Incoming call problems on my fongo home phone

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Incoming call problems on my fongo home phone

Postby music5_5 » 01/05/2019

Hi Everyone,

My fongo home phone is keep dropping incoming calls every couple of hours and only way to fix this issue, I have to power cycle my fongo adapter. I never had this issue before but it start happening after I have updated my Shaw Router (for 300MB package). My fongo adapter was connected directly to shaw modem and it was experiencing this problem then I have connected to Asus router which is behind shaw modem and experiencing same problem.

My fondo adpter hardware version is Grandstream HT701.

Can anyone please help me to resolve this issue?

Thank you,
music5_5
One Hit Wonder
 
Posts: 1
Joined: 06/24/2015
Computer OS: Mac OS X

Re: Incoming call problems on my fongo home phone

Postby Liptonbrisk » 01/07/2019

music5_5 wrote:Hi Everyone,

I never had this issue before but it start happening after I have updated my Shaw Router (for 300MB package). My fongo adapter was connected directly to shaw modem and it was experiencing this problem then I have connected to Asus router which is behind shaw modem and experiencing same problem.


I suspect the issue is UDP timeout/NAT corruption issue between the router and the ATA since rebooting helps.


1) Contact Shaw and ask if you can disable SIP ALG in whatever modem/router combo or gateway they issued you. Disable SIP ALG in it.

2) I would be strongly tempted to stick whatever modem/router combo they gave you in bridge mode and use the Asus router instead; this is especially true if you can use Asuswrt-Merlin. For example, visit https://community.shaw.ca/docs/DOC-15056. Setting the device to bridge mode means that you're bypassing all of its router functions (including whatever buggy ones it may contain). Contact Shaw for help with bridge mode.

3) I would hope that your Asus router supports Asuswrt-Merlin and switch to it provided Asuswrt-Merlin supports your Asus router (keep in mind that AiMesh isn't supported by Merlin firmware): https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/about. Note that Asus tech support will not deal with anything involving Asuswrt-Merlin, and should you encounter a warranty problem, the router will need official Asus firmware on it instead (you can flash official firmware or Merlin, interchangeably). I will not accept responsibility for any issues, especially those involving failed firmware updates and user error.

4) In Asuswrt-Merlin, I would navigate to Advanced Settings-->WAN-->NAT Passthrough and ensure that NAT Passthrough is set to "Enabled + NAT helper". NAT Passthrough is Asus' version of SIP ALG, and in Asuswrt-Merlin, NAT Passthrough actually works and is useful, whereas SIP ALG in many consumer routers (and in many modem/router combos or gateways issued by ISPs) is a horrible buggy mess.

5. I would then try to ensure the following conditions are met:


UDP Unreplied Timeout (in your router) < SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval (in your ATA) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time:(in your ATA)

I'm not a Fongo Home Phone customer, so I have no clue what values Fongo Home Phone uses for the SIP Options Keep Alive Interval (20 seconds for Freephoneline) in the ATA or the SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time (120 seconds for Freephoneline) in the ATA. You'd have to log into your ATA to check--or submit a ticket and ask: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. It may be worth opening a ticket anyway to see if they can do anything for you with respect to resolving your issue. They work 9AM-4PM EST, Monday to Friday excluding holidays.


Thanks to Mango, many of us now understand that in order for ATAs to remain registered and working properly with a VoIP SIP provider like Freephoneline, in particular after power failures, the following conditions must be met:

UDP Unreplied Timeout (in your router) < SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval (in your ATA; for Obihai ATAs this is X_KeepAliveExpires) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time:(or RegisterRetryInterval in Obihai ATAs)

“<“ means less than.

When a modem leases a new IP address, a problem can arise where prior associations using the old IP address are maintained in the router. When the ATA attempts to communicate using the old IP address, the response is unreplied, and then if the UDP Unreplied timeout is greater than the Keep Alive Interval (and UDP Unreplied timeout is often set to 30 by default in consumer routers) a problem arises where the corrupted connection persists. If UDP Unreplied timeout is, for example, 17, and the NAT Keep Alive Interval is 20, then the corrupted connection will timeout or close. A new connection will be created, and everything will work fine.

Another problem can occur when the Keep-Alive interval is greater than UDP Assured Timeout (often 180 by default in consumer routers): the NAT hole will close due to the ATA not communicating frequently enough with the SIP server. In turn, incoming calls may, intermittently, not reach the ATA. Again, SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval expires is supposed to be 20 with FPL.

Getting access to both UDP Unreplied Timeout and UDP Assured Timeout settings in consumer routers may be difficult, if not impossible. Asuswrt-Merlin (I would avoid any model below/less powerful than an RT-AC68U), third party firmware for Asus routers, does offer easy access to these two settings, which are found under General–>Tools-->Other settings. My understanding is that third party Tomato firmware has these two settings as well. So if your router supports Tomato firmware, that may be another option (I don't use Tomato and can't help with it). Note that I will not be held accountable any damage resulting from failed firmware updates. Apparently, Mikrotik routers also allow users to change both Assured and Unreplied UDP timeout settings as well: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/recomme ... 2115672/2/

The keep alive interval for FPL is 20. The SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time is 120. I use 17 for UDP Unreplied Timeout and 117 for UDP Assured Timeout

Keep Alive interval and failed registration wait retry interval may be different for Fongo Home Phone users.



6. If the ATA loses registration for any reason, incoming calls won't work on it. Registration is required for incoming calls but is not necessarily required for outgoing calls (unless Fongo Home Phone configures their ATAs in that manners).

