iPhone

How to Set Up Vonage on Your iPhone

July 27, 2009

There are many options when it comes to making VOIP calls over WiFi or 3G with your iPhone. Many prefer Skype but here in Canada not only are we blocked from downloading the app in the iTunes store (though there are ways around it) but there are no SkypeIn numbers available in Canada. So this plus the fact that I already use Vonage for my home line makes it the best option for me. There are also many SIP applications available for the iPhone either through iTunes or Cydia. The only catch is that Vonage wants you to pay an extra $12 a month to get a “softphone” added to your account, and it gives you another number. Since I don’t need an extra number, nor do I want to put more money into the hands of Vonage I did some digging around and found a solution.

As it turns out any Vonage line can be used as a SIP line. All you have to do is find out the domain and your encrypted password. Doing so is actually quite the simple process. Enter the following into your browser, making sure to replace the parts in bold with your account information.

 

https://im-config.vonagenetworks.net/config?&login=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD&type=1003

Update 09/07/2009: Unfortunately our friends at Vonage have taken down the above link. As of now I know of no other way to obtain your encrypted password, I will try to find an alternate method and when I do I will put up a new post.

You’ll get a page with a bunch of information on it, the part you want to pay attention to is at the top:

[SIP 2.0]
ProxyUserName=username
ProxyUserPassword=FAB16g9XNa
ProxyDomain=a.vonim.com
ProxyPort=10000

This contains all the information you need to register your account on Fring or SIAX. In the past I used SIAX however they decided one day to make it so you had to purchase the software, which defeats the purpose of Jailbreaking your iPhone (in my opinion). So now I use Fring, which can be downloaded for free in the App Store. Configuring SIP in Fring was a little less than straight-forward for me, so here are the steps to set it up:

Create an account or login to your existing account
Go to More then Add-ons
Select SIP, then Other

Fill out the fields as follows:
User ID = ProxyUserName
Password = ProxyUserPassword
Proxy = ProxyDomain:ProxyPort

Now save those settings and try making a SIP call. If you don’t see the SIP option lit up on the Dialer pad then you may just need to wait a few seconds for it to connect to Vonage

fring itunes sip skype voice over ip voip vonage

Only registered users can comment.

  3. @ANNOUNCER
    Yeah no kidding! Looks like my plugin that scrapes Reddit & Digg for comments had a seizure. Had to disable it for the time being and delete the 115 duplicate comments :S

  4. Thank you muchly for this.

    For those in the U.S. using fring, you don’t need the +1 or even a 1 to dial. That gave me some confusion at first. After that it worked perfectly.

  5. Ok, I’m not sure I understand the purpose of that…
    Can you actually make calls from your iPhone using your Vonage account via SIP? Can you also receive calls to your Vonage # on your iPhone?

  6. I was skeptical but I have to admit, when my girlfriend’s cellphone started ringing I was floored. Nice job!

  7. I followed procedure exactly as listed. However, I keep getting “User ID or password is incorrect”. I am entering in the username and the encrypted password as listed on the config page followed by the a.vonim.com:10000
    Any help would be much appreciated.

  8. Just to ensure whether if my credentials are in fact correct, I downloaded X-lite application on my Mac and entered them and it works flawlessly! So I suppose it is something with fring on my iphone. I could try alternate SIP application I guess..

  9. nvm.. everything works now!! 😀 It was a FAIL on my part! lol took me long enough to realize one of the character was actually uppercase!! Only reason it worked on computer was because I copy pasted it! 😛

  10. Just tuning into your world of the Iphones and Blackberry, please excuse the ignorance.
    I am currently searching for a plan that is inexpensive, I use Vonage at home –
    When I purchase the Iphone do I purchase it without a plan and use Vonage as you describe?
    If I am in another city can I use the phone (here at home when I go to far from the base it shuts off). I need to travel with this phone; can I use Vonage without penalties?
    I am damned excited about this. If I can use Vonage as if I were here at home in the office while on the road – life would be brilliant.

  11. It works great with Fring on iPhone. I have placed few calls with it and everything.. my only concern is that when you call number that involved selecting digits through dialer, it does not work as there is no dialer when you’re on a call.
    Have you heard of iPico app for iPhone? It seems to be really intuitive and I think it will solve the dialer issue but I can’t seem to configure it to get it to work. It would be great app if anyone can configure this thing.

  12. Anyone try this with iPico? Sot sipphone to work but cant get the setting right for ipico??? It asks me for the domain which I use a.vonim.com and the proxy server whcih I’m not sure what to put and then the Port which I put 10000. Any help appreciated, thanks!

  13. @Sebastien – Yes, you can make calls using your Vonage account. That’s the point! So when you need to make long distance calls, you’re out of country or are out of minutes you can dial out from your Vonage account and use those minutes. Fring does not allow you to recieve calls via VOIP, however with Vonage you can set up simulring so it rings your cell as well. I believe some jailbroken apps allow incoming calls but I’m not sure.

