Is this voip set-up feasible?

[EightySix Four]

I'm going to be spending a few months in China and I'll be needing to stay in contact with those in the U.S. who do not use Skype.

I am planning on purchasing a phone which will allow me to use the data connection to connect to an OpenVPN server at home. Through that VPN server I will connect to an Asterisk box which will have access to a phone line through an X100P. This should allow me to make outgoing calls from a United State phone number.

My problem is I do not know which phone to choose for software capable of connecting to the voip server on an asterisk box. I figure an N900 may have something, but I'm not sure. Any suggestions?

 

[Binky]

You should be able to connect any SIP phone or softphone+computer as an extension. You would have to configure asterisk to allow connections through your firewall. You can test these from any internet connection here in the U.S.

You could also buy a cheap SIP adaptor and any small and cheap regular phone. Something like a Grandstream 286 or a linksys PAP2 would work with any phone.

You could get more responses in the voxilla or nerdvittles forums. Nerdvittles did writeups on both the N900 and one of the newer Droid phones (forget which one).

 

[drebo]

Your biggest problem is going to be latency. 150 milliseconds is effectively the maximum latency you can have before your calls start to become too degraded to be useful. Getting that from China to any US SIP provider (including yourself) is going to be difficult at best.

 

[arch113]

Just get a Magicjack to take with you?

Forward your asterisk number to the magicjack number and you should be set.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Your biggest problem is going to be latency. 150 milliseconds is effectively the maximum latency you can have before your calls start to become too degraded to be useful. Getting that from China to any US SIP provider (including yourself) is going to be difficult at best.

Yeah, I think he's going to have a huge problem with latency. Your best bet is SIP from your phone..like an iphone, back to the US, and exnay everything you have at home.

 

[Binky]

Your best bet is SIP from your phone..like an iphone, back to the US, and exnay everything you have at home.

Hang on there you trigger happy Apple-groupie! 😉

He specifically mentioned the N900, which is very capable of doing SIP. We don't need no stinkin iphone!
http://nerdvittles.com/?p=647 and http://nerdvittles.com/?p=661
"SIP clients can’t run in the background on an iPhone which makes them next to worthless for inbound calls. Yes, there are kludgey workarounds, but these open yet another can of worms."