Asterisk is supposed to work pretty well on NetBSD.  I am currently
using it on a Linux box (I need the G.729 codec that is only available
as a binary module) and it works well for me.
http://www.asterisk.org/

If you get a hard phone like a cheap Grandstream
http://www.grandstream.com/ or a POTS <-> VoIP adapter like the Sipura
SPA-3000 http://www.sipura.com/ you will be able to have what seems
like a "normal" phone that calls anything / anywhere.  You can also
use "soft phones" to make calls from a computer with a headset or just
a mic/speaker combo.

If you sign-up with Pulver Free World Dialup (
http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ ) you can call others on the FWD
dialing plan, and some other VoIP networks (
http://www.freeworlddialup.com/advanced/peering_numbers ) directly.

You can use someone like IConnectHere to get long distance to the PSTN
for cheap, use http://www.ipkall.com/ to get a free POTS *incoming*
phone number that routes to your asterisk box, or just about any
combination of services.

I suggest going to http://www.voip-info.org/ and reading up on
Asterisk and other solutions that are available.

I hope to start using Asterisk on NetBSD soon (Thanks Jeff for porting
those drivers), but I will lose access to my G.729 codec on NetBSD so
it will take some re-design.

Anyway, I won't claim to be any expert, or even have an optimum setup,
but I am fairly familiar with getting the basics setup with Asterisk,
inter-asterisk-exchange connections, Digium hardware setup, etc.  Feel
free to ask questions.

-Andrew

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 16:50:38 -0600, Richard Rauch <rkr@olib.org> wrote:
> As usual, I'm asking here because (a) The NetBSD community is quite
> knowledgable, (b) this is NetBSD related, (c) I suspect that others
> have solved this already, and (d) googling for it will probably
> produce 10,000 hits that don't really quite get at what I want to
> do.  (^&
> 
> A year or so ago, I looked at internet telephony.  I was disappointed
> that I couldn't get the only package I could find (openh23) to work.
> Or, rather, on the machines I tried (maybe excepting 1), it couldn't
> pick up any voice to speak of (no pun intended).  I now believe that
> this is because the default audio record settings are basically of
> no value; one needs to use audioctl and/or mixerctl adjustments
> (often different with each different audio device, one per machine)
> to get any kind of recording.
> 
> So, now I'm thinking about this again.  My interest is to both send
> and receive calls, though receive-only would be adequate.  I'd rather
> not pay anything above my Internet connection (which trundles along
> nicely on a DSL link).  I have a static IP and my own domain; the
> main person I'd like to speak to (a brother, with whom I collaborate
> and consult on various topics; sometimes he helps me, sometimes I
> help him) has only a dynamic IP and a WIN32 box.  (Though in practice
> his "dynamic" IP tends to stay static for long periods of time; I
> do not know if his provider knocks him off from time to time or just
> leaves him online.  He tends to believe the latter.)
> 
> My brother lives far enough away that a local call won't handle
> it (nor is it practical to meet him face to face), and my PCS phone
> can run up a big bill in a hurry if I use it indiscriminately during
> weekdays.
> 
> Ideal would be for people using commercial software/providers to
> be able to call me (or perhaps even vice versa) without my paying
> for a provider---since I have my own IP.  (^&  (Well, even better
> would be the above, plus to be able to use an "Internet phone" to
> make outgoing calls to regular phone numbers more or less anywhere
> in the world at a very low rate (or perhaps even for a flat rate),
> and receive such calls, so that I could consider dispensing with
> my PCS phone.)
> 
> What kinds of options are there for me on NetBSD?  (Pref. on
> non-i386---though if building from pkgsrc, that presumably wouldn't
> be an issue.)  Is this easy and free?
> 
> What about privacy?  Do any open standards have built in encryption
> (do they all?)?
> 
> --
>   "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/
>