Hack2.Use Pure VoIP Dialing with Your TSP

Hack 2. Use Pure VoIP Dialing with Your TSP

By using dialing shortcuts, you can keep your phone calls on the Internet and avoid extra charges.

If you're able to make a phone call to a regular phone company subscriber using your new VoIP service [Hack #1], you're ready to learn some cool TSP tricks.

Your VoIP phone bill is probably lower than that of your friends who still use traditional calling plans. But a lower phone bill isn't the only luxury that comes with converting your service to VoIP. Because your call uses the Internet rather than the public telephone network to route your call, you have access to several cool dialing shortcuts when you call subscribers of other VoIP services. When an IP network alone provides the pathway between caller and receiver, it's said to be pure (or native) Voice over IP.

This can actually save you money, especially if you make a lot of international calls. If you're a Free World Dialup (FWD) subscriber and you talk frequently with your buddy in Mexico, who uses Vonage, using dialing shortcuts will keep your calls pure VoIP and allow you to circumvent any related long-distance calling charges that would be assessed if your calls were to traverse the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

To make pure VoIP calls using your TSP's service, you have to be aware of the dialing shortcuts your TSP provides to route calls to other TSP networks using the Internetinstead of the PSTNas the carrier network. Most VoIP TSPs will assume your call is destined for the PSTNjust because it's an 11-digit phone number. So these shortcuts tell the TSP that you don't want to route your call to the PSTN. Instead, you want to route it over the Internet to another VoIP TSP.

Why do this? If you have an unlimited calling plan, it won't really save you any money. The call probably won't sound any better either. But this technique does conserve your TSP's public telephone network capacity when you use pure VoIP rather than VoIP-to-PSTN calling. If your VoIP TSP bills you by the minute, it might not charge for calls that don't use its PSTN capacity. Plus, it's just cool to let the Internet replace the Bell System for your phone calls. Here's how.

VoIP services such as FWD, Vonage, IAXTel, VoicePulse, and Packet8 offer dialing shortcuts to allow calls between their customers. If you're a Packet8 subscriber, you can reach any FWD subscriber by dialing 0451 and the six-digit FWD number assigned to that subscriber (FWD subscribers don't have traditional 11-digit phone numbers because the service doesn't provide PSTN calling).Consult Table 1-2 for a rundown of the VoIP dialing shortcuts that you can use to route calls between the various VoIP services.

Table 1-2. Pure VoIP dialing between TSPs using the Internet

Desired action	Dialing shortcut
Call an IAXTel user from FWD	*-1-700 and the seven-digit IAXTel number
Call a Vonage user from FWD	**-2431 and the full 11-digit Vonage PSTN number
Call an FWD user from Vonage	0110393 and the six-digit or five-digit FWD number
Call an FWD user from Packet8	0451 and the six-digit FWD number or five-digit FWD number
Call a Packet8 user from FWD	**898-1 and the full 11-digit Packet8 PSTN number
Call a VoicePulse user from FWD	1-700-900-0000 and the full 11-digit VoicePulse PSTN number
Call an IAXTel user from VoicePulse	1-700 and the seven-digit IAXTel number
Call an FWD user from VoicePulse	1-700-9 and the six-digit FWD number, or 1-700-99 and the five-digit FWD number