A walk on the Dark Side, or using Skype on 3

Well it's odd how days go. I went into town today just to pass a hour or so while waiting to pick up the car. Nothing odd there, but I have been drawn to the Threeskype phone for some while.

So I venture into the shiny new 3shop in Bath. I have to say the staff were very good. I wanted a Skype phone and one of those USB modem thingies. But after a short time I leave with a shiny new 6120 which has Skype and MSN both of which are free . Also it's HSDPA compatible so will work as a high speed modem.

So on getting back I fire up the laptop with Skype on it and call it from the new phone. And I was pleasantly surprised as it worked. Which is all the more supprising as I live in a small village and cant get 3g from either Orange or O2 but 5 bars on this 3 handset .

So I can now call my laptop and my laptop can call my mobile. So a quick Google is now required for Sip to Skype gateways. I decide to download SiSKYPE for no reason other than it's free for 30 days and $15 to register.

Once downloaded its simple to setup and configure Asterisk to work with it. Now I can dial a number from Asterisk and the Skype contact that is configured to call rings .

And now when I dial the SiSKY contact from my mobile it's answered by my speech recognition system I have on Asterisk. This is where it goes a bit wrong - I cannot get DTMF to work. It may be a handset problem or an issue with using the PE edition of SiSKY as it seems the EE version should work. But not too much of an issue as sound quality is good enough for the speech rec system so I can call people from there using the asterisk shortdials.

So at this point I can say that my walk on the darkside has impressed me.

Ian

Reply from satphoneguy on Jan 12, 2008 - 06:33 PM

ianplain :

Well it's odd how days go. I went into town today just to pass a hour or so while waiting to pick up the car. Nothing odd there, but I have been drawn to the Threeskype phone for some while. So I venture into the shiny new 3shop in Bath. I have to say the staff were very good. I wanted a Skype phone and one of those USB modem thingies. But after a short time I leave with a shiny new 6120 which has Skype and MSN both of which are free . Also it's HSDPA compatible so will work as a high speed modem. So on getting back I fire up the laptop with Skype on it and call it from the new phone. And I was pleasantly surprised as it worked. Which is all the more supprising as I live in a small village and cant get 3g from either Orange or O2 but 5 bars on this 3 handset . So I can now call my laptop and my laptop can call my mobile. So a quick Google is now required for Sip to Skype gateways. I decide to download SiSKYPE for no reason other than it's free for 30 days and $15 to register. Once downloaded its simple to setup and configure Asterisk to work with it. Now I can dial a number from Asterisk and the Skype contact that is configured to call rings . And now when I dial the SiSKY contact from my mobile it's answered by my speech recognition system I have on Asterisk. This is where it goes a bit wrong - I cannot get DTMF to work. It may be a handset problem or an issue with using the PE edition of SiSKY as it seems the EE version should work. But not too much of an issue as sound quality is good enough for the speech rec system so I can call people from there using the asterisk shortdials. So at this point I can say that my walk on the darkside has impressed me. Ian

skype on 3 does not use 3G data for voice. all calls go through circuit switched GSM to the gateways that than convert them to skype protocol. so it works fine with 2G coverage.

Reply from dean on Jan 12, 2008 - 06:41 PM

Quote:

all calls go through circuit switched GSM to the gateways that than convert them to skype protocol.

I assumed that was how it was working (seeing as it's based on iSkoot).

It does work very well though - I can attest to it. Messaging is a little tricky using a 0-9 keypad though (I'm used to my blackberry full keyboard now - "regular" txt'ers will probably be fine).

Ian - does SiSKY basically give you a Skype ID that's an extension on your Asterisk PBX?

Quote:

DTMF

I guess that gets lost in transcoding (good name for a geek movie that ) - speech recognition would be interesting however...

Reply from ianplain on Jan 12, 2008 - 07:04 PM

Hi

With Sisky you install skype on your machine and It "Hijacks" it, and then you configure SiSky to be an extension and give it a destination for calls to terminate at.

The DTMF issue may be a version thing as I see no sip messages at all from SiSky on * when pressing keys.

Ian

Reply from martyndavies on Jan 12, 2008 - 07:57 PM

iSkoot works on pre-3G handsets like the Blackberry 7100 and Treo 650, so it's definitely using GSM for wireless.

Reply from satphoneguy on Jan 12, 2008 - 08:59 PM

DTMF would likely require enabling @ the GSM2Skype gateway in 3's(or iskoots) network. 3 would very likely prefer not to enable that capability as it could result in loss of traffic(and money) via traditional networks and encourage third party gateways offering discount calling. of course in addition to voice recognition SMS or IM callback(via skype) would be a possibility for outbound call setup.

spg

Reply from ianplain on Jan 14, 2008 - 03:10 PM

Hi Well 2 things to report, The DTMF issue is only from my nokia handset so maybe the 3 gateway or the client on the handset not sure yet. But after doing some testing with the yeastar support DTMF proves to be fine from skype.

And it does seem to need the 3g network connection when using 3, as if its working on 2g, status isnt kept upto date and calls cant be made .

Ian

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