Using Google Voice through Ekiga on Android

Well I am the proud owner of the Motorola Droid. I have a Google Voice (GV) account, a gizmo5 account and an ekiga account. I wanted to be able to receive calls over SIP from GV to ekiga. But GV does not provide any ties to any sip service other than gizmo5. I found that I could forward calls coming into gizmo to another sip service. This is how I made Google Voice work over sip on my Droid.

I found a sip client called Sipdroid that has worked the best for me on my Droid. The developers of this application add in a lot of support for the sip services offered by PBXes. I find this to be needless for my uses of a sip client, but some people may find it easier to use.

First, your going to need to log into your Google Voice account. Go into settings and add a phone. This phone will be your gizmo5 number [the 1-747-***-**** number] and you should select gizmo5 as the type of phone. Do not verify the new phone yet. Now, you need to log into gizmo5 and forward all calls to your *@ekiga.net.

Now, you need to download and install sipdroid from the android market. Open the program. Tap the menu button and go into settings. Go into 'Sip Account Settings' and enter your ekiga log in information into the user name and password spaces. For the 'Server' enter 'ekiga.net' leave Domain blank. The Port should be 5060 and protocol should be UDP as TCP will not authenticate with ekiga yet. Now, hit back and go into 'Call Options' and make sure 'Use Wlan' and 'Use 3G' are checked. I don't advise using EDGE as the call quality is very poor. For 'Preferred Call Type' select 'phone'.

Under 'Advanced Options' you can adjust the gain. Settings higher than the defaults can cause significant problems for the person(s) on the other end of the call. Be wary when setting them and also consider heavy testing from multiple locations before setting on your preferred settings here.

Now, go back to the settings in Google Voice and verify your gizmo5 phone. Your android phone should ring, slide up to answer the call, then slide the arrow at the bottom of the screen to bring up the dial pad and enter the verification code from GV.

Presto!! Your now receiving GV phone calls over SIP on your android.