Remote access to Voxalot
 

I have an SPA-3102 on which I have Voxalot registered as Line 1. The phone connected to it has full access to all Voxalot functions, which work perfectly.

I also have a PAP2 on which I have registered my Sipgate account, and have fed the FXO port into the SPA-3102 as its PSTN line, with a PSTN-VoIP gateway set up. I registered Voxalot a second time on the SPA-3102 (on one of its 4 gateways) so that I can call the Sipgate DID from the PSTN, enter a PIN and dial out using Voxalot. That also works well.

What I would really like to be able to do is to call a Sipbroker PSTN number and then dial the * code for Sipgate to be able to perform the same trick. But because Sipgate doesn't accept SIP inbounds this is an impossibility.

I have tried to do this with other VSPs, Orbtalk for instance, but for some reason it double-dials any digits I send to Voxalot. I also tried to set up a second Voxalot account and use this as an incoming PSTN line on my SPA-3102. It rings OK, answers the call and connects me to my main Voxalot account but when I attempt any of its functions (dialplan, speed dial etc.) - the call just hangs on dead air.

The objective of the exercise of course is access to Voxalot from anywhere in the world by using local Sipbroker PSTN numbers. Has anyone successfully got this working?

ataboy

If I understand your setup correctly, then mine compares like this:

Where you have SIPGate setup, I am using a second VoXBasic Account

Sometimes, it helps to add a # at the end when you are done dialing the number you want through the CallThru

(The other difference is I have been using PBXes rather than a SPA3102)

See: Placing VoIP Calls from any Old Regular PSTN Phone

Replace putting in various outgoing Providers with just putting in your VoXPremium Account as a Provider (as per that guide)....

It's been working quite nice

Thanks emoci,

It's good to know that it can be done successfully and that I'm on the right track. Since I wrote, I tried replacing Sipgate with FWD and with SIPphone, but when I got access to Voxalot I couldn't clear the dial tone. So near yet so far away!

I'll keep persevering with tweaking the settings and I'll also try your PBXes approach. Here goes!

ataboy

emoci - to follow up, your PBXes method was a bit of a learning curve for me but I managed to get to grips with it and once I'd set it up it worked very well. Now for some heavy-duty testing and playing with dialplans!

I appreciate your help.

ataboy

Do you like the Dial Plans you currently have on VoXalot?

In that case, add VoXalot as a Trunk, outgoing only (the VoX account where you have already configured dial plans), and create an outbound route using it (Dial Plan X. should suffice on PBXes)... Then just use all your VoXalot Dial plans as they are

As you may have already realized, the VoXalot account that points to the CallThru, and the VoXalot account you are using for day-to-day should not be the same

BTW, any pointers on the guide, what was hard to understand....anything that can be put in simpler terms (if you have time)

Yes, I had already figured that out; it was the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned.

I had; it was that realisation that made me think of setting up my main Voxalot account as an outbound trunk.

It was probably me just thinking in Voxalot terms rather than in PBXes mode, but I'll certainly re-read through it.

ataboy

emoci,

I haven't used the PBXes callthrough for a while but as I'm about to go travelling I thought I'd check it out. I haven't changed anything, but now when I dial a Sipbroker PSTN number then enter my Voxalot basic account number (*010 voxbasic #) I just get a delay then a fast busy tone - as if PBXes doesn't recognise it as an inbound route.

I've re-read your notes and I can't see anything wrong with my setup. Any ideas what might have happened?

ataboy

In PBXes there is a status tab, click to see if the VoXalot trunk is still up (if it is grayed out, it's down). There have been a few things that have happened with VoXalot servers over the last little while...

If it is indeed down: Just click on the trunk for VoXalot (the special incoming account), under Trunks and simply Save Settings and remember to click that red bar at the top....

Also check Call Monitor to see if that call you tried reached PBXes at all...

Hopefully it is something simple like a downed trunk....

Thanks for the information; it didn't help unfortunately - the trunk is up (nice green symbol).

Call Monitor is interesting. Nothing at all has been hitting PBXes.

Incidentally I notice that I've got a warning on my Voxalot SIP trunk: "This trunk is not used by any routes! This trunk will not be able to be used for outbound calls until a route is setup that uses it. Click on Outbound Routes to setup routing."

I guess that's irrelevant though because I'm only using it as an inbound trunk, with my main Premium Voxalot account being used as an outbound route.

ataboy

You are correct for that part....

The SipBroker access number you are using, does it seem to work fine when you call your VoXPremium acct?

I would do a reset on that incoming VoXalot trunk anyway (you know: click on Trunk, Save Settings, Confirm Changes by clicking red bar procedure)....If that doesn't seem to do anything turn the trunk to just outbound calls, then re-register it for both incoming and outgoing

BTW, the host you are using for voxalot there is of the form xx.voxalot.com (xx= us or eu or au) not just voxalot.com right (since voxalot.com has been removed as a valid registrar adress)

Also if you are using the eu server (there were some problems yesterday) try using us or au instead (but make sure whatever you are using there, and the cluster in your VoXalot member page match)

Finally if all fails, erase the trunk, give it some time and add it again....

