Own a US Number from India/Other Countries @ 70ps/min

How about owning or having a USA (United States of America) phone number on your Business card in addition to the local contact points.
Certainly it boosts your possibilities of getting American or European clients, who can call and get in touch with you immediately without having to pay huge amounts towards airtime. This is also useful for people travelling, as they need not pay international roaming charges for their existing numbers. Rather, they can have their families call a  USA number and receive it on a local number in the country of visit.
All you have to Pay is just 70ps_/min (India), and very similar or even cheaper rates for other country users. Isn’t that interesting?
So this is how you can do it.

Method 1
With this service, you can get an incoming USA or UK or even other countries numbers for as low as Rs.45/- per month. Ain’t that cool?
Localphone is a service that provides the setup & facility, to get an incoming number at the country of choice. Click the logo above to know more about their incoming service. Following are the steps towards creating a USA number for yourself.

1. Register for Localphone Incoming DID service.
2. Buy a number for the Country (e.g. USA) in the state (e.g. GA) of your choice with a nominal one time setup fee.
3.  Then you can select the City (area code; e.g. Atlanta) which will be the starting number
   • Note: You will have to pay 0.99¢ per month to keep the service alive.
4.  Once you have your Incoming Number you can decide where you want to forward the calls to (your landline/cell). If you forward calls to a landline or mobile you’ll pay their low rates to take the call. For example, if you forward calls from an American Incoming Number to an Indian mobile you’ll pay the Indian rates (1.5¢ per min) to take the call.

That’s it, the Localphone DID Service number now automatically forwards all the calls to your number in India.
Preferably use the image link above or enter the email id – deepeshmd@gmail.com as recommender when you sign up for the localphone account. It helps us keep alive 🙂

Method 2
This method extends your method 1 to call back to USA for the same cost. Not only that, it also saves you the Incoming Number setup hassle, and money. So no setup fees or monthly fees for an Incoming number.
But the method has a caveat. This uses Google Voice Account. The service is available only for US residents, and opens up only there. To use the service to call back, you will need to have a Smart Phone, which supports Google Voice (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc)
We still do have a work around….!
 

1. The way Google voice registers is, it rings you on a USA phone number to enter a 2 digit code on your phone. For this you will have to go thru the following steps.
2. Create a free SIP account with Iptel http://serweb.iptel.org/user/reg/index.php
3. Register for a free USA DID with Ipkall here
   http://phone.ipkall.com/
   Choose any number (xxx-xxx-xxxx) with Ipkall. Put your sip account details in Ipkall info, so that the call can be forwarded to your SIP account.
4. Configure your VOIP router or Softphone to receive calls from the SIP account you created on step one
   1. SIP Phone number: your IPtel user name (ex: John.Smith)
   2. SIP Proxy: iptel.org
5. Test your US DID, by calling the US number you created in step-3 (IpKall)
6. Download and install a US VPN (to bypass country restriction)
   1. HotSpot Shield – http://hotspotshield.com/ OR
   2. TunnelBear – http://www.tunnelbear.com/ (I prefer this)
7. Launch Hotspot Shield OR Tunnel Bear
8. Go to http://www.google.com/voice or Click on your Google Voice invitation (see, no more country restriction message)
9. Choose your new USA phone number
10. When requested, enter the US phone number you created with IPKall
11. Now, activate the USA number, where Google will call the number, which you receive on the associated phone number. This can again be a localphone number attached to your local country number.

That’s it.

1. Now use the Google Voice Number to register on LocalPhone
2. Register your India Number as a call phone. Say you got a number 678-XXX-XXXX
   • Calls using this service will charge 1.5¢ per min (Re.0.70 per min)
3. Register the number 678-XXX-XXXX with Google too so that any calls to GoogleVoice will be forwarded to 678-XXX-XXXX which inturn will call your India Phone number 🙂

Hope you are proud enough to have a USA/UK Number on your visiting card 🙂