Hi all! I’m looking for a service where I can port my phone number, and then make and receive phone calls and SMS, all over data, not cell service. My particular use case is that I live in Germany, but I still have a US phone number, and occasionally need to receive SMSes or phone calls on that number.
I am aware that Google Voice offers this service, but as you can probably guess given that I’m here, I am unwilling to use it :). I saw JMP here: https://lemmy.world/post/1033514, but TBH, I don’t think that it will give me the experience that I’m looking for, given that it seems to translate everything back to generic Jabber.
Edit: Thank you all for the suggestions! I have decided to go with VoIP.ms: I tested it today, and am working on transferring my number to them now.
If you use the Cheogram app for JMP.chat it works like a normal call and messaging service. You can make phone calls through the dialer app or cheogram and send and receive messages through cheogram. The app takes you through setting everything up on the first run. The only issue I’ve had is that group messages only show the phone number and not the contact.
That being said, if you’re only using it occasionally, Mysudo has a $0.99 plan while JMP.chat is $4.99.
I use Cheogram with Twilio, but that is also expensive.
I would like an app to forward incomming SMS to a message in the Signal app.
But unfortunately I don’t have the skill or time to make it. 😊
I’d love to know how it works out for you. There’s no cell signal where I live, so calling & messaging is all over internet, anyway.
It’s what I use. I’m not sure of making phone calls, though.
I’ve also used VoIP.ms. Making and receiving calls is possible but requires setting up a SIP client app on your phone. Getting the settings right can be tricky.
Thanks! I found the instructions here, which don’t seem too hard: https://blog.voip.ms/voip-on-cell-phones-ios-and-android/
But otherwise, VoIP.ms looks pretty much like what I’m looking for. It also seems super super cheap for my needs (keep a phone number alive, make a few calls or SMSes per year).
I think Asterisk can do all the functions of Google Voice. I looked into self-hosting Asterisk, but I think it’s beyond my skillset. I think there are services that host Asterisk for you.
Asterisk is a corporate switchboard product. It’s very very old, although I presume it supports SIP nowadays. But there are other SIP services nowadays.
SIP is telephony over IP.
It is massive overkill to self-host, especially to self-host Asterisk. Search for “hosted SIP”.
I went with Zadarma, but I was choosing mainly on price.
Do modern self-hostable sip services like zadarma offer similar features to google voice?
Who said you can self-host Zadarma?
Oops, good point. I assumed that criteria because I’m looking for a self-hosted solution - the OP isn’t necessarily.
