How-To: Use a Pocket PC PDA as a WiFi Phone

This week’s How-To is a handy one for the folks out there who use the Vonage Voice Over IP (VOIP) service and happen to have a Pocket PC device with WiFi. We’re going to show you how to turn just about any Pocket PC PDA device in to a real telephone with a working telephone number. At the end of this, we’re also going to post our phone number so you can test it out (it might be a long distance call for you).

Ingredients for this How-To:

* Pocket PC with WiFi (we’re using an iPAQ h6315 and h4100 Pocket PCs for testing)
* Vonage account with SoftPhone
* WiFi


Pocket PCs with WiFi

We recently started using the new HP iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC Phone which sports WiFi, GSM/GPRS and Bluetooth. This triad of connectivity allows many forms of communication, including voice, SMS, instant messaging, and IRC.

Late last week we spotted a post on MobileWhack about Vonage on Pocket PCs and shared it with a few of our Pocket PC-owning, Vonage-using friends, but they needed a little help getting it going so we decided we’d write a how to on turning a Pocket PC in to a telephone with a working phone number. If you travel a lot it’s worth the $200 you’ll pay on eBay for a WiFi-enabled Pocket PC and a $10 monthly Vonage account. After just a few weeks on the road and they should pay for themselves

What is Vonage?
Basically, Vonage allows you to use your broadband connection (DSL, Cable modem) to place calls from the corded or cordless phone you already have through a special free adaptar you receive when you sign up. Voicemail, call forwarding, call logs, caller ID, are all included. We’ve been using it for awhile, and we’ll never use a “regular” phone line again.

You get a a real phone number in an area code of your choice, even if it’s out of state, with plans starting as low as $30 a month for unlimited calling in the USA and Canada. This also means you could use your phone anywhere in the world if it was connected to the web (one of the reasons we like this). But for that, you’ll need to add a feature to your account, a SoftPhone account.

What is a SoftPhone account?
A SoftPhone account is $10 extra per month and includes unlimited calling in the USA. This account allows you to use software on your PC/Mac/Linux computer to make phone calls just like you would at home, and you get an additional phone number (calls can be made to and from your PC) so you have full-functioning telephone at all times. Just like your other account you have Caller ID, Call Forwarding, and more.

If you have a Vonage account, just click “Features” in the top menu of your dashboard.



THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE