New user problems with Call Connection Rules

[bdlhome]

I've just signed up for a pro account to solve the problem I had/have with wanting two DID incoming numbers from two different providers but hardware (SPA300) that only supports one account for incoming calls.

My first problem is that I couldn't/cant get one of those two accounts (sipgate.co.uk) to register and reading these forums that it may be because sipgate are blocking?

My next attempt to solve the problem was to use the forwarding options. I tried setting it to “sip:1234567@sipgate.co.uk” but couldn't get it to work (just got busy tone). However, if I use "sip:1234567@myaccount.dyns.org:5060" bypassing sipgate and directing directly to my hardware it works.

Any ideas or suggestions? From what I had read Voxalot was supposed to make this easy and now I have a voxalot pro account and don't appear to be any better off than I was before.

thanks,
Brian

[DracoFelis]

Originally Posted by bdlhome

My first problem is that I couldn't/cant get one of those two accounts (sipgate.co.uk) to register and reading these forums that it may be because sipgate are blocking?

Sorry about that. I didn't realize when I read your other post (on the Voxilla forums) that you were using one of the few providers that "black lists" the VoXaLot servers on their end. Because you are correct that the "easy" way to do this is to just register all providers with VoXaLot, and then have your ATA register with VoXaLot and you are done (beyond any work you may want to do to customize your VoXaLot dial plan and VoXaLot speed dials).

However, when dealing with a provider that blocks VoXaLot, that isn't an option. On to "plan B".

Originally Posted by bdlhome

My next attempt to solve the problem was to use the forwarding options. I tried setting it to “sip:1234567@sipgate.co.uk” but couldn't get it to work (just got busy tone). However, if I use "sip:1234567@myaccount.dyns.org:5060" bypassing sipgate and directing directly to my hardware it works.

That sounds like a decent "plan B". Specifically, what I think will work is:

1) Leave sipgate on your SPA-3000 "Line 1", so that you can continue to receive calls (and make calls with them).

2) Setup VoXaLot on one of the SPA-3000's "gateways", so that you can send outbound calls (except the ones for sipgate) via VoXaLot.

3) Go to the VoXaLot "Call Connection (call forwarding)" tab, and make a rule to always forward inbound calls directly to the SIP URI of your adapter (bypassing sipgate, but not blocking the sipgate registration already on your adapter). Test this rule (to make sure inbound VoXaLot calls work) by calling one of the SIP Broker PSTN numbers ( SIPBroker - PSTN Numbers ) from some other phone, and entering *010 followed by your 6 digit VoXaLot number. If your VoIP adapter rings (and you can talk with yourself both ways when you pick up), you have inbound VoXaLot calls working!

4) Customize your SPA-3000 dial plan to allow you to dial out via sipgate, but send all other calls via (the SPA-3000 "gateway" for) VoXaLot.

5) Customize VoXaLot as you like (including the VoXaLot dial plans) to support your other providers.

At that point, you should be using VoXaLot for all call consolidations except for sipgate which your ATA talks directly with (because sipgate chose not to "play nice" with VoXaLot).

i.e. You have replaced the need to "register" with VoXaLot (which you can't do, because you are using the SPA-3000's only registration spot for sipgate) with a combination of the SPA-3000's "gateways" (which allow you to use VoXaLot for outbound calls) and VoXaLot forwarding calls directly to your adapter (which allows you to get inbound calls processed by VoXaLot). More of a PITA than I was thinking, yes. But at least it should be a way to get around sipgate's limitation imposed at their end.

NOTE: At this point in time, I'm actually getting my inbound VoXaLot calls via a forwarding rule directly to my ATA (and yes I did test this to make sure it worked). So in theory having VoXaLot forward directly to an ATA can work very well with a premium VoXaLot account (the VoXaLot forwarding feature is NOT available in the free/basic account however).

