SIP Client Instructions for Calling Free Talk Live

Now we can accept SIP calls at this SIP address: sip:ftl@ftl.onsip.com

Don’t know what SIP is? It’s a free method of making high quality calls online. You can now use SIP to call in to Free Talk Live from anywhere on the planet. If you already know how to SIP, give us a call with your favorite audio-only client. If you’re new, here’s an easy way to jump in and try:

The first thing you need is a SIP account and there are multiple free options. We use onsip.com that allows free account setup though they would certainly like to sell you extra features. Below I provide some setup and connection instructions for both iOS and Android clients:

iPhone users:

  1. Download and run Linphone, a free, open source SIP client.
  2. To bypass the normal setup, after approving the app’s access to your phone, click the check box to accept the TOS, then choose “USE YOUR SIP ACCOUNT”. Press “I understand”.
  3. Enter your onsip username, SKIP THE PASSWORD for now, and enter your onsip domain. Press “LOGIN”.
  4. You’ll get an error saying “Authorization needed”. Choose “Go to settings”
  5. Press your username under “SIP ACCOUNTS”, turn on “More options”. Fill in your onsip “Auth Username” under “User ID”. Enter sip.onsip.com into “Proxy”, and re-enter your password,
  6. Press the back arrow until you reach the dialpad.
  7. Enter this address to connect to us: ftl@ftl.onsip.com and press the orange phone button at the bottom right.

Android users:

-SIPDROID CLIENT-

  1. Download and run Sipdroid, a free, open source SIP client for Android
  2. Press the gear icon at the top right. Choose “SIP Account”, and enter your onsip username under “Authorization Username”, enter your onsip user’s password, put “sip.onsip.com” in under “Server or Proxy”, and enter the domain provided by onsip under “Domain”. Finally, to enable calling while using your mobile carrier, check “Use 3G”. (Even if you have 4 or 5G.)
  3. If you’ve done it right, when you pull down your notifications menu, you should see an entry with a green light next to your username and domain.
  4. Return to the main screen and enter “ftl@ftl.onsip.com” into the “Called Party Address” field, and hit the enter button on your Android keyboard. You should then be connected to our studio.

This is awesome! I can’t wait to try it out. Is there a normal SIP # you can dial? Might be worth posting that on top of the new fangled stuff for those of us who utilize SIP through more traditional means.

Not to my knowledge. I thought “normal” was the sip:x@y.com format.

Our first tester, Matt completely failed at getting this working via my instructions, sadly.

Hmm…tried the MacOS App, and it bails on launch. Tried the iPhone app, and it bails when I press the menu button in the upper-left-hand corner. Tried another app “Telephone” for the Mac, and it wanted the username, password and domain. I’d given the phone app “wtfk” for the username, but it didn’t do anything about a password, and I tried using the confirmation number it sent, but that didn’t work either, so 0-for-3.

Now reading about setting up an account. :smiley:

Of course, subscribe.linphone.org takes me to a page that says “Index of /” and nothing else.

Update: Thought of restarting iPhone. That helped. May restart Mac too, depending on further experience.

Update 2: Still struggling. Tried to “change password” to enable adding one. Got an error message. Tried to go back in and do it again, and app is now bailing when I go to prefs again.

Might have been a temporary outage? Working for me. Try it again?

Update: Linphone’s SIP account just doesn’t work right with any client I’ve tried. Now recommending onsip.com to get your account. Works great, first try. Free. Updated the instructions.

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