SIP softphone pick for the iPad

I decided to find a SIP phone for the family iPad. I started out with three simple criteria:

• It's free (I'm a cheapskate)
• It works, especially in speakerphone mode, because this is an iPad after all
• It pops up an incoming call alert if backgrounded

Of those that are free, I eliminated any that require you to make an account with their own service.

I didn't keep a top-ten list or even a top-three. I just installed and subsequently deleted a bunch of free SIP phones. To my surprise, most didn't really work. But I found one that does, has nice sound quality with speakerphone, a good clean interface and can even register to multiple accounts. That app is NetDial SIP Phone by NeoMecca. It's a Korean company, and their web site is all in Korean, but the app description on iTunes and the app itself are in English. Configuration is straightforward. To make it pop up incoming calls when in the background, because I'm using Asterisk 1.4 as my PBX, I had to choose the UDP "keep alive" option. (Asterisk 1.4 does not have TCP SIP.)

The mic is at the top of the iPad and the speaker at the bottom. This separation pretty much eliminates any typical echo problem you might expect, but I'm sure if you have the volume cranked way up you could generate some. At what I consider to be normal volume, it sounds great.