VoIP Help Center

Using PhoneGaim for Your Internet Telephone

PhoneGaim explained and tested and how to use it with an ATA adapter or soft phone, with or without LinSpire

PhoneGaim uses the SipPhone interface for internet voice, but it also has a buddy list, internet chat, online and offline status indicators, call screening and other nice features. THe PhoneGaim setup is easy as a software application and only a little harder if you use a real telephone and an ATA adapter. An ATA adapter is an analog adapter that lets you use a real telephone - either cordless or corded - with your internet Voip telephone. Some providers give you enough information to setup the apadpter or telephone while some only give you enough informaiton to leave you guessing and the application does not work. We show you how to do it correctly. But first let's look at PhoneGaim and what it does.

The PhoneGaim website is http://www.phonegaim.com/ and this link opens in a new window. Their website offers a freeware version of PhoneGaim. If you want to call regular telephones they offer low competitive rates, otherwise their service is free.

Their website claims PhoneGaim is Instant Messenger software that lets you use your computer to make phone calls to all of your Instant Message Buddies on any service (AOL, MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo!) for free. In addition to making calls to other computers, unlike other software that only lets you call other computers, PhoneGaim lets you call any phone in the world. There are no setup fees and no monthly charges. You also get voicemail delivered to your email inbox and free conference calling. If you buy SIP Minutes, you can also call any standard phone or mobile phone in the world at great rates

One would therefore ask why you would use instant messenger software with a regular telephone and an ATA adapter, or a VoIP telephone, where in either case you are talking but not sending instant messenges. The answer is simple - you run the software and the telephone at the same time, and if you do not have a hard phone you can do it all from your screen and keyboard. A headset is recommended in that case. Your ATA adapter and the softphone will both register with SipPhone - the PhoneGaim provider - and both will work together without conflicts.

Using a Grandstream ATA adapter requires this setup.
Display Name - enter the name you want displayed
SIP User ID - enter your user ID
Password - enter your password
Authenticate ID - enter if provided otherwise leave blank
SIP Server - proxy01.sipphone.com
Outbound proxy - leave blank
SIP Registration - 1
Register Expiration - 60
Use DNS SRV - 0
NAT Traversal - 0
Yes, STUN server is - stun01.sipphone.com:3478
Leave everything else alone. Your ATA adapter should sychronize and the red light should stop blinking if you are using an ATA486.

One of the unique capabilities of PhoneGaim is you can dial any phone number. Many phone numbers are free and others may have a low per minute fee using SIPphone.   PhoneGaim uses the same common standard a SipPhone and The Gizmo Project. For instance we access SipPhone using Express Talk but we also use The Gizmo Project. The sip address is 17476130364@proxy01.sipphone.com so the telephone number would be 1-747-613-0364. It is the same as a PhoneGaim telephone number. When you get your PhoneGaim system working give us a call to test it, but please have a microphone - headset preferred - hooked up and working first.

Looking at the example gives you an idea of how SIP negotiates. It is not susceptible to spam even though it resembles and email address. PhoneGaim combines the power of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) technology, used for establishing simple two-way telephone calls over the Internet with GAIM, an instant messaging client that bridges many different IM services (e.g. AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ and more).

PhoneGaim users can call any other PhoneGaim user regardless of what IM network they are on. Example: A user on Yahoo can phone a user on AOL or vice versa. It's free and easy. Just run PhoneGaim and it will automatically create an account.