Recipe: Google Voice
This recipe describes setting up to place outgoing calls with Google Voice via SIPSorcery. Please note SIPSorcery is not in any way affiliated with Google Voice and further Google does not provide any official support for the mechanism SIPSorcery uses to place Google Voice calls. Calls from SIPSorcery to Google Voice have and can stop working at any time if Google update their systems.
The steps to set up Google Voice with your SIPSorcery account are listed below.
To create a Google Voice account you need to have a United States telephone number. In addition to being used for verification during setting up your Google Voice account it is also used when you place an outgoing call from the Google Voice web site or in SIPSorcery's case when you place an outgoing call with Google Voice as your provider.
The way it works is that Google Voice will first call your US telephone number and once you answer they will then dial the second leg of the call, which was the destination you entered on the web site or in your SIPSorcery dial plan.
To use Google Voice with SIPSorcery you will need to get a US telephone number that can forward to a SIP address. There are a number of providers who offer free US numbers such as:
Occasionally there can be issues with the above services such as running out of numbers, reclaiming an unused number etc. If you need a more reliable number there are a much larger number of SIP providers that offer low cost US telephone numbers. The best bet is to search around and read reviews to find a good provider. Two that are known to provide low cost reliable US numbers are:
- After you have acquired a US telephone number from a SIP provider the next step is to get up your Google Voice account.
- Once your Google Voice account has been created you will automatically have your phone number from step 1 added as a Home phone option under Voice Settings->Phone. No other configuration is required but it is worth knowing about the Voice Settings page in case you want to add another phone number or configure your incoming call options.
Your Google Voice account is now correctly set up and the next step is to create a provider entry for it in your SIPSorcery account. To do that you will need to login to the Silverlight portal and go to the SIP Providers tab. Once there click on Add and the click the radio button next to Google Voice.
You need to fill in all the fields shown in the above screenshot.
- Provider Name - Can be anything you like. Choose something descriptive so that when you use it in your dial plan you can easily recognise it as being your Google Voice provider entry.
- Username - This is the username you use to login to the Google Voice web site.
- Password - This is the password you use to login to the Google Voice web site.
- Callback Number - This should be the US telephone number that you created in step 1 and that is shown on your Google Voice->Voice Settings->Phones page.
- Callback Pattern - This field can be left as .* which is a wildcard match. This field is used by the SIPSorcery servers to match the incoming callbacks for Google Voice calls. Unless you have a very high volume of incoming calls you shouldn't need to change it.
- Callback Type - This field can also be left at the default value of Home. It doesn't seem to matter which of Home, Mobile or Work is used for this setting and it's likely Google have added them for future use. Previously there was a Gizmo value available but since Google acquired Gizmo it's unfortunately no longer a callback option.
Another SIPSorcery provider entry may now be required depending on how you manage incoming calls on the provider of your US telephone number created in step 1. You have two options to get the incoming calls from your provider to SIPSorcery.
- The first option is, if the provider supports it, to set up a static call forward to yourusername@sipsorcery.com replacing yourusername with your own SIPSorcery username. This will have the effect of forwarding all incoming calls to your US telephone number to the SIPSorcery servers.
- The second option if your provider doesn't support static call forwards is to create a new SIP provider entry at SIPSorcery configure it to register with your provider to receive incoming calls.
You can test you have your callback provider set up by dialling your US phone number and ensuring that calls reach your SIPSorcery SIP account.
- The final step is to add your Google Voice provider to your dial plan. In this case the Google Voice provider is no different to any other SIP provider and using it in your dial plan is straight forward. An example is shown below.