Vonage has proven to be a much lower cost and reliable pbx for us. Yes we can build an asterisk server but, you know, pick your fights. However getting Zoiper and other softphones to work with it has been a challenge. A few things have changed.

First there is the official Vonage Mac Desktop App (not a phone, but a management console.). It requires you to install Silverlight which is linked from the installation pages. Yes "Microsoft Silverlight" on a Mac so I installed mine in an alternate browser as Chrome doesn't support it.

vonage-silverlight2.png

vonage-silverlight.png

Silverlight is installed. Yea. Next up is the Vonage Desktop App.

Mac Desktop for Vonage
https://www.vonage.com/downloads/

vonage-mac-desktop.png

Then Vonage Desktop Business App for Mac shows you something like this (fake data of course).

blue-vonage.png

vonage-mac-business-desktop-but-not-a-phone.png

But as a reminder, while this might LOOK like a phone - indeed it is NOT. It is a desktop app to see the status of your phone systems. Thus we have a bit more work to do so we can answer the phone on our gaming headset.

You would THINK if vonage had a desktop app for the Mac they would have a softphone for the Mac as well. And you'd be wrong. They don't. They DO have a softphone for personal subscribers to vonage that works on the Mac, but not one that works with their busines accounts.

Setting up a business softphone goes a bit like this:

To set up a softphone you have to first add the "device" on vonage's site. That is explained here:
http://support.vonagebusiness.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1042

Next up is the softphone itself. Think of it like Skype for a business line so your call has the company number and not your personal cell number. They recommend x-lite which is a free voip softphone.

https://www.vonage.ca/en/
https://www.counterpath.com/x-lite-download/ <---- download

Note you may have to temporarily allow downloads from untrusted sources in your Mac settings under the "Security" tab. Once you start the install it should look similar to this:

Next up is to install our softphone.

vonage-counterpath-x-lite.png

Download and start the install and you should be on your way with a dialog similar to this one from CounterPath's X-Lite.

vonage-install-x-lite-softphone2.png

And dragging this over to apps and you are in business.

vonage-install-x-lite-softphone.png

Now comes the HARD part. Trying to translate Vonage lingo into normal telephone and softphone lingo is not an easy thing to do. From their help files. THis is the theory anyway. 

vonagebusiness-x-lite-instructions.png

So how does that map to your vonage business account? Log into your vonage account and click on "devices" at the bottom of an extension. It doesn't look clickable but it is (no hand, pointer remains the same, but it does expand)Like this:

skitch-blur.png

Now we have Vonage Business desktop installed, added our device using the vonage web stie. Next we need to try to map that to an account in x-lite, hwich in theory looks about like this:

vonagebusiness-x-lite-instructions.png

WIth this data we should be able to then successfully connect x-lite to our vonage business server.

x-lite-configuration.png

Note that we are in no way affiliated with vonage or the makers of x-lite. This was originally an internal help file but I've had enough people ask me about it I figured we should make it public.

One final note, for the curious, I am using a Logitech G930 on a Mac and it works just fine. Of course it was a recommendation from a certain gamer that I know. Wireless headsets rule. 

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