Everyone asks whether is it legal to use Voip in India. Well surely it is and so are many people using it.
However still one condition is attached to use voip legally in India that is you can not connect your voip line directly to the pstn or cellular line of India (it’s need to come via International gateway for which Isd operators are allowed those mostly being large telecom networks) whether this voip line is via pc or via Ata(voip adapter) or any other device.
So that means a good news that we could use Voip to get connected.
Well there are three type of voip category to be considered for voip
1) We all know this one and have mostly used this way of voip. In this category comes pc2pc calling many popular service provider like yahoo messenger, Google talk , Skype, Msn and Indiatimes chikka , Rediff bol have this feature. All of them could be used for pc to pc calling which require pc on both side.
2) You may use same softclient based service to make calls to pstn and cell networks yahoo, msn and Skype provide these services (require Credit card or paypal account) also you could add to them India based provider like anyuserindia, bolanmol(mtnl), sify’s way2talk, tata indicom’s, bsnl’s service and many more from mostly India based Isp’s. Main adavantage of these isp provider is that you don’t require Credit card or paypal just buy a prepaid card from local shop and start calling.
3) This is where voip may implies in future. Here computer may not be required(just for one time configuration or trouble shooting) all you need is a broadband connection (128k recommended minimum 64k both up and down speed.) and a voip adapter or ATA. You could think of your Ata as an another softphone working without pc however connected to your normal pstn(telephone or pots) instrument not headphone. Most commonly used ata nowadays is Linksys pap2. Other than calling any pstn/cell line or even another ata you could also have your own normal pstn number(called DiDs) from any country of the world on this Voip adapter…so you have a number in same area of you friends’s and he could ring you at cost of a local call irrespective of your location.
All you need to do is buy this ata available from 2000Rs(50$) onwards on ebay.in or a local store along with a minimum 128k broadband connection. Next you need is to search for a Voip Service provider(VSP) online which provide you the sip settings that could be put on the Voip adapter these vsp would charge you according to the destination called .
Vsp are mostly country specific and provide good deals for generally one or two countries. You could use more than one vsp and configure your dial plan according to the country code dialled. Most known vsp nowadays is from Betamax group like voipstunt.com which provide list of destination(mostly landlines) to be called for free for 120days on recharge of 10.5Euros.
Also voip calls within same vsp are always free without any recharge or payment required. Like if i have one of my voip adapter connected in new york and another one in Delhi and both of them are subscribed to same vsp then call from one ata to another ata are absolutely free without any payment or recharge required. Here it may be noted that calls get chargeable in voip only when it has to travel through a pstn or cell network which charge vsp for terminating calls in there network.
With availablity of broadband in every remote corner of India for less than 250Rs($6) getting connected overseas would be much easier and ofcourse cheaper.