NOTE: I just carefully reread your post over on Voxilla, and it looks like your other provider is CallCentric. The good news about CallCentric (a SIP Broker sponsor, btw), is that CallCentric (as a company) chose to play VERY NICE with services such as SIP Broker and VoXaLot (the exact opposite of the approach sipgate took). As a result, it's easy to get CallCentric to work with VoXaLot. In fact, CallCentric will let you use their "call treatments" option to forward any call you like (on any schedule you like) to other VoIP providers (including, but not limited to, VoXaLot) reachable via SIP Broker FOR FREE (i.e. CallCentric doesn't charge anything for the call forward, as long as the call is being forwarded to a free VoIP location reachable via SIP Broker, even though per minute charges normally apply for other "forwarding" options with CallCentric!). The "trick" to make this happen, is to setup a CallCentric "call treatment" (active at all times) that forwards the call to **275 (CallCentric's code for SIP Broker dialing) followed by the normal SIP Broker code. Since the normal SIP Broker code for VoXaLot is *010 (followed by your normal 6 digit VoXaLot account number), the full CallCentric forwarding location is: **275*010 (followed by your 6 digit VoXaLot account). i.e. if your VoXaLot number was 123456, than having CallCentric forward (for free) to **272*010123456 would send the inbound call to your VoXaLot account (which would also ring your phone if you setup VoXaLot to forward the call directly to your adapter).

NOTE: For outbound only providers that could (at least in theory) be done via the SPA-3000's "gateways" (as well as providers you are "forwarding" to VoXaLot, such as you can do with CallCentric) it is actually NOT necessary to enable the "register" option (on that provider) in VoXaLot. Instead, you can make the outbound calls via VoXaLot's dialing rules (including full ENUM lookups, to see if the call can instead be completed for free via ENUM) without the register option enabled. Register (on the VoXaLot site) is therefore only necessary if/when your provider requires the "ATA" (in this case VoXaLot) to be "registered" to make outbound calls or you want to receive inbound calls without having the provider forward such calls to VoXaLot for you (and in the case of CallCentric, it's easy to have the provider forward the calls to **275*010{your-6-digit-voxalot-number}).

[kurun]

For the record, I have tested a Sipgate account in Voxalot and it does register.

The settings I am using are the following :

Provider Name : Sipgate (Any choice)
User Name : Account No (7 digits, not the PSTN DID number)
Codecs : Leave default or your preference (Eg. ulaw;alaw;g729;gsm)
Host : sipgate.co.uk
Port : 5060
Active ; Yes
SIP register : Yes
Optimize Audio Path : No

Sipgate does not allow calls from other VoIP networks by peering through SIPBroker. You can see that Provider Number *211 has a Red X mark against it, on the following page:
SIPBroker - Provider White Pages

However, you can call the Sipgate account registered in Voxalot in the Voice Service Provider list from another Sipgate account.

I have not tested a DID number with this Sipgate account.
Regards

[DracoFelis]

Originally Posted by kurun

For the record, I have tested a Sipgate account in Voxalot and it does register.

That's good to hear. If it works the same for Brian, he should be back to "Plan A" (connect all the providers to his VoXaLot account, register his SPA-3000 with VoXaLot, and be happy).

NOTE to Brian:
Another thought occurred to me. When you ran your previous test, did you make sure to disconnect your SPA-3000 from registering with sipgate a number of minutes before trying to have your VoXaLot account register with sipgate? If not, than that is likely your problem, as many VoIP providers will only let one "VoIP device" at a time "register" with them, and in this respect both you SPA-3000 and your VoXaLot account would be considered VoIP devices trying to register with your sipgate account...

[bdlhome]

Originally Posted by DracoFelis

That's good to hear. If it works the same for Brian, he should be back to "Plan A" (connect all the providers to his VoXaLot account, register his SPA-3000 with VoXaLot, and be happy).

NOTE to Brian:
Another thought occurred to me. When you ran your previous test, did you make sure to disconnect your SPA-3000 from registering with sipgate a number of minutes before trying to have your VoXaLot account register with sipgate? If not, than that is likely your problem, as many VoIP providers will only let one "VoIP device" at a time "register" with them, and in this respect both you SPA-3000 and your VoXaLot account would be considered VoIP devices trying to register with your sipgate account...

Yep I did disconnect the SPA-3000 from registering with Sipgate before attempting, but I have to admit that when it didn't appear to work I was reading the forums and when I saw the blocking messages I didn't persevere much more.

Interestingly even with the CallCentric account the status said it was pending when the Callcentric website said it was registered and it was working. Eventually the "Reg Status" changed to "-" but it is working. Is that normal? The difference between them was test calls with Callcentric were working but with Sipgate they weren't.

