Pennytel

Pennytel provides a variety of VoIP services and calling cards. Their voip is primarily via pre-paid fixed dollar amounts. Its popular amongst Australian VoIP users for their cheap international and mobile phone rates (relatively speaking!). Their rates for calls to mobiles are amongst the cheapest in Australia.

Unlike a lot of other Australian ITSPs, Pennytel charge per SECOND with no minimum amount or flagfall. This can make it a very economically competitive option compared to other ITSPs.

Pennytel appears to have started as a calling card company, judging by the many references to pin numbers and call rates. Setting up their service with a regular SIP phone is easy, and they have detailed instructions on their site for a soft phone.

To make VoIP calls, you first get your free pennytel account – a basic SIP account that lets you call other pennytel users for free. Then you can add AUD$5 or $10 to your account. With that you can then call PSTN.

Pennytel now offer DIDs, SMS and faxing.

Pennytel works well with Asterisk. The wiki previously stated that changing the SIP UA was necessary to use Asterisk with Pennytel. This is untrue.

Asterisk configuration (1.2.x and later) in sip.conf

register => 888xxxxxxx:[email protected]/888xxxxxxx

[pennytel]
type=friend
host=sip.pennytel.com
fromuser=888xxxxxxx
username=888xxxxxxx
fromdomain=sip.pennytel.com
secret=xxxxxxx
canreinvite=no
context=from-yourcontext
insecure=invite

You may also need to add ‘nat=no’.