VOIP ATA, Softphone, and Port Forwarding

[christcorp]

I am a little confused about some of your post. You say you have your voipo adapter inside the DMZ of your router. Then, you said you forward packets to it. You can't do both. Well; you can, but you're defeating the purpose. When something is in the DMZ, and the DMZ is turned on, you are effectively forwarding ALL PORTS to that IP address. When you use both DMZ and port forwarding, you are asking for the possibility of some problems. Especially if you are also trying to use Softphone software on a PC.

Another thing. It's good that you tried forwarding UDP ports, but don't forget that for the session initialization (SIP), it is NOT UDP. It is TCP. That's port 5060. Either way; choose one or the other: DMZ or Port Forwarding. Not both.

Now; something I have found is a major cause of VOIP problems, are people's home network routers. There are 2 features that are usually turned on by default that can cause issues. If you turn both off, you may be in much better shape. I haven't had ANY problems since doing this and I've had VoipO since the very beginning. I do remember when I got a NEW router, I had some voip issues initially after installing it. Then remembered: OH YEA, Turn off those router functions. Again; all is perfect. What are these 2 router features?

1. Firewall/SPI
2. ALG

As for the firewall, you should turn OFF in the router: SPI. That is a firewall in the router. Also, there is a section called ALG. It lists programs like SIP. Turn off the ALG. If you really want a firewall for your computers you can install a software firewall like Zonealarm or Blackice on your computers and protect them locally. But SPI and ALG on in the router can definitely cause issues with voip. I definitely prefer either software firewall on the local PC or a standalone hardware firewall that I can keep the voip adapter outside of. ALG is designed for Voip, games, etc... but it assumes it is software on your PC. So with it on, it sometimes conflicts with standalone hardware trying to do the same thing.

For what it's worth, with SPI/Firewall and ALG turned off, I don't use ANY Port Forwarding or DMZ. No need to. I am all for Firewalls, but I recommend software versions on the individual machines instead of on the router where it affects everything whether it wants it or needs it. good luck.

[burris]

Mike..

You mention that TCP is the optimim initialization for Voip.
Doesn't VOIPo recomment UDP when that question comes up?

I agree that TCP is the fastest communication to set up the call but UDP will get it there almost as fast with less overhead.
If everyone went to TCP for setup, I think the servers might overload.

I think you can run SIP over TCP but then UDP for RTP.

Maybe that's why when you set up your router for port forwarding, the selection offers either or both. At least mine does.