us.voxalot vs eu.voxalot

The King · 03-08-2007, 02:43 PM

I am based in the US, however I have my voxalot account mainly to call the UK.

My voxalot account is registered to my sipgate.co.uk account for incoming calls.
I have dialplans such that outgoing calls go via voipcheap.com

My question is;
The two services I use (sipgate.co.uk and voipcheap.com) are based in the EU.
I am based in the US.

Would I be best served using the us.voxalot or the eu.voxalot server?

ctylor · 03-08-2007, 11:32 PM

Good question. It would only matter if any RTP voice traffic is being proxied via Voxalot (US or EU) instead of calls going directly between your IP and the calling destination's IP in the UK. If this were the case, then registering with the eu voxalot would be better. However if it were not the case, then registering via the proxy closest to you is in general better. In any event make sure DNS SRV settings are enabled in your device so that you can take advantage of server fallback if the main server you are using goes offline.

Normally Voxalot acting as a man-in-the-middle doesn't happen unless your SIP device settings are bad and a firewall or NAT is blocking you. You can confirm you are not being outbound-proxied via Voxalot by disabling "Enable symmetric NAT handling" in your Voxalot profile and then trying to place calls. At that point, the calls are definitely point-to-point without Voxalot, or they just plain won't work.

The King · 03-09-2007, 01:43 AM

Ok, I must admit didn't 100% understand the technicalities of your response.

The way I understand this is that voxalot just points my call in the right direction on connection, but then eventually I should connect direct to the server for voipcheap.com (for example).

In that case it probably doesn't matter hugely which I use (us.vox or eu.vox) if it is just a small communication from the voxalot server to the voipcheap.com server then it shouldn't really matter too much?

I dunno, was using us.vox, have now switched to eu.vox just to see the difference!

tomblandford · 03-09-2007, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ctylor

Normally Voxalot acting as a man-in-the-middle doesn't happen unless your SIP device settings are bad and a firewall or NAT is blocking you. You can confirm you are not being outbound-proxied via Voxalot by disabling "Enable symmetric NAT handling" in your Voxalot profile and then trying to place calls. At that point, the calls are definitely point-to-point without Voxalot, or they just plain won't work.

Ctylor, are you saying that if I set symm NAT handling to No and if I can still make calls, then I will have reduced the latency in my call routing? This would be useful. On the US server I had bad echo and had to stop using voxalot until the EU server was setup. Now the echo is almost gone but not quite. If I could reduce the latency I'd be more than happy.

ctylor · 03-09-2007, 01:55 PM

The King: Yup you're right. Voxalot handles the call setup and call tear-down, at the level of administration, but the actual voice data is sent directly between you and the IP address that your third-party voip provider tells your adapter. That way, there is as little lag as possible and your phone quality is maximized.

Tom: Not exactly, I am saying if you set it to No, you will have "low latency or bust". While it is set to yes, there is the potential that the call is being outbound proxied via Voxalot and so more hops/more lag. When set to no, that will not happen... but at the risk of calls failing completely with no sound. However in a way that would be a good warning signal to you. If you saw that happen, then you can work at improving your configuration so that it has freer access to the Internet, and when you get it working, there will be less lag/less hops than it was originally because you will have removed Voxalot from being in the middle. On the other hand, if calls work fine even after setting it to No, that means it was doing that already anyway and there will be no extra improvement in call quality (or less latency) or anything.

Btw, my name is Chris.

tomblandford · 03-09-2007, 06:27 PM

Well I set symm NAT handling to NO and it all still works so I guess that suggests a decent setup! Good! Lucky for King too, seeing as he now has the exact same setup.

curmudgeon · 03-27-2007, 04:08 PM

Setting symmetric NAT handling to "No" keeps my hardware phone from even
registering with VoXaLot.

The phone does sit behind a NAT (actually, TWO NATs). What settings do I need
to make sure that I don't need VoXaLot to proxy voice traffic?

03-08-2007, 02:43 PM	#1
The King Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 63 Thanks: 18 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	us.voxalot vs eu.voxalot I am based in the US, however I have my voxalot account mainly to call the UK. My voxalot account is registered to my sipgate.co.uk account for incoming calls. I have dialplans such that outgoing calls go via voipcheap.com My question is; The two services I use (sipgate.co.uk and voipcheap.com) are based in the EU. I am based in the US. Would I be best served using the us.voxalot or the eu.voxalot server?

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03-08-2007, 11:32 PM	#2
ctylor Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 296 Thanks: 94 Thanked 53 Times in 27 Posts	Good question. It would only matter if any RTP voice traffic is being proxied via Voxalot (US or EU) instead of calls going directly between your IP and the calling destination's IP in the UK. If this were the case, then registering with the eu voxalot would be better. However if it were not the case, then registering via the proxy closest to you is in general better. In any event make sure DNS SRV settings are enabled in your device so that you can take advantage of server fallback if the main server you are using goes offline. Normally Voxalot acting as a man-in-the-middle doesn't happen unless your SIP device settings are bad and a firewall or NAT is blocking you. You can confirm you are not being outbound-proxied via Voxalot by disabling "Enable symmetric NAT handling" in your Voxalot profile and then trying to place calls. At that point, the calls are definitely point-to-point without Voxalot, or they just plain won't work.

03-09-2007, 01:43 AM	#3
The King Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 63 Thanks: 18 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Ok, I must admit didn't 100% understand the technicalities of your response. The way I understand this is that voxalot just points my call in the right direction on connection, but then eventually I should connect direct to the server for voipcheap.com (for example). In that case it probably doesn't matter hugely which I use (us.vox or eu.vox) if it is just a small communication from the voxalot server to the voipcheap.com server then it shouldn't really matter too much? I dunno, was using us.vox, have now switched to eu.vox just to see the difference!

03-09-2007, 01:55 PM	#5
ctylor Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 296 Thanks: 94 Thanked 53 Times in 27 Posts	The King: Yup you're right. Voxalot handles the call setup and call tear-down, at the level of administration, but the actual voice data is sent directly between you and the IP address that your third-party voip provider tells your adapter. That way, there is as little lag as possible and your phone quality is maximized. Tom: Not exactly, I am saying if you set it to No, you will have "low latency or bust". While it is set to yes, there is the potential that the call is being outbound proxied via Voxalot and so more hops/more lag. When set to no, that will not happen... but at the risk of calls failing completely with no sound. However in a way that would be a good warning signal to you. If you saw that happen, then you can work at improving your configuration so that it has freer access to the Internet, and when you get it working, there will be less lag/less hops than it was originally because you will have removed Voxalot from being in the middle. On the other hand, if calls work fine even after setting it to No, that means it was doing that already anyway and there will be no extra improvement in call quality (or less latency) or anything. Btw, my name is Chris.

03-09-2007, 06:27 PM	#6
tomblandford Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 222 Thanks: 44 Thanked 23 Times in 22 Posts	Well I set symm NAT handling to NO and it all still works so I guess that suggests a decent setup! Good! Lucky for King too, seeing as he now has the exact same setup.

03-27-2007, 04:08 PM	#7
curmudgeon Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Setting symmetric NAT handling to "No" keeps my hardware phone from even registering with VoXaLot. The phone does sit behind a NAT (actually, TWO NATs). What settings do I need to make sure that I don't need VoXaLot to proxy voice traffic?