I will try changing back to Voxalot registering with Sipgate and promise to not give up so easily this time

Thanks,
Brian

[bdlhome]

Originally Posted by kurun

For the record, I have tested a Sipgate account in Voxalot and it does register.

The settings I am using are the following :

Provider Name : Sipgate (Any choice)
User Name : Account No (7 digits, not the PSTN DID number)
Codecs : Leave default or your preference (Eg. ulaw;alaw;g729;gsm)
Host : sipgate.co.uk
Port : 5060
Active ; Yes
SIP register : Yes
Optimize Audio Path : No

I have not tested a DID number with this Sipgate account.
Regards

So I've just tried again and used the same settings as you.

On the voxalot - Voice Services provider page it went from
"Pending" to "Request Sent" after about 5 minutes and hasn't changed in the past 20 minutes.
On the sipgate website it says offline

Any thoughts?

As a side note the callcentric account which appears to be working correctly has a "-" under Reg. Status, is that normal when SIP register is set to "Yes"?

thanks,
Brian

[emoci]

Originally Posted by bdlhome

As a side note the callcentric account which appears to be working correctly has a "-" under Reg. Status, is that normal when SIP register is set to "Yes"?

Normally if SIP Register is set to Yes, then it should show registered rather then -

However, you're not the first one to report this with CallCentric http://forum.voxalot.com/voxalot-sup...-register.html

As for SipGate, I would take DracoFelis advice above step-by-step...whether it registers or not, the fact remains that receiving calls seems to work only from other SipGate users, not from third-party VoIP Users, and not from PSTN users (in fact lately this has been my experience with PBXes.com as well, which until not too long ago, appeared to work fine with SipGate)

[bdlhome]

Originally Posted by emoci

Normally if SIP Register is set to Yes, then it should show registered rather then -

However, you're not the first one to report this with CallCentric http://forum.voxalot.com/voxalot-sup...-register.html

That is exactly what it did for me but it doesn't fill me with confidence, there is know way of knowing without making a test call.

Originally Posted by emoci

As for SipGate, I would take DracoFelis advice above step-by-step...whether it registers or not, the fact remains that receiving calls seems to work only from other SipGate users, not from third-party VoIP Users, and not from PSTN users (in fact lately this has been my experience with PBXes.com as well, which until not too long ago, appeared to work fine with SipGate)

I already had that setup based on some help from DracoFelis on another forum but it does have some disadvantages, like relying on my dyndns address etc and I lose some of the consolidation like VM for example.

I was really responding kurun saying "For the record, I have tested a Sipgate account in Voxalot and it does register", if the PSTN DID isn't going to work then there is no point for me.

Unfortunatley I don't think voxalot is the service for me, there are not enough advantages for me so I'm going to either:
1) Get an ATA that suports multiple connections
2) Set up my own IP-PBX Asterisk :: The Open Source PBX & Telephony Platform |

I just wish I could have tested this before signing up for a premium account.

[kurun]

Originally Posted by bdlhome

So I've just tried again and used the same settings as you.

On the voxalot - Voice Services provider page it went from
"Pending" to "Request Sent" after about 5 minutes and hasn't changed in the past 20 minutes.
On the sipgate website it says offline

Any thoughts?

As a side note the callcentric account which appears to be working correctly has a "-" under Reg. Status, is that normal when SIP register is set to "Yes"?

thanks,
Brian

I just checked again and my Sipgate test account is definitely registered.
Perhaps you might have an error in the credentials entries?

Sipgate service is unfriendly to peering with other networks.
I would prefer to use other VSPs to get a DID number associated with my account, that allows peering.

[emoci]

Originally Posted by bdlhome

That is exactly what it did for me but it doesn't fill me with confidence, there is know way of knowing without making a test call.

There is a way to check on the CallCentric end, you'll find it reports as Registered on their end....all that said, from the thread I pointed you to, you can skip SIP Registering CallCentric altogether, since their Call Treatments allow you to send calls via SIP URI directly to VoXalot (hence you can save that registration slot on VoXalot for something else)

As for SipGate ... it is a known anomaly, however what's more important to you about SipGate, your DID with them, or the ability to make calls out (make outgoing calls should work without needing to register)

As for the DID, where is it based, there is a good chance you can grab a similar one from another provider...