7. Proper device reboot order is always modem-->router (wait for Wi-Fi SSIDs to populated first)-->ATA (in that order)


The preamble section (the first four pages) of this PDF guide may be useful to read for use with SIP service providers: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18805#p73839.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
User avatar
Liptonbrisk
Technical Support
 
Posts: 2764
Joined: 04/26/2010
SIP Device Name: Obihai 202/2182, Groundwire
Firmware Version: various
ISP Name: FTTH
Computer OS: Windows 64 bit
Router: Asuswrt-Merlin & others

Re: Incoming call problems on my fongo home phone

Postby Liptonbrisk » 01/07/2019

(Generic info)
Typically, for VoIP SIP services, especially for freephoneline, you want

A) a router that does not have a full cone NAT,

Visit https://www.think-like-a-computer.com/2 ... es-of-nat/.
Mango from the Obitalk.com forums writes,
“Use a restricted cone NAT router, and do not use port forwarding or DMZ. Restricted cone NAT will only permit
inbound traffic from the service provider you're registered to. If you have a full cone NAT router, it will allow traffic
from any source. This is probably not what you intend.
If you have a Windows computer, you can test your router using the utility here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22292023. To run it, use stun stun.ekiga.net from a command prompt.”
Essentially, you download the stun-test.zip file; extract the stun.exe file from within the zip file to an easily
accessible location; use an elevated command prompt (visit
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-ru ... inistrator); change directory (cd) to the
directory or location where you extracted stun.exe (visit
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/command- ... c-commands); and type “stun stun.ekiga.net” without
the quotation marks followed by the enter/return button on your keyboard.
Asus routers, at the time of this writing, produce port restricted cone NAT routers, for example and are fine,
provided you’re using one with Asuswrt-Merlin, third party firmware installed.

B) a router that lets you disable SIP ALG if it's buggy,

To understand why SIP ALG often causes horrible problems, please visit
https://www.voip-info.org/routers-sip-alg/ (scroll down to the section on SIP ALG problems).

If you're dealing with a modem/router combo issued by an ISP or a router with SIP ALG forced on, you may have
to use voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 for the Proxy Server. The purpose of voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 is to circumvent
faulty SIP ALG features in routers.

C) a router that allows you to set QoS or assign highest priority to your ATA or IP Phone over all other devices on your LAN (local area network),

For a very general description of what QoS can do for you, visit https://www.voipmechanic.com/qos-for-voip.htm.
The basic idea is if you're torrenting or have a bunch of other computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. downloading and uploading (hogging all your available bandwidth), you don't want
your ATA not to have access to enough bandwidth to make or receive calls properly. So QoS or a Bandwidth Monitor feature (which is just another form of QoS) is a really good idea for VoIP users.

I often get an occasional relative complaining to me, "Hey my calls sound choppy." And then when I go visit, some kids are playing MMOs on a computer, while another person is downloading a huge file,
and another person is backing up files to a cloud service all at the same time someone else is trying to talk on the phone. All those devices, without QoS enabled, are fighting over available bandwidth along with the ATA.

and D) A router that lets you adjust both Unreplied and Assured UDP timeouts.

Thanks to Mango, many of us now understand that in order for ATAs to remain registered and working properly with a VoIP SIP provider like Freephoneline, in particular after power failures, the following conditions must be met:

UDP Unreplied Timeout (in your router) < SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval (in your ATA; for Obihai ATAs this is X_KeepAliveExpires) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time:(or RegisterRetryInterval in Obihai ATAs)

“<“ means less than.

When a modem leases a new IP address, a problem can arise where prior associations using the old IP address are maintained in the router. When the ATA attempts to communicate using the old IP address, the response is unreplied, and then if the UDP Unreplied timeout is greater than the Keep Alive Interval (and UDP Unreplied timeout is often set to 30 by default in consumer routers) a problem arises where the corrupted connection persists. If UDP Unreplied timeout is, for example, 17, and the NAT Keep Alive Interval is 20, then the corrupted connection will timeout or close. A new connection will be created, and everything will work fine.

Another problem can occur when the Keep-Alive interval is greater than UDP Assured Timeout (often 180 by default in consumer routers): the NAT hole will close due to the ATA not communicating frequently enough with the SIP server. In turn, incoming calls may, intermittently, not reach the ATA. Again, X_Keepalives expires is supposed to be 20 with FPL.

(the above settings are making reference to those in Obihai ATAs)

Getting access to both UDP Unreplied Timeout and UDP Assured Timeout settings in consumer routers may be difficult, if not impossible. Asuswrt-Merlin (I would avoid any model below/less powerful than an RT-AC68U), third party firmware for Asus routers, does offer easy access to these two settings, which are found under General–>Tools-->Other settings. My understanding is that third party Tomato firmware has these two settings as well. So if your router supports Tomato firmware, that may be another option. Note that I will not be held accountable any damage resulting from failed firmware updates. Apparently, Mikrotik routers also allow users to change both Assured and Unreplied UDP timeout settings as well: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/recomme ... 2115672/2/

The keep alive interval for FPL is 20. The SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time is 120. I use 17 for UDP Unreplied Timeout and 117 for UDP Assured Timeout.



ISPs do not issue customers routers that can do all four things I just listed. Typically it's far better to have your own router with strong QoS functions and a restricted cone NAT firewall,
disable whatever SIP ALG feature is enabled in the router (Asuswrt-Merlin is one exception), and stick whatever modem/router combo your ISP gives you into bridge mode. For Bell Hubs, visit http://forums.redflagdeals.com/please-s ... r-1993629/. For Rogers, visit https://www.rogers.com/customer/support ... ridgemodem.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
User avatar
Liptonbrisk
Technical Support
 
Posts: 2764
Joined: 04/26/2010
SIP Device Name: Obihai 202/2182, Groundwire
Firmware Version: various
ISP Name: FTTH
Computer OS: Windows 64 bit
Router: Asuswrt-Merlin & others


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