Free Skype Calling With *

[jpe]

I haven't tried it yet, as I have no skype friends.

OpenSky is a free service provided by Gizmo5 which allows any mobile phone, web browser or IP aware phone network (SIP, asterisk, etc) to communicate with Skype users. OpenSky supports sending text messages and voice calls.

Go to GizmoCall.com from any browser, register (it's free and requires just an email address). Then enter a Skype ID like this: skype_echo123 (in this example echo123 is the Skype username). The "skype_" indicates to GizmoCall that you want to dial a Skype user. Then click the green call button and you're ready to talk! Nothing to download or install. 1-5 minute calls are free. For longer calls you will need to buy OpenSky.

 

[wardmundy]

Thanks for the tip. Nerd Vittles has taken it a step further and integrated it into Asterisk:

Now It’s a No-Brainer: Free Skype Calling with Asterisk

 

[wardmundy]

Skype Calling Aliases

Here's an important addendum to this week's article:

$20 Buys You Skype Calling Aliases. One of the major drawbacks of Skype always has been the alphanumeric Skype names. Well, Gizmo5 has solved that, too. With your $20 annual subscription which gets you 2-hour Skype calls to your 10 best friends for a year, you now can define new phone numbers to match against your 10 favorite Skype friends. For example, for a user named John Doe, you might choose 564-6363 (JOHN-DOE). Once you sign up for the $20 Skype subscription and configure this alias in your Gizmo account, you can reach John Doe on Skype by dialing 1-333-564-6363 through your Gizmo5 trunk from any Asterisk extension. In your Asterisk setup, just create an outbound route for Gizmo calls with both of the following dial strings, and you're all set.

1333NXXXXXX
333NXXXXXX

 

[jpe]

I forgot I had a Skype account so I tried it out calling myself. Nice.

I created a new Extension, set the Device to Other and entered SIP/[email protected] in the Dial box.

 

[merk]

I cant find a definitive answer but just to confirm I am reading it correctly, we can not use this service to use skype as a trunk to call traditional phone numbers correct?

 

[wardmundy]

Correctomundo. The reason is that you actually are using Gizmo's Skype accounts to place the outbound Skype calls, not yours. If they were willing to spring for the SkypeOut fees on all of their accounts, then you could do it... but I wouldn't hold my breath on that happening.

 

[kieranmullen]

So has anyone called through gizmo to skype using sipbroker?

Its always fund making things more complicated than they need to be

 

[wardmundy]

From the double ring tone on outbound Skype calls, it sounds like Gizmo5 is using what used to be called SipTheeSkype to perform all the magic. The product now is called the SipToSis Skype Gateway, and it's actually fairly straight-forward to get set up particularly if you start with VPN in a Flash or one of our Atomic Flash installers. You need X-windows, Java, Skype for Linux, and their Java code to get things going.

 

[merk]

Ward, were you able to get the multi trunks work with SipToSis?

 

[kieranmullen]

The advertisements for such software/hardware have been quite prevalent in the skype users forum in the hardware section where commercial advertisements are allowed for quite some time.A few years actually.

From the double ring tone on outbound Skype calls, it sounds like Gizmo5 is using what used to be called SipTheeSkype to perform all the magic. The product now is called the SipToSis Skype Gateway, and it's actually fairly straight-forward to get set up particularly if you start with VPN in a Flash or one of our Atomic Flash installers. You need X-windows, Java, Skype for Linux, and their Java code to get things going.

 

[wardmundy]

Why Wait? Build Your Own Skype Gateway to Asterisk

So today Nerd Vittles shows you how to roll your own Skype Gateway to Asterisk in under 15 minutes.

 

[GregKeys]

Ward,
I am a little confused with the article. Does this mean that the PIAF box must run a GUI from now on, or just during the setup? What happens if I restart the box? Do I have to restart Skype by hand??

Greg Keys

 

[wardmundy]

To use the gateway, you have to run xterm in a window with Skype because Skype requires a GUI to start up. You could add up a startup script with Skype and siptosis if you'd prefer not to start it up manually.

 

[GregKeys]

I suspect you have done a lot more testing with this than anyone else What is your "professional" (or not so professional ) opinion on running X on a PIAF machine....... will the extra load cause issues or not??? I have seen posts that state it is ok, and others stating only an idiot would even think about it....... inquiring minds want to know

Greg Keys

 

[wardmundy]

As I understand it, this really isn't a full implementation of X-Windows. It's just a virtual frame buffer. During a typical Skype call, I'm seeing about 12% total CPU utilization for Skype, Java, and Asterisk with nothing of significance for Xvfb.

 

[riishkid]

could notinstall the free skype tool

hey Ward i could not install the free skype calling tool i got messedup here


cd /root
mkdir skype
cd skype
wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-centos
#Atomic Flash builds including VPN in a Flash
#should skip the next 3 yum commands as well as
#the first wget command below and pick up after
#the next comment line
yum install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
yum install qt4
yum install xterm
yum install libXScrnSaver.i386
#everyone continues on from here
wget http://pbxinaflash.net/source/skype/siptosis.tgz
rpm -ivh skype*
cd /
tar zxvf /root/skype/siptosis.tgz

thats where things got a little fuzzy

 

[wardmundy]

That's the whole install. Go back and be sure you've installed Java, too. It's in the body of the article now. Otherwise, I need a better hint than that.