Calls intermittently going directly to voicemail

[oldcqr]

I'm glad this isn't just me, and that I'm not the only one who things forwarding 60K+ ports is 'over the top'.

[sr98user]

If you know exactly how your router translates your internal ports on the WAN side, then you can narrow down the port forwarding range. But in most routers, you don't have access to the Network Address Translation (NAT) table to see what the port numbers are on the WAN side. Hence the big range.

[holmes4]

How do you figure out the name of the VOIPo server you're using? I can see that I am on "Central" but that doesn't translate to a hostname.

[burris]

How do you figure out the name of the VOIPo server you're using? I can see that I am on "Central" but that doesn't translate to a hostname.

sip-central01.voipwelcome.com

[oldcqr]

Another Sunday and the problems are back. This time I have the port fowarding in effect, so it's not my side.

[Russell]

If you know exactly how your router translates your internal ports on the WAN side, then you can narrow down the port forwarding range. But in most routers, you don't have access to the Network Address Translation (NAT) table to see what the port numbers are on the WAN side. Hence the big range.

I don't quite get your explanation. Essentially, the "media gateway" is choosing a port in the 60+K range and sending UDP packets to your public IP address at that port. You don't have control over which port the "media gateway" chooses. You have no option but to forward all the ports in that range. It really doesn't matter what internal mapping of ports your NAT router does to avoid conflict - it's still getting packets at that external UDP port.

I do agree with others (and I've said the same) that the wide port range is "unreasonable". I'd urge Tim, as VOIPo grows and he gives more business to the "media gateways", to exert leverage over them and get them to use a narrower range for VOIPo customers. After all the "media gateways" just needs a single port on our public IP (based on a post of Justin from some time back).

[sr98user]

Russell,

I am not an expert in SIP but I am quite familiar with my router. Atleast for me, the port is selected by my ATA to be in the 16384-16482 range for RTP and 5061-5062 for SIP. My router maps these to the same port numbers on the public side unless that port is being used by someone else. From what I see, the port is not selected by the media gateway.

The destination port of media gateway could be anything. But we are forwarding incoming data to the ATA. So, port number on the media gateway side does not affect port forwarding.

[Russell]

Russell,

I am not an expert in SIP but I am quite familiar with my router. Atleast for me, the port is selected by my ATA to be in the 16384-16482 range for RTP and 5061-5062 for SIP. My router maps these to the same port numbers on the public side unless that port is being used by someone else. From what I see, the port is not selected by the media gateway.

The destination port of media gateway could be anything. But we are forwarding incoming data to the ATA. So, port number on the media gateway side does not affect port forwarding.

sr98, I too am not a SIP expert. I'm just looking at the facts: VOIPo wants us to open up 60+K ports on our firewalls and send traffic on those ports to the ATA. In other words, the media gateway can target one of those 60K ports on your public IP. And, if your ATA was (hypothetically) directly connected to your (hypothetical) non-router broadband modem the media gateway would be directly addressing one port in that 60K port range on your ATA. Correct? Perhaps someone from VOIPo can explain the 16384-16482 range for RTP seen on the ATA with this 60K range requirement.

[VOIPoBrandon]

the 16384-16482 port range is source ports when placing an outbound call.

The 5004-65000 port range is source ports when receiving an incoming call.

[voipinit]

Wouldn't setting up the ATA's to use STUN alleviate this need to forward 10's of thousands of ports?