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lol, unrelated to anything, but I had a police detective in my house about a year ago for something unrelated to me, though he did question me. At the end, he a

by kldg 1y ago

lol, unrelated to anything, but I had a police detective in my house about a year ago for something unrelated to me, though he did question me. At the end, he asked for my phone number. "Oh, I don't do phones. I've got a VOIP number if you want." He was so friendly up to that point, but then he clearly SCOWLED at me; I was so taken aback that I laughed at it.

dredmorbius 1y ago
I know this is OT for the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing how you're using VOIP, provider(s) you've used, and any interesting hacks. I'd recently twigged that I don't want a mobile phone that forwards to, say, an Asterisk server I control, but an Asterisk server (and VOIP number(s)) I can optionally forward to a mobile or other service (e.g., possibly Jitsi Meet or Signal). That last I could then interact with on a subnotebook laptop or tablet device. The phone would principally exist as a tether or true-emergency comms.
- kldg 1y ago
  We used Asterisk at work for a long while (and probably still do, but I've been out of professional IT for nearly a decade) which routed to hardware SIP phones or else Zoiper on both PC and Android on-call phones. While I maintained the Asterisk server environment and set up new SIP phones occasionally, the in-the-weeds VOIP stuff was handled by a technician at our local VOIP company, and the Asterisk setup existed prior to me joining, so I'm sorry to say I don't have much insight to offer. I can say Zoiper worked just fine for employees and Zoiper installs were set up very similarly to how we set up take-home phones; they had/have a browser extension to click-to-dial numbers in our ticketing systems, which was nice -- there may be good FOSS software out for these tasks now. I don't do anything special at home; I just use a headset connected to PC for Google Voice with a free (in the US, at least) number and don't even see when calls come in unless they leave a message or I know someone's going to call and I leave a Google Voice tab open. Messages get forwarded to email. There are sometimes services I can't sign up for as a result of only having a VOIP number -- Anthropic in particular comes to mind as a company which blocks VOIP numbers for signup, but no essential services (e.g. bank, broker, kids' school) in the 10 or so years I've been phoneless. Yealink makes a really nice DECT headset I use (a WHB640) in and around the house, but it's way too expensive; fantastic range, though.
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    Thanks!

by kldg 1y ago

dredmorbius 1y ago

I know this is OT for the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing how you're using VOIP, provider(s) you've used, and any interesting hacks. I'd recently twigged that I don't want a mobile phone that forwards to, say, an Asterisk server I control, but an Asterisk server (and VOIP number(s)) I can optionally forward to a mobile or other service (e.g., possibly Jitsi Meet or Signal). That last I could then interact with on a subnotebook laptop or tablet device. The phone would principally exist as a tether or true-emergency comms.

kldg 1y ago
We used Asterisk at work for a long while (and probably still do, but I've been out of professional IT for nearly a decade) which routed to hardware SIP phones or else Zoiper on both PC and Android on-call phones. While I maintained the Asterisk server environment and set up new SIP phones occasionally, the in-the-weeds VOIP stuff was handled by a technician at our local VOIP company, and the Asterisk setup existed prior to me joining, so I'm sorry to say I don't have much insight to offer. I can say Zoiper worked just fine for employees and Zoiper installs were set up very similarly to how we set up take-home phones; they had/have a browser extension to click-to-dial numbers in our ticketing systems, which was nice -- there may be good FOSS software out for these tasks now. I don't do anything special at home; I just use a headset connected to PC for Google Voice with a free (in the US, at least) number and don't even see when calls come in unless they leave a message or I know someone's going to call and I leave a Google Voice tab open. Messages get forwarded to email. There are sometimes services I can't sign up for as a result of only having a VOIP number -- Anthropic in particular comes to mind as a company which blocks VOIP numbers for signup, but no essential services (e.g. bank, broker, kids' school) in the 10 or so years I've been phoneless. Yealink makes a really nice DECT headset I use (a WHB640) in and around the house, but it's way too expensive; fantastic range, though.
- dredmorbius 1y ago
  Thanks!