Do I need Asterisk?

Ok,
My goal is to have a free single residential phone line.
Having read documents until my eyes bled I have FINALLY managed to get a Grandstream HT-386 working with sipgate. Although not completely free it is pretty cheap. The one caveat is that do to port forwarding problems I had to connect directly to the Comcast Modem/Gateway and use a 10.x.x.x from it instead of going through my Belkin router and switch to use my 192.168.0.x LAN. I don’t know how much of a problem that might be. Now, my questions:

  1. Do I even need Asterisk for what I am trying to achieve.

  2. It seems as though there are many free incoming services but few free outgoing. What do I need to change in order to use a free outgoing service, can you recommend any, and, what parameters do I need in order to use Asterisk server (or do I even need Asterisk for that matter). I have trixbox 2.6 installed and running. I so appreciate people with larger than average brains who give of themselves to help the rest of us. Here is my configuration and hardware specifications:

Specifications and Versions:

TRIXBOX
Canonical Hostname trixbox1.localdomain
Distro Name CentOS release 5.5 (Final)
Kernel Version 2.6.18-164.11.1.el5 (SMP)

HARDWARE

Server PC:
Model Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.66GHz
CPU Speed 2.66 GHz

CableModem:
SMC 8014
Firmware Version 4.01.21-CCR

LAN Router:
Belkin f5d9230-4 Mimo Wireless G Plus
Firmware Version 4.01.21-CCR

LAN Switch:
TEG-S80TXE 10/100/1000 Switch ver. B1

SIP ATA Device:
GrandStream HandyTone 386 :
Software Version: Program-- 1.0.2.9 Bootloader-- 1.0.1.0
HTML-- 1.0.0.10 VOC-- 1.0.0.10

SIP Accounts Available

GoogleVoice
Phonebooth
iptel.org

ip’s
trixbox 192.168.0.44

router 192.168.0.1

cableModem 67.168.x.x

Current Configuration:

Phone <–> Grandstream HT-386 <–> CableModemGateway <–> Comcast Business Switch (external) <–> Internet

Desired Configuration?

Phone <–> Grandstream HT-386 <–> Switch <–> Router<–>CableModemGateway <–> Internet
/
/
trixbox/Asterisk Server

I think you are essentially looking for a completely free service provider. They simply do not exist.

The best you will probably do is a use a service like voipcheap.com or voipbuster.com. This service will allow to make free outgoing phone calls for 90 days and then they will charge you after that. Normally calls in the US are 1 cent/minute.

All these services can be setup on your Grandstream HT-386.