High Tech Fish Trading In Thrissur Fish Market :)

SMSs tend to arrive at all wrong times.But more than 200 people in Thrissur City and surroundings look forward to C I Devassy's 6:30 AM SMS.

Devassy's family has been in fish business for more than 60 years and the members have been inhabitants of Shakthan fish market ,Thrissur district which is in southern most state of India-Kerala, ever since it was established 24 years ago.But it required a combination of the youngest member of the family and a modern gadget to come up with an innovation that would capture imagination of the public.

Earlier Devassy used to get a lot of calls from people who wanted to know the prices for the day.It used to take lot of Devassy's time to tell every single one of them the rates for every type of fish..He tried to introduce a couple of more phones in the shop, but it still was'nt enough to answer all the customer queries.This was when an innovative plan began to take shape in Devassy's mind.

He started using Reliance free SMS pack to text fish prices to around 100 s of regular customers.That was four years ago and Devassy hasn't looked back since.He got more than 200 subscribers now.Every morning his wife texts the fish prices for the day to his customers, and all they have to do is choose the fish,quantity and how they want it and then wait for delivery boy to arrive at their door step.

Tech Notes:-Using US Number In India Mobile And Making Free Calls To US

Recently I had a requirement. Need to call US whenever I require from India. I found the solution.Here is what you require.

Requirements

1. Wifi enabled phone or 3G enabled connection-->I use BSNL 3g on HTC Touch t333
2. A free account from Voxalot.
3. Registration with IPKall for a free US phone number.They will provide you a number from Washington.
4. SIP client for your mobile. I use Portego.

Steps

1. Register for Voxalot account Registration is fairly straight forward.

2.Register for a free IPKall Washington State number. Use the following on the sign up page: Choose your account type – SIP, Choose Area Code for your IPKall Number – ANY, SIP Phone number – , SIP Proxy – “us.voxalot.com” (no quotes), Email Address – , Password – , # of Seconds to ring before hanging up – “120″ (no quotes).You will receive a mail from IPKall with your configuration

           SIP Phone Number: 6 digit number 
         SIP Proxy: us.voxalot.com
         Email: your email address
         Password: password that you configured

3. Download and install Portego SIP client for your mobile phone from portsip

4.Configure Portego
UserName: Username that you received in IPKall mail . 6 digit number
Password: Password that your received in IPKall mail
SIP Server: us.voxalot.com
SIP Port: 5060
Domain Auth Name: Username that you received in IPKall mail . 6 digit number
You need to select codecs G711U,G771A,GSM if not already selected

Once you are done with the configuration, click login. You are all set to use your US number on your mobile in India either over wifi or 3G.

One more enhancement that you can do is to use your Google Voice number to forward calls to your IPKall number.Its important that you use PortGo here because other SIP clients like Fring may not allow you to accept Google voice calls due to its limitations with keypad(You may not get option to press 1 once you receive a google voice call).

How it works

Google voice will connect any two USA numbers or a USA and a Canada number. IPKall will give us a free USA number so we can receive (and make web activated) calls from Google Voice. IPKall then takes that incoming Washington State number and turns it into the SIP protocol and delivers it to a Voxalot SIP address. Voxalot Maintains contact with your hardware or softphone to be able to deliver incoming calls to it as required.