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Help Need SIMPLE, beginner voip/sip help!

sadielynn

sadielynn

Android Enthusiast
I swear, I'm not a complete idiot with most tech stuff, but I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this voip/sip/pbxes stuff.
Some background-I have no home Internet or landline phone. I do have wifi thru my neighbor being generous with his wifi password. I also do not have 3g in my area, and at home, my cell service is so-so.
SO-we have been having some bad weather lately which had basically rendered everyone in my apartment complex with no cell service. ALL I want is to be able to make and receive calls over wifi when I have no cell service. That's it. I searched the forums here and did the following -set up a google voice number, downloaded the google voice app, downloaded csipsimple. Now I'm lost. I have no idea what sip even is, what pbxes are/is, what else I have to do.
Please keep in mind that before I got this phone, I hadn't had the Internet in about 5 years, so setting this stuff up may be simple for you all who have been 'in the loop' this whole time, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. Seems to me when I set up google voice, make a call and select "call using google voice" it should, you know, make the call with google voice, but apparently this does not mean use google voice over wifi. I just don't get why. :( sorry for my extreme noobness-please help? Thank you all in advance.
 
To make things easy on yourself, as long as you have WiFi connectivity you should be able to download and then use Skype, it will allow you to make calls, if you call another Skype user it will be free, otherwise it's a a couple of pennies a minute.
 
Thanks for replying-I had read a little about skype, but I really can't afford to sign up for anything costs money right now. Even pennies. I have a feeling I was getting close to the setup people described in some other threads, I just don't understand it enough to see it through. I guess I don't understand what all the steps are doing. Basically, after installing google voice and csipsimple, what else do I need? What is csipsimple asking for a name and password for?
 
You know, I'm pretty sure I'm done trying to figure all this out, I'm just gonna give up and buy the Grooveip app and be done with it. Sounds like that app is pretty much a one step solution. I hope. Thank you all anyways tho. Kinda sad I have to wait until payday to buy a $3.99 app :/
 
Just a word of advice. Grooveip is GREAT. I mean really free minutes u couldnt ask for more. The echo is hella bad though. My friends keep telling me the delay and lag is so bad that they want me to stop calling them. hehe. If you can, always take calls over WiFi and not 3g, because the echo is even worse ovr 3g
 
Yeah, I don't care if the quality is great, I don't really want it for the free minutes, just for if we are having storms and cell signal drops out I don't like that helpless feeling of not having a working phone. And like I said, I don't have *any* 3g where I live, so it will be wifi. Thanks for the info tho. Is it easy to use? Keep in mind my first post, where I tell you all how noob I am at all this.
 
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