VoIP- IN Numbers
(09-July-06 - Note: It appears that Betamax may have suspended their free VoIP-IN numbers without warning for new customers in the past week. All references to VoIP-IN numbers have been removed from their provider sites. Can anybody confirm this or is this only temporary? Please send us an email if you have any further info.)
28-July 2006 -According to a post on the VoIPBuster forum Voip-IN numbers will no longer be available from any Betamax provider. Previously issued numbers can still be used.
All of the Betamax VoIP providers offer free VoIP-IN numbers, which will allow others to phone you no matter where you are in the world. You will have to be resident in one of the countries on the list. If not you can still get a number if you provide an address in one of these countries when you sign up. Most important you will have to have a positve credit balance in your account before you are allocated a number.
The following countries are available for VoIP-IN numbers:
Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK. (Status 27 June 2006).
This list tends to change ( the same as their rates), so check the VoIP provider sites regularly if other countries become available. Austria and Latvia were recently removed from the list.
In Germany the following area codes are available:
0201(Essen) 0211(Düsseldorf) 0221(Köln) 0231(Dortmund) 030(Berlin) 0341(Leipzig) 0351(Dresden) 0361(Erfurt) 0381(Rostock) 0391(Magdeburg) 040(Hamburg)
0421(Bremen) 0431(Kiel) 0511(Hannover) 0521(Bielefeld) 0621(Mannheim) 069(Frankfurt) 0711(Stuttgart) 0721(Karlsruhe) 0821(Augsburg) 089(Munich) 0911(Nürnberg) 0931(Würzburg)
If you provide an address from one of these cities then you will be allocated a number from this city. If not you will receive a random or a (non geographic) 032 number.
All of the Betamax VoIP services expect the numbers to be dialed in the following format:
00+44+Area code+number. (44 for the UK for example)
In some countries it is now possible to dial a local number without the 00 and the country code. (This seems to be limited to some European countries, but go ahead and test if it also applicable to your home country). This option depends on the address you registered.