#“How to get a US Phone Number for your Irish Business for Free”
I was reminded of our phone setup yesterday when asked how we have implemented our US number. The easiest way is obviously to pay Blueface VOIP or Skype for a US number. But you can actually do it for zero cost which is how we have done it.
The basic setup is as follows:
- Google Voice US number (We chose a Palo Alto area code, cos, wellllll, cos)
- That GV number is forwarded to a free IPKall Washington State VOIP number (GV will only forward to US number and the old Gizmo tricks don't seem to work since Google bought them)
- That IPKall number forwarded for free via SIP to our Irish Blueface number
If you get a PAYG account with Blueface then none of the above costs you anything for inbound calls.
We have had that configured for months now and it works perfectly. If you don't get many US calls (we do), then you just need to ring either the GV number or IPKall number once a month to keep the IPKall account active. GV means that you get all your voicemails transcribed to text and emailed to you. Much hilarity can be had with these.
Internally we have a Linksys PAP2 connected to the LAN and an el-cheapo Motorola DECT phone connected to that. The Linksys is configured to connect to Blueface.
One really cool feature is that Caller ID kinda works on a Geo basis. When one of our partners calls the GV number from Wisconsin, it doens't show his number but it does show "Wasau, WI" on the phone, so I know who it is.
There is one small glitch you have to deal with in the setup tho. You cannot create a Google Voice account from Ireland. For that you need to use a VPN to spoof you are in the US. We use BlackVPN which always works well. Gimme a shout if you want our discount code. You'll get BlackVPN free for 2 months and we'll get an extra month free. Once the GV account is setup, you can access it from any country.
Or as I said just pay Blueface or Skype and save yourself the hassle. That's what we do for our UK number :-)