Just confirmed and my CallThru setup is working. This is one of those VoIP oddities where nothing seems to explain what's happening :)

BTW, try calling SipBroker from a PSTN not a VoIP line and see if anything changes....

Yes, I had tested that and it was fine.

In fact since posting my last message, I noticed that there was only one Voxalot trunk showing under the status tab (eu.voxalot.com). So I changed one of the two to us.voxalot.com and saw both appear. Then I changed it back and - voilÃ* - the trunk started to work!

Yes, see above.

Calls now appear in Call Monitor, but now my problem is at the end of the call setup sequence. I get dialtone but when I dial out, there is no ringtone, then dialtone reappears. I think it might be a dialplan problem. . .

ataboy

Ok, well at least it's working...use the Call Monitor to troubleshoot

If you are dialing the number correctly to match the dial plan, it should show both the number as you dialed and the trunk it picked, if in the Call Monitor table it shows the number, but no trunk picked, then there is a problem with the dial plan in PBXes.

Keep in mind that you have to make sure you obey rules in your VoXalot premium account when dialing

Also, pressing * at any time will get you a fresh dialtone, so you want to avoid that being part of the dialing sequence

Pressing # after dialing a number sequence tells the system to try calling it without delay


Hope you get running without too much trouble....

I had been testing the solution using +44 20 7100 6747 as the Sipbroker PSTN access number. As I said before, it returned me dialtone after I had dialled the destination number. After setting and resetting the PBXes settings, I tried it with Sipbroker PSTN access number +44 121 314 8447 and it worked first time!

I've double-checked it and it seems that my setup has a problem with +44 20 7100 6747. Could there be an issue with this number?

ataboy

Ok, I can't tell you why it's happening, but I can confirm that I have the same problem if I use +44 20 7100 6747

Looking at Call Monitor, it looks like PBXes does not receive all the digits I dial, it seems to pick some up, while miss others when using that access number.... I managed to get it to work at least once (I dialed the number to call really slowly, letting each tone finish before dialing the next), but even that time the call got cut off after the first ring....

The only thing I can think off is that the line for that number is having some sort of DTMF issue at least in relation to PBXes (it's odd since 44 121 314 8447 is also from Telappliant and that seems to work fine)

If you need a London number, you can always set up your own, Orbtalk, Coms or Eutelia will let you have one for free. You can have PBXes point directly to the callthru gate, so all you have to do is enter the PIN and talk....

Hope that helps... and you get this in good shape before you have to travel

Thanks emoci, that's interesting. . .

. . . and that's *really* interesting. I already have an Orbtalk (and a Sipgate) number. How exactly could I use PBXes with either of these?

Because the PBXes solution uses a 4-stage process: Sipbroker->Voxalot inbound->PIN->Voxalot outbound I use my 3102 for callthrough when I'm in the UK. However I find that the PSTN-VoIP gateway affects the speech quality and it would be handy to have a simpler PBXes/Voxalot solution.

ataboy

Ok think of it like this, set up your OrbTalk number the same way you've set up the VoXalot account that let's you access the gateway...

In other words (1) set up a trunk for both inbound and outbound calling with OrbTalk (or SipGate, but personally I am more comfortable with OrbTalk in terms of reliability) then (2) under Inbound Routing point this trunk to the CallThru

I tried them both and both work well. Thanks for that! I've now ditched the 3102 solution for call through.

ataboy

I am also finding that pbxes is great for running a softphone on all my PCs and mobile devices at the same time on the same network as each sip phone is a different extension with it's own login my router handles it all ok. This also gives you the ability to dial out from a softphone too. Which leads me to my question -

How get a pbxes extension to pass a * prefix to my outgoing voxalot trunk so that I can dial the prefix for other networks. I just get invalid call tones

I suppose I could put in a workaround and prefix with 00000 and then get voxalot to remove this and put a * in, but is there a way of keeping the * as though it was a voxalot extension?

Sorry if it is slightly off topic but I figured that people with pbxes experience may be reading this thread.

There is no way to keep the *, as it has a special function on PBXes (it resets the line). See http://forum.voxalot.com/voxalot-sup...html#post12490

You can either do as you suggested in VoXalot, or do the routing in PBXes (see it won't let you dial *600 but it will let you dial 8600 for example and be configured within PBXes such that when an 8 is the first digit it is replaced by * and sent as such to VoXalot...)

How would I add a * mid dialstring?

If you just want to add a * mid-dialstring at random, that's not possible.... however if you have a certain dialing format that you are after with a set pattern that dial plans in either VoXalot or PBXes should help....

As I said before, when connected to PBXes, actually dialing * at any point resets the line otherwise.....

If you are a bit more specific about what you're trying to do, I'll be happy to give some ideas...