Connect a PC to PSTN network

I have a land-line phone through my ISP. I use it to call land-line phones free of charge like phones in Europe etc. what I want to do is that I want to use this service from any PC so I can call any land-line phone. I'm a newbie in this but what I understood开发者_如何转开发 so far is that I need to install some kind of VOIP server on PC and connect that server to my home router. The VOIP server will provide me with user name/password that I can use on a VOIP client app on any PC. So that I can authenticate myself from anywhere in VOIP server and call for free. I hope I've explained clearly what I want to do. Thanks alot for any help or advice that could put me on the right way. Cheers.

You are probably better of asking this question on serverfault.com (you can also migrate this question to there by editing this question)

you didn't specify if you preferred Windows or Linux, but if Linux is OK for you I'd recommend you look into Asterisk (http://www.asterisk.org/)

While a little daunting at first, it will allow you to do exactly what you want: * it is your VoIP server * you connect it up to your "trunk" (the line provided by your ISP for calls) * you put it on your network * and you can basically authenticate to it using a softphone client on your PC or other device from anywhere and make/receive calls on the line provided by your ISP

With some of the GUI frontends, like FreePBX, basic setup is not too daunting.

Dunno though how you'd do this on a Windows box, I am not familiar with equivalent Windows technical solutions.