happy.

I just got an obi100 (2 actually, one for me and one for my mother for mothers day) and am using it with google voice to get free inbound and outbound calls via sip over ethernet. No lag, and free, free, and once again, FREE!!

Can't believe google offers free inbound and outbound calling, and that with one of these obi devices and a ptsn handset you can setup completely free voip.

Pretty cool device, i'll have to try your setup on my n900, thanks for the guide .

Yeah, Google is cool. Until you realize that you are starting to get mail with advertisements targetted specifically to items in areas you have conversed about on the phone recently.

Theres nothing in their T&C/privacy policy and other voice and general acct user agreements that notifys users of such. just read all of them.

Can't see how such obtrusive data mining, and arguably 3rd party monitoring of telco communications w/o conversees notification would be legal. Never had it happen to me with gv, and i doubt theyre doing that for the legal reasons i just pointed out.

Now android phones, or google maps on your n900 may allow then to know your location, but other than that i dont see it happening with a n900. And voice conversations content based targeted advertising seems even more unlikely under any circumstances.

Android may give them your location derived from gps,wifi aps, and cell tower data, as well as the callers, but they say they only use that info to provide you with gv service, not ads. But thats completely different than sip audio content mining, which is not only illegal in many jurisdictions, but not specifically stated in their privact policys and t&c's.

if its happening to you, i'd contact them just to be sure. Almost certain they would say its not mined for advertising purposes.

I've been using Google Voice for 5 years now and have yet to receive a single email spam, call, or text message sent my way.

Anyway, nice thread.

If there's anything else to add, I guess I could also mention this site for when you're making calls from home.

http://www.audiocheck.net/audiocheck_dtmf.php

I have each of my contacts saved as a .wav file and simply play one of them through mediaplayer when calling.

Just hold the tablet near the speaker phone.

They should each be 76 kb in size because you need a few extra sound delays when it goes through the Google Voice menu system otherwise it won't work correctly.

Cheers.

That's probably (mostly) correct, but in my experience companies usually don't give things away for free. I have not read their T&C, although I am sure there is a variety of ways in which Google can get some information out of the data without actually listening in on the calls in the traditional sense.

Like I said, perhaps I'm too paranoid. I myself have used their services in the past (it's really hard not to, consciously or not).

There must be some way in which Google's services fit into their overall strategy. Otherwise, giving things for free is a strange business plan.

Erm, in which way it's better than <anysipaccount> and VoIP gateway in home routerb(even cheaper than obi), and another sip account configured on N900 itself?

/Estel

IDK, it took like 10m to set up, i already had a gv account, and i couldn't find any free ptsn gateway providers that offered free inbound/outbound. GV is the only service that i could find to bridge you to the ptsn for free.

And i've tried and given up on ddwrt voip (if thats what you mean by a voip gateway in router). Complicated and messy, and never could get the milkfish proxy working so sip packets could make it through the router. In any case that wouldnt act as a ptsn gateway/trunk/whatever its called for free home calls with a handset.

You can do GV on your n900 a # of different ways for free calls, no extra hardware required. I used siponics and a plugin directly into the dialer at one time. The only prob is imho, its impossible/a big headache to actually get that to work behind a ddwrt router. At least i never figured it out on my rosewill wrt router, or my buffalo wzn-300hp with ddwrt installed stock.

Ended up just using another ap, which kind of sucks since i cant do qos now for the sip packets on the non ddwrt hardware i have. I know its possible, but a huge pita to setup.

The best thing about the obi imho, is it was cheap (100 model $40 shipped @ newegg), and super easy to setup. Up and running in 15m. But i bought it for a headset, not the n900. Though it might be able to solve the ddwrt problem i'm having by putting the obi gateway and the n900 on the same lan, and have the n900 use that instead of simonics when behind ddwrt hardware.