VOIP Tech Chat → script for Voxbeam on dynamic IP address

Attached is a perl script for use with voxbeam, which monitors your dynamic IP address for changes and updates the site when needed.

In case you're not familiar with them, voxbeam is a "wholesale" VoIP termination provider. Like players such as FlowRoute and Bandwidth.com, they have many small customers who don't resell anything, but use the service for personal or business calling. Think of them as the Costco or Sam's Club of VoIP.

IMO, they fill a niche at an excellent value. Although quality and reliability are generally not as good as with Anveo or Callcentric, rates are much lower. Likewise, although rates are higher than those of Betamax brands, voxbeam quality and reliability are better.

You get $1 free credit at signup, so you can test without making a payment or providing any financial info. You can dynamically set outbound caller ID. They do not proxy the media.

However, there are some gotchas. Minimum top-up is $50, expiring after one year. If you pay by credit card, you'll need to provide a copy of the card and a photo ID. By Paypal, the account must be verified. Both credit card and Paypal payments are subject to a 2.5% surcharge. You can pay by ACH transfer to avoid the surcharge, using electronic bill payment offered by your bank, broker or credit union.

They also require authentication by IP address. If you have a dynamic IP that frequently changes, that can be a big hassle. This script aims to avoid that.

It's written in perl; the version that comes preinstalled on a Mac or Linux system should be fine. On Windows, if you don't have perl, get the free package from ActiveState »www.activestate.com/acti ··· ownloads .

You must edit the script for your voxbeam email address and password. If you will run it on the same network as your SIP server or device(s), no other change should be needed. Otherwise, you must have a dynamic DNS name. Uncomment and edit the $host_name parameter; you can then run the script anywhere on the Internet.

Feel free to use this code for any purpose, but if you fix a bug or add a feature, please make the changes publicly available.

Some disclaimers: The script may not perform as intended, so keep an alternate way to make calls, and/or an alternate way to update your IP address(es) on voxbeam. In particular, a change to the design of voxbeam's site will likely render the script non-functional. Don't even think about using it in an emergency -- voxbeam does not provide 911 or any other emergency calling service. Although very unlikely, if the script fails to remove an IP address that is no longer yours, it's conceivable that the new owner will make calls on your voxbeam account and drain it. Also unlikely, the script might beat heavily on the voxbeam server, causing them to terminate your account.

Bug reports, questions and comments are welcome.

 
You can pay by Paypal Mass Payment to avoid the surcharge.
 

Stewart if i mistake not your scrip is to automate the manual ip update with VB. So does it run in background everytime my mac got online? Please elaborate and explain about "#$host_name = 'myhost.dyndns.org'

Now do you know of any rates better than voxbeam which use sip registration instead?

And can I use Callcentric or other providers' SIP/xxx translation to route calls thru my VB account?

Thanks

The script is intended to be run continuously in the background, e.g. started by one of the system startup scripts or as a scheduled task.

If the machine running the script is on the same LAN as the device or system using voxbeam, you should leave the $host_name parameter commented out. If you have a local Asterisk, FreeSWITCH, etc., it's probably simplest to run the script on that system.

If you don't have a local always-on machine, e.g. you are using voxbeam directly from ATAs or IP phones, you can run the script elsewhere on the Internet, e.g. on a PBX in the cloud or where your web service is hosted. In that case, uncomment the $host_name parameter and edit it to specify a dynamic DNS name that is updated by your router.To where???

For most destinations, there is almost always a Betamax provider with lower rates, often much lower, but IMO you get what you pay for. Among those brands, Easyvoip is IMO the lowest on average across many destinations, but is generally not the best to a specific country and carrier. »backsla.sh/betamax

For some destinations, providers such as CallWithUs, Future-Nine and VoIP.ms are lower. In a few cases, calling an expensive carrier in a given country, the mainstream providers with "blended" rates will be lower.Hell, no. If other users of that provider got wise to it, they could clean your account out!