Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone

The iPhone and iPod touch are almost indistinguishable devices exceptfor one major difference—you can make calls from your iPhone, and youcan't from your iPod touch. For the privilege of making phone callswith your iPhone, you have to pay $100 more upfront to Apple for thedevice itself, plus a minimum of $60/month to AT&T for the next twoyears. Let's say you didn't need that kind of firepower from your iPodtouch, but that you would like to use it make a phone call every nowand then. You can, and today I'm going to show you how to make VoIPphone calls from your iPod touch or iPhone using a freeware application called SIP-VoIP.
What You'll Need

1.) A jailbroken iPod touch or iPhone. If you haven't already jailbroken your device, don't worry—it'll just take 45 seconds.
2.) iPhone headphones with mics don't work with the iPod touch, so if you're using an iPod touch you'll need a Touchmod mic.The Touchmod mics come in a variety of flavors, from the simple donglethat plugs into the syncing port to the headphone-and-mic combo thatworks much like the iPhone headphones. The hardware will set you backsomewhere between $50 and $60.
3.) The freeware SIP-VoIP application. Read on for details for installing SIP-VoIP below.
UPDATE: Just today (4/15) it looks like another VoIP app for the iPhone has emerged called Fring.Fring promises to work with both Skype and SIP accounts, but likeSIP-VoIP it's still young and not entirely perfect. I haven't tried ityet, but it might be a viable alternative to SIP-VoIP, and can be installed just as easily.
Install SIP-VoIPAssuming you've got the hardware you need and you've prepared yourdevice, now it's time to install the VoIP application. If you don't yethave a mic, you can test that SIP-VoIP is successfully making callsbefore you purchase it.
I'm going to cover two different ways of installing SIP-VoIP. Thefirst and easiest method is with Installer.app, the program that isautomatically installed when you jailbreak your iPod. The second methodis more difficult, but it's good to have around in case you run intoerrors (which I did).

Method 1 - Install SIP-VoIP with Installer.app:First, since SIP-VoIP isn't found in Installer.app by default, you needto add the Touchmods repository to Installer. To do so, launchInstaller and head to the Sources tab. Now tap Edit -> Add, and typehttp://touchmods.net/rep.xml into the Add Source dialog. Hit OK, and Installer will refresh your sources, this time including your new Touchmods repository.

Nowgo to the Install tab and find the entry labeled Touchmods. Insideyou'll see an app called Touchmods SIP-VoIP. Go ahead and installSIP-VoIP by tapping the entry, tapping the install button, and thenverifying that you want to install this application from an "untrusted"source.
This is by far the easiest method for installing SIP-VoIP, but I hadtrouble with the latest version of SIP-VoIP (version 1.2) on my iPodtouch, so I had to install a previous version (1.1). Since you can onlyinstall the latest with Installer, I'll also demonstrate how to installolder versions of SIP-VoIP. I'd recommend trying it the easy way first,then moving to the following method if you have trouble. If you'retaking the easy route the first time around, skip to the Set Up an SIPAccount section below.
Method 2 - Install SIP-VoIP over SSH: To install previousversions of SIP-VoIP, you'll need to first install OpenSSH throughInstaller.app (you can find it under Install -> System). Now you'llneed to connect to your iPod using a desktop FTP client that supportsSFTP connections (like FileZilla for Windows or Cyberduckfor OS X). This will allow you to browse and copy files to your iPodlike you would if you could access the disk as an external hard driveon your computer.

Toconnect to your device from your computer, you'll need to know youriPod touch's or iPhone's IP address. You can find this by opening theSettings app, tapping Wi-Fi, and then tapping the blue arrow next tothe network you're connected to.