  14. @itap – It’s not that simple, sadly. You still need to have an active internet connection to do this. Fring can’t be used over 3G (only Wifi) as per AT&T’s rules they force Apple into following. But if you download SIAX or something similar you can. If you’re like me and almost always have a wifi signal available then this can be a huge money saver, especially if you need to make international calls. I will write a follow up in a few days using SIAX and any other jailbroken alternatives I can find. When I wrote this article I had just upgraded to 3.0 and wasn’t jailbroken yet, so I chose Fring. However I just did some reading and SIAX allows incoming calls and can now run in the background with 3.0 — just need to find a way around the licensing (unless it is cheap). Stay tuned…

  16. Hm. Fring accepts my details and logs me in, and whatever I dial I hear a ringing tone, but the phone I’m calling doesn’t respond. Any tips? Thanks

  17. Fring did, however, successfully receive a call to my Vonage number. Which I wasn’t expecting.

  18. Ok. I had this working over the weekend but today as soon as I attempt to make a call I get “call terminated”. Is this because Vonage has put the Kabosh on this loop hole. Is anyone else seeing this same error. Any feedback appreciated. It is definitely logging in as I am getting the SIP key lighting up indicating that I have successfully been authenticated by the server. However as mentioned above now cannot make calls but could earlier.

  19. Firstly this is a great solution and kuddos fettesPS. Has any one tried making a international call? It doesn’t seem to work any workaround?

    Thanks

  20. I dialed 011 country code number also tried country code number no it says please signup for vonage local calls works fine

    Thanks

  21. Very cool thank you. Now here is a question if anyone can help it would be very appreciated:

    I have two vonage lines and I would like to set up each lines on two different instances of Fring. Neither are softphone lines. When I use the above method to find my SIP settings I get the settings for my single vonage account.

    Any suggestions on how to distinguish either vonage line for the Fring / SIP configuration?

  22. Great find! my only problem is not able to make international calls using my fring on my iphone tried 011 (country code) number and + (country code) number. Local US calls works great.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks

  23. I tried with fring, but getting error… “user name or password incorrect.” tired so many times with upper case lower case and as it is giving in SIP2 config.. no luck.. any clue please…

  24. Same problem with me… its not allowing international calls… with vonage announcing free calls to 60 countries I was very excited but hardluck… I searched the internet for a solution but was not able to find anything…. can anybody help!!

  28. I got it working in Fring, but not with Siphon. Any one knows if it is working for international? Thanks.

  31. Fring accepts my details and logs me in, and whatever I dial I hear a ringing tone, but the phone I’m calling doesn’t respond.

    Fring did successfully receive a call to my Vonage number but could not hear anything on both phones.

  32. Can’t get it to work. I used cut and paste on the iPhone to be sure I’m doing the password correctly. I get “Error\nUse ID or password is incorrect” everytime. And ideas to debug or what silly thing I might be doing wrong?

  33. Only one missing might be port number. You must supply domainName:portNumber which is fixed for most of vonage accounts in us. a.vonim.com:10000

  34. Any luck on intl. calls? The domain name for intl. calls must be different and should still be authenticating you with same user/pwd.

  36. I am able to setup using the details, portsip on winmo 6.5 and xlite on my desktop and i can hear the other person very clearly, but they are not able here me properly, in fact they could not understand me at all. Do you know what would be the reason? it cannot be with portsip since i had the exact same issue with xlite on desktop.

  37. @ Vega – Is this happening only when you do it on a computer? What about regular calls with a handset? I find Vonage does stuff like that all the time for me on regular calls, which is why I hardly use it these days.

  38. Is there any good desktop free version software that can be configured with these user,pwd, domain:port settings ??

  39. I was successful to log in to Fring via an iphone 3GS.
    First – note that Fring / Vonage will only work on wifi and not 3G…
    Second – you will receive calls to your vonage number
    Third – You can make US /Canada calls
    Fourth – You can’t make international calls – as some of you experienced if you dial 011-(plus country code & phone #), you will immediately hear Vonage’s recording that this call if free for other vonage phones. However, if you have it saved in your contact as a + (instead of 011), and dial it that way the call will go thru but you will only hear the ringing tone. The other party may receive the call, but they can’t hear anything, while from your end you still keep hearing the ringing tone. So in short. International calls are not working as of now. Unless anyone of you have a better solution, please update us. Many thanks!

  40. anyone know why I can make a call and hear it rigging on my Iphone, but the line I am calling is not recieving the call. I aslo can pick up a call with my iphone, but I can not hear anything on both lines. If anyone can help, I will be very thankfull.

  41. @Raj

    I configured with x-lite and it works fine and the call is clear.

    Raj says:
    September 2, 2009 at 11:34 am
    Is there any good desktop free version software that can be configured with these user,pwd, domain:port settings ??

  42. Vega,

    Is there anything special you did in x-lite to get it to work with Vonage? I keep trying but it’s saying proxy authentication is required. Do I need to subscribe to the Vonage softphone service first?

  48. I have been using this URL for months, but it isn’t working today. I wonder if this is just temporary or if too many people were using this… I would not that the official Vonage app doesn’t work now either (Mac) but that may or may not be related.

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