2011年5月26日星期四

傻瓜教程:手把手教会你安装美国/加拿大canada免费家庭电话

  最近赶科技时髦,买了一个VOIP adapter通过Google Voice接通了完全免费的
固定电话,打进打出的声音质量和Verizon的座机完全一样清晰,不需要开电脑,也不
需要购买专用的skype电话,只需手持普通的家庭无绳电话躺在床上便可拨打和接听电
话,而且楼上楼下各个房间可以拖6部无绳电话分机。不敢独享,今天写下这篇日志,
主动把其中的门道和更多的网友分享。如果您家里已经安装了固定电话而且不打算更换
,本文可以略去不看;如果尚未或者有意开通固话的,一次性投入60美元左右,就可以
享受至少半年的美国加拿大全免费电话服务了(但不能拨打911),有兴趣不妨继续读下
去。

      开通免费固定电话的关键,是要买一个VOIP adapter。市面上这样的产品越来越
多,其中最先进的当属大名鼎鼎的Cisco(思科)公司出产的Linksys Analog Phone 
Adapter系列VOIP路由器。不过,国内有很多山寨版的Linksys网关,例如淘宝上这款仅
售115人民币的Linksys PAP2T VOIP网关(http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=9794031406),连包装盒和说明书都是全英文的,在美国市场上四处泛滥,但耐用性远远不如原版正品,选购的时候务必要小心。别说我们这些外行人士,就连FBI(联邦调查局),也曾爆出买到Cisco Linksys中国造山寨版路由器的丑闻,使用一段时间之后才发现上当。

      所以,保险起见,我自己买的VOIP路由器,是直接从Amazon上购买的排名第一的
产品:Obihai。购买的链接在此http://www.amazon.com/OBi110-Service-Bridge-Telephone-Adapter/dp/B0045RMEPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304867314&sr=8-1,免运费,且纽约州消费者无需纳税。我买的是这款产品的精简版Obi100,除了没有Verizon等普通固话服务的接入口之外,其他功能和链接里面的产品一模一样,价格便宜6美元,比较适合我这种死硬的VOIP份子:-)

      之所以我在第一段里面提到您“可以享受至少半年的美国加拿大全免费电话服务
”,是因为大多数美国人目前使用的VOIP服务都是Google Voice(GV),而GV已经宣布
到今年年底之前全部免费。至于明年1月开始收费之后的定价,普遍的推测是会比Skype
目前的月租费更低(skype包美国加拿大免费通话的月租费是2.99美元,参见http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/prices/pay-monthly/)。

      因此,尚未开通GV的需要申请一个GV账户,然后自己选号,选用纽约市的一个免
费电话号码,此后别人就通过这个号码和你联系。有关这一段的具体操作,请参考下面
这段借用的文字:

You first have to go through the usual drill of setting up a Google Voice 
account. What you first want to do is get a brand new GMail address – DO 
NOT use your existing Gmail address that you use for your day-to-day e-mail,
especially if you read and compose your e-mail online from with your web 
browser (in other words, the way most people use Gmail), because being 
logged into Gmail can potentially cause you to miss Google Voice calls on 
the same account. Once you have created a new Gmail account and are still 
logged in, navigate to http://voice.google.com and create a Google Voice account. You’ll need to select a number (use the search capability to help find one you can remember in the city you want) and you will need to temporarily set a destination for incoming calls, such as your cell phone or landline. Google Voice will call you on that line and require you to enter a confirmation code, so don’t try to just make up a phone number here. But keep in mind that you’re only going to use this number during setup, so don’t be too concerned about which number you use to accept the confirmation call.

(NOTE: If you are really attached to an existing Google Voice number 
associated with your primary GMail account, it is possible to just create a 
new GMail account that you won’t use for normal e-mail, then have your 
existing Google Voice number transferred to the new GMail account by using 
this form — the only hitch is that it can up to two weeks, but at least it 
will get your Google Voice number separated from your primary e-mail account
. However, if you do that, you just might experience a situation where you 
can’t make or receive calls once the transfer is completed, despite having 
configured everything correctly — it doesn’t seem to happen to everyone, 
but if it happens to you see this thread for some troubleshooting advice 
that should get you going again.)

