Thursday, March 17, 2011

Make free wifi/data calls on your android device

Update: I've blogged more recently on better ways to do this, so you might want to head here instead:  Free wifi/data calls on your smartphone, part 2


 Note: this will only allow you to make calls to US numbers, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, as that's all the Whistle Phone service supports. See the last paragraph of this post for alternative options.

  1. Go to whistlephone.com, download their software to your desktop, and register for a free account.

  2. Download the CSipSimple app from the android market
    Here's the QR code:
  3. Open CSipSimple, choose the integration you want, then click Add Account. Then scroll down to Generic wizards --> Advanced.

    • Account name: whatever you want

    • Caller ID: your whistle phone number

    • Server: proxy.whistlephone.com

    • Username: your whistle phone number

    • Password: your whistle phone account password

    • Use TCP: leave unchecked

    • Proxy: proxy.whistlephone.com
And that should be it. You can now make calls using your Android device's data connection (wifi, 3G, 4G). If you chose to integrate with the native dialer, just make sure to choose the whistle phone account you created. If not, just open up the CSipSimple app to make calls.

For outgoing calls, it seems to take a good while to connect (about 15 seconds), then you have to listen to 10-second ad. Incoming calls seem to go through pretty quickly, though, and neither you nor the calling party has to listen to any ads.

The CSipSimple app mentions lots of other SIP providers, so maybe one of them is free and has better connection times for outgoing calls (perhaps even ad-free), or will even allow you to call different countries for free, but I haven't checked any of the others out yet.

Update: since I posted this, Whistle Phone limited inbound and outbound calls to 20 minutes. you can read more about that here: https://www.whistlephone.com/naywa. also, I did take the time to look into the other US SIP providers mentioned in the CSipSimple app, and none of them allows you to make free calls except to users using their service. but if you do hear of a better SIP provider, let me know!

11 comments:

  1. mae20 July, 2011 21:27

    thanks alot for this. God bless you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ayanna Cross28 July, 2011 09:09

    this is great. Can we configure for incoming calls as well?

    ReplyDelete
  3. b28 July, 2011 10:44

    Sure! When you first open the CSipSimple app, it will ask you to configure your Availability profile. You can also get to it by opening up the app and going to Menu --> Settings --> Easy Configuration. Make sure you choose either Always available or Available on WiFi; the other option (Only for outgoing) won't let you receive incoming calls. You'll probably also want to make sure the checkbox for Integrate with Android is checked. I think that allows wifi calls to work without explicitly having to open the CSipSimple app.

    ReplyDelete
  4. erica27 September, 2011 15:57

    didn't work for me says error while registering- proxy authentication required but i put in all the information

    ReplyDelete
  5. b28 September, 2011 07:15

    hmm, that's odd. I just tried it again to make sure, and it all worked fine for me. what specific step are you having problems with? you are connected to the internet through either wifi or 3g/4g when doing this, right?

    you may want to delete the account you created by opening up CSipSimple --> Menu --> Accounts --> long press the account you created, and click Delete account. then try going through all the steps listed here again, making sure to do them exactly as posted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jay18 October, 2011 21:27

    Thanks Dude! I already was using Whistle app on my iPad & iPhone, but I had a spare Samsung Galaxy Phone that I wanted to install a calls over wifi type app like whistle & I did a search & found your wonderful blog post & I really appreciate it. This will save my minutes on my iPhone 4. Thanks again now I have a free Android wifi Phone. Oh & do you take donations because if so could you post a link & I will donate to you a little money so you can keep doing what you are doing. Thanks & have a pleasant week!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Francis11 February, 2012 07:30

    Dude, this is great! I have been using Whistlephone for more than a year now on my laptop. I was trying to use it with an ATA and my Android phone using the integrated SIP dialer of Gingerbread, but I am having a problem receiving calls. I tried your scheme today and it work alright! Thank you! My problem is solved.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Andy21 February, 2012 17:19

    I try to do as your instruction and it show whistle has registered with green indicator but the problem is I can not make a call. I just hear a short ring tone and nothing happen. Please advise.

    ReplyDelete
  9. rs25 February, 2012 08:35

    I also followed all the steps and got registered but faced the same problem like Andy, i just hear 1 ring and it just cuts off. And when i call my whistle number, it just rings in my computer, but I get nothing in my android device.

    ReplyDelete
  10. b29 February, 2012 13:59

    my guess is your network is having issues connecting to whistle phone. one suggestion on whistle phone's site is to try a public wifi network. there are also some other suggestions on their help page, such as checking ports in your router and disabling SIP ALG. if none of that works, you might want to try asking on their discussion site. beyond that, I'm not sure there's any help I can give you. hope that helps!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sunnyguy31 August, 2012 10:57

    Hey bud, thanks for great tips and tricks on your blog here. This has definitely helped me stay in touch with close family and friends!
    My outgoing is working just fine. However, when I'm receiving inbound calls, I slide to answer but it continues to ring on my phone until after 10-15 rings it misses the inbound call.

    Do you think you can help fix this? Thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete

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