Why would anyone offer me free phone service?

We are offering you free phone service in order to promote our business phone PBX systems. We figure that if you like the service, you may talk about it to your friends and associates, and one of them may need our more advanced business PBX systems.

We will also be offering additional services which you may want to add to your basic service, and for which there may be a small charge. For example, you can add dial in and dial out service to your free phone system, so that you can call friends who have ordinary telephones.

What's included?

Your free phone service allows you to call anybody else who has also signed up for the service. They need to register and download the software too. Anytime, they are connected to the internet, you will be able to call them. To do so, you will simply need to dial a 7 digit number (like an ordinary local phone number).

If your phone is not answered, or if you are not connected to the internet, your incoming calls will go to a voice mail system. You can have up to 10 messages of 1 minute length stored for retrieval as soon as you are back online. (To retrieve your messages, you dial 9 followed by your phone number, and enter you passcode.

How is this service different from Skype?

In many ways, the Xantek Free Phone System is similar to Skype. Both will allow you to make free calls to anyone else on the system. Both have inbound and outbound dialing at additional cost.

However, there are important differences too. To get voicemail with Skype, you must sign up for one of their paid services. With our service, voicemail is free and included.

The most significant difference is that Skype is a proprietary system, and cannot connect to users on any other system. The Xantek Free Phone System uses open source SIP technology. This makes it possible to connect to other systems using this same technology. At the moment, this is sort of a moot point, but we foresee a time in the not too distant future when every internet user will have a SIP service provider (much like they have an email provider now), and at that point interconnection will be a vital ingredient. Just think where we would be if everybody had a different proprietary email system; you wouldn't be able to send emails to anybody, only those who were using the same protocols as you.

Free world dialup and the Gizmo project are two systems that currently support SIP. Therfore you will be able to call anyone using either of these systems.

What do I need?

You need to have a computer that is connected to the internet through at least a dialup connection. No, you don't need to be on broadband.

You need to have a microphone and speaker attached to the sound card on your computer. (You will get much better results, i.e., no echo, if you use a headset or handset.)

MAC, PC, or Linux operating systems are supported.

How do I get set up?

You need to go through a three step process to get your free phone service:

Complete the registration form. Name and email are all that is required. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else. We will use it to send your voicemail notifications and to inform you about your account.
Download the softphone software and install it on your computer.
Enter your personal phone number and passcode into the softphone. Instructions here.

For More Information

Email us at phones@xantek.cc