After the Google Voice account is created, you’ll want to do a couple of 
things from within the Google Voice online portal.

First, click on the Settings link, then click the Calls tab. Make sure the 
following three options on that page are set up as follows:

Call Screening: Off (although Google Voice doesn’t actually honor this 
setting now when the destination is Google Chat, they might someday)
Caller ID (in): Display caller’s number
Do Not Disturb: Make sure this is unchecked!

Then go to the Voicemail & Text link and set up your voicemail settings as 
you like.

Now, I will point out that before you do the next step (also in the Google 
Voice portal), the Obihai Technology folks advise that you need to do this:

    To use the Google Voice communications service on your OBi, you must 
have made at least one call from your Gmail account’s “Call Phone” 
feature. To do this, sign-in to Gmail and place a call from your computer’s
browser with the Gmail “Call Phone” function located on the lower left 
side of the Gmail window. If this is the first time the Google Voice 
communications service is used from this Gmail account, Google will alert 
you to the following: “Google Voice is an enhanced call management 
application and that Google Voice is not capable of placing or receiving 
emergency service calls.” You may read the Google Voice Terms of Service 
here: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/legal-notices.html

Now go back into the Google Voice configuration portal and make what is 
probably the most important configuration change (if you don’t do this, it 
won’t work!): Click on the Phones tab and deselect (uncheck) the phone you 
used during initial setup of the account, and check only Google Chat.

      Obihai路由器的安装和GV设置很简单,只需在买好路由器之后,按产品说明书里
面的指示一条一条去做就行了。主要分为三步:一是把Obihai路由器和你家上网的路由
器连在一起;二是把家用无绳电话和Obihai路由器连在一起;三是设置GV或其他的VOIP
服务。这款路由器之所以最为畅销,就是因为它设置非常简单,几乎只需要输入你的GV
帐号和密码,就立即可以接通了。如果你想提前了解安装过程的话,请点击Obihai的官
方网站关于GV设置的图解:http://obihai.com/googlevoice.html

      GV设置好之后,好了,一部可以打进也可以打出的免费宅话就这样诞生了!如果
你想要在楼上楼下各个房间里面都安装无绳电话分机,可以选择类似这样的一拖三无绳
电话http://cgi.ebay.com/Uniden-DECT2180-4A-R-Refurbished-Cordless-Phone-System-/270743847301,但千万不要选择主机为corded、分机为cordless的电话,例如这种:http://cgi.ebay.com/Uniden-DECT2188-3-R-DECT-6-0-Corded-Cordless-Phone-/280669641803(因为VOIP不兼容)

      本来到这里就可以收尾了,但是还有更方便的tips和大家分享:Obihai的这款
VOIP路由器实际上允许你的无绳电话同时接通两项VOIP服务。一个端口已经给了Google
Voice号码了,那么还有一个端口怎么利用呢?我把它和我的12VOIP联结在了一起,这
样,只需要拨**20086+中国号码,就可以用无绳电话拨打中国的境内号码了。12VOIP是
一家德国的网络电话公司,目前打中国和美国都是免费的,而且可以在中国境内拨打
400免费电话接通,也就是说,如果把你国内亲人的电话设置为亲情电话(最多设置5个
),他/她就可以以市话的费用拨打这个400接入号码,然后用你预付的网络电话费(人
民币1毛钱1分钟)直接拨通你在美国的电话了。这种“只交中国本市电话费,却能直接
拨通美国国际长途”的办法,目前几乎不存在(信息产业部对国内发展VOIP一直持限制
态度,以保护中国电信和中国网通的巨额利润)。12VOIP在Obihai路由器上的设置办法
参见http://www.12voip.com/en/sipp.html,在纽约和中国的市话接入号码见http://www.12voip.com/en/geo.html其预付费标准是10.7欧元一次,4个月之内必须打完,也就是说每个月消费2.7欧元,包全球通话,语音质量高于skype。

      花一个多小时写下这篇日志,分享自己的心得和经验,希望对大家有用!

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