Now that you've got that, start up your FTP client of choice, enter the IP address as you server, and use root for your username and alpineas your password. Once connected, navigate to the Applications folder(just above the root folder). That's where your iPhone and iPod touchkeep all of their applications. From here it's a simple matter ofdragging and dropping the appropriate SIP-VoIP app to the applicationsfolder.
For this article, I'm using the 1.1 version of SIP-VoIP, which you can download here.Once downloaded, unzip the file and then drag and drop the SIP-VoIP.appfile to your Applications folder. Finally, restart your iPod or iPhoneand the new app should show up on your home screen.
Set Up an SIP Account

Unfortunately the SIP-VoIP app doesn't work with the most popular VoIP app Skype (it uses the SIPprotocol), which means you'll have to set up an account with anotherservice to use the app. Luckily there are tons of options out therethat can work with SIP-VoIP. I used a service called FreeCall, so that's what I'll highlight in my examples, but the Touchmods blog lists a handful of alternatives.
If you want to follow along exactly with my settings, head to the FreeCall signup pageand register for an account. After you register, you'll need to buysome minutes for your call time. FreeCall is an international service,so when it asks for your cell phone (to which it sends an SMSconfirmation), you'll need to include your country code; for example,it would look something like 0015555551234 if you're in the US. Theminimum purchase with FreeCall is 10 euros, which amounts to around$16. Once you've purchased some calling time with FreeCall, it's timeto enter your setup configuration in SIP-VoIP and start making calls.
NOTE: If you don't want to spend money off the bat, you might want to try signing up with a service like Gizmo5 (formerly Gizmo Project), which offers a small amount of trial credit.
Set Up SIP-VoIP to Make Calls

Finally,we're ready to set up SIP-VoIP with the SIP provider you registeredwith above. Launch the app from your iPod touch or iPhone's homescreen, then tap on Settings in the bottom right corner. You'll see avery rudimentary form where you'll enter the settings for the SIPaccount you set up above.

Ifyou used FreeCall like I did, enter your FreeCall username and passwordin the first two fields (other services will use the number they'veassigned you as the username), then sip.voiparound.comin the field labeled SIP-Server (see screenshot). There are morefields, but for FreeCall that should be all you need. Hit Save to saveyour settings—you may have to hit return on the iPod's keyboard todismiss it and see the Save button—and then tap the dial tab to head tothe dialpad.
Before you make your first call, you have to connect the applicationto the SIP server, so click the button labeled "connect to sip server"in the lower left. If all goes well, it'll connect without a hitch.(This is where I ran into some problems with version 1.2 on the iPodtouch. 1.2 connected without issue from my iPhone, but I kept gettingconnection error messages with 1.2 on my iPod touch. If you're havingsimilar problems, installing version 1.1 may help.) If it connectedsuccessfully, all you've got to do is dial your number (country codeincluded, depending on which service you go with) and hit the callbutton.
I actually stumbled onto a video on YouTube of a precocious kidusing a Touchmods mic with SIP-VoIP and FreeCall. There are several ofthese videos on YouTube—I particularly like this speaker phone setup. Check out his video below to get a better look at what the final result is.

Set up Inbound numberYour FreeCall account only handles outbound calls, but you're not outof luck if you want to add inbound functionality to your iPod touch.You can register your FreeCall SIP account with other services, like IPKall,to get a free phone number that will ring your iPod touch. (The onlycatch is that you're limited to a state of Washington area code). Iwon't go into details on setting up an inbound number, but you can findmore details from this post at the Touchmods blog.

The SIP-VoIP app has been in development for a while, and thoughit's still not much to look at, it seems to be improving over time. TheiPhone and iPod touch 2.0 firmware will officially hit the streetssometime in June with support for third party apps through Apple, sowho knows what kind of VoIP apps we'll see when that time comes.
Whether or not we'll ever see Skype or another VoIP app officially supported for the iPhone (Apple says they'll allow VoIP over Wi-Fi),SIP-VoIP is already there. My experience with it has been hit-or-miss,and it's got miles to go before it's the friendliest app around, butwhether you'd like to make international calls for cheap or you justwant to want to reach out and touch someone from your iPod touch, thefolks at Touchmods and SIP-VoIP are already providing the tools to dojust that.
No, you don't get visual voicemail, text messaging, or a built-incamera, but you do get to make and receive phone calls from your iPodtouch—which in itself shows a lot of promise.