Phone in the cloud:

“telephone system in the cloud” or “telephne system as software” is the “latest shit”.

SipGate Basic (in English: https://www.sipgatebasic.co.uk/ / in German:  https://www.sipgatebasic.de/) gives one a local VoIP land line number.

One can have:

  • a virtual answering machine (will come via voice mail, a mail with mp3 attached)
  • a virtual Fax machine (send and receive (again via mail with pdf in attachment), 49Cents per Fax to send)

check out the rates/tariffs for UK.

There are also EU-wide-FlatRates (sorry UK X-D).

bit VOIP hope: voice calls will finally be encrypted… maybe yes, maybe not (sipgate per default does NOT encrypt calls ? so probably better alternative if one is privacy sensitive is Mumble!).

tested on:

hostnamectl; # tested on
         Icon name: computer-desktop
  Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
            Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-8-amd64
      Architecture: x86-64

Twinkle: Twinkle! Little Star! 🙂

100% Open Source !:) https://github.com/LubosD/twinkle.git

quit the wizard and go straight to:

enter one’s username and password:

make sure that: “user name*:” = “Authentication name”

this error message keeps popping up on every start… but calling out and receiving calls just worked fine 🙂

GOOD JOB ALL INVOLVED! 🙂

off one phones:

this is what an incoming call looks like:

WELL DONE ALL INVOLVED 🙂

twinkle is maybe not the most comfortable gui but open source and straight forward and works pretty solid.

# tested with
hostnamectl
   Static hostname: DebianLaptop
  Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
            Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-11-amd64
      Architecture: x86-64

apt update
apt install twinkle
# run it non-root
twinkle

apt show twinkle
Package: twinkle
Version: 1:1.10.1+dfsg-2
Priority: optional
Section: comm
Maintainer: Debian VoIP Team <pkg-voip-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 5,627 kB
Depends: qml-module-qtquick2 | qtdeclarative5-qtquick2-plugin, twinkle-common (= 1:1.10.1+dfsg-2), libasound2 (>= 1.0.16), libc6 (>= 2.15), libccrtp2v5, libgcc1 (>= 1:3.0), libgsm1 (>= 1.0.13), libmagic1 (>= 5.12), libqt5core5a (>= 5.7.0), libqt5gui5 (>= 5.2.0), libqt5qml5 (>= 5.0.2), libqt5quick5 (>= 5.0.2), libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.0.2), libreadline7 (>= 6.0), libsndfile1 (>= 1.0.20), libspeex1 (>= 1.2~beta3-1), libspeexdsp1 (>= 1.2~beta3.2-1), libstdc++6 (>= 5.2), libucommon8 (>= 7.0.0), libxml2 (>= 2.7.4)
Homepage: http://twinkle.dolezel.info/
Tag: interface::graphical, uitoolkit::qt
Download-Size: 1,487 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: https://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
Description: Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) SIP Phone (GUI)
 Twinkle is a soft-phone for making telephone calls over an IP network
 using the SIP protocol. You can use it for direct IP phone to IP phone
 communication or in a network using a SIP proxy to route your calls.
 Notable features include multiple active identities, call transfer,
 call rejection, 2 simultaneous calls and 3-way conference calls.
 .
 This package contains the graphical interface.

cross os softphone: LinPhone

it kind of works on Windows but on Linux it is complete catastrophe!!!

Update: 2020-03: LinPhone available in GNU Debian 10 software repository

The Android App works fine

but the GNU Linux version feels very beta X-D

su - root; # become root
apt update; # get repo package definition updates
apt install linphone; # wait for download and install

unfortunately the program is pretty shitty/feels incomplete/unpolished.

Contacts need to be entered in this format:

After some tweaking was able to make calls, but not receive any calls.

LinPhone is Open Source made by the French Company Belledonne which also sells Flexisip https://www.linphone.org/technical-corner/flexisip a security enhanced sip (and chat?) service best integrated with LinPhone. (one can use other sip providers as well)

  • sipgate – while having a pretty nice web backend with loads of features (answering machine voice mail, fax pdf etc.) does not provide voice call encryption
  • hint: some providers (e.g. Vodafone) do not allow to use their LTE internet connection with other VoIP service providers (will have to test that again… Sipgate says change port)
    • Settings -> Network:
      • disable Random Port usage:
        • when connecting via WLAN use Port 5160 (UDP)
        • when connecting via LTE use Port 32160 (UDP)

 

luckily LinPhone desktop client comes with 3x voice call encryption methods: (tested and worked desktop <-> android app (desktop all will show a lock))

have fun testing different combinations

what worked:

  • call recording

what did not work (yet):

  • video call

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