International VoIP Calls to, or from, India

Inbound International VoIP Calls to India

Inbound international VoIP calls to India can be made from most any country worldwide using a variety of service providers.

Inbound calls to India are perfectly okay as long as they fit into one of two categories.

VoIP call terminates on a VoIP-enabled device in India. Inbound calls that terminate on a VoIP-enabled device in India, regardless of where or how the call originates, are legal and pose no problems.

At least 3 types of devices can be VoIP-enabled: a PC, a smartphone, or a VoIP digital phone. Enabling a PC or a laptop involves downloading and installing a 'VoIP softphone' (aka 'VoIP client') to the device. This is done just as you would install any software on your computer.

Enabling a VoIP digital phone requires 2 things: 1) buying a VoIP phone and 2) installing a VoIP adapter or ATA (analog terminal adapter). The VoIP ATA is often obtained directly from your provider. Set-up is normally fairly easy (famous last words).

VoIP call terminates on an India landline or mobile phone. You can also receive inbound international VoIP calls on your regular phone - as long as the call is handled correctly as it enters the country. The VoIP call can originate from any type of VoIP connection.

For the call to be completely legit, the inbound call must be passed over from the VoIP network to the regular phone network using an authorized international VoIP gateway.

This sounds very complicated, but basically it is a simple thing done routinely by voice carriers. In many countries, this transfer can occur at many different points, but regulations in India require that this handoff be done in a certain way - either prior to the call arriving in India or if done in India, it must be done on an authorized international gateway. Part of what happens with this handover is that proper tariffs are applied to your call per India regulations.

Since this transfer involves raise costs for customers and carriers, it is not surprising that illegal VoIP gateways are operated in India that try to avoid these tariffs. These will typically work perfectly fine - up until the moment they are shutdown entirely by the regulators (for instance as in this story). To avoid this circumstance, you should sign only with reputable carriers.

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Making calls that terminate in one of the two ways above can be accomplished in several ways with different types of VoIP service. For instance, you could terminate to a regular phone either via a web-activated VoIP service (such as Jajah) or from a VoIP digital phone service, or from a VoIP dial out service (such as SkypeOut), among other possible connection methods.

Outbound International VoIP Calls from India (ILD VoIP Calls)

Outbound international VoIP calling is sort of like inbound calling in reverse - except only in very specific circumstances is the second option (originating a call on a regular landline or mobile phone) allowed.

In other words, there are a variety of ways you can use VoIP-enabled devices in India to make outbound international calls, but there are very few ways to originate an international VoIP call from a regular India landline or mobile phone.

So let's look at options.

VoIP call originates on a VoIP-enabled device in India. Outbound international calls that originate on a VoIP-enabled device in India are legal and pose no problems.

As above, at least 3 types of devices can be VoIP-enabled: a PC, a smartphone, or a VoIP digital phone. Enabling a PC or a laptop involves downloading and installing a 'VoIP softphone' (aka 'VoIP client') to the device. This is done just as you would install any software on your computer.

Enabling a VoIP digital phone requires 2 things: 1) buying a VoIP phone and 2) installing a VoIP adapter or ATA (analog terminal adapter). The VoIP ATA is often obtained directly from your provider. Set-up is normally fairly easy (famous last words).

You can place calls using any of several types of VoIP service - e.g., a PC-to-PC softphone (e.g., Skype), or a VoIP digital phone service (e.g., World Phone), among others.

Depending the VoIP service provider you use, you can make outbound calls to other VoIP-enabled devices or to regular landline or mobile phones.

VoIP call originates on a regular landline or mobile phone in India. In general, it is not possible to originate VoIP calls on regular phones in India - unless you use a particular kind of VoIP service we call 'calling card VoIP'.

Calling card VoIP works more or less like regular calling cards in that they originate and terminate on regular phones. You dial as you would from a regular telephone to an access number and from there dial your international number.

They are VoIP services insofar as they are explicitly set up to carry the 'long haul' portion via a VoIP network - the 'long haul' portion being the long distance overseas segment of the call. So, the call jumps onto the VoIP network somewhere after the call begins, then it jumps back onto the regular phone network near where the call terminates - obeying local VoIP regulations at both ends.

Not too many companies offer this type of service, but a couple of examples are FreeCallPlanet.com and Pingo.com. Actually, if you looked under the covers of most cheap calling cards, they would also work like this - the only difference being that they are not explicit about their use of VoIP technology for call transport.