Problem: Cant hear anything with freephoneline.ca

[moneytoronto]

Have the following problem:
when someone calls me, the phone rings, I pick up the phone, but can't hear anything.
People can hear me on the other end.

On the forum I read about opening forwarding port 13000 UDP.
You can see the screenshot of port forwarding setting in the attachment.

What else can I do to make freephoneline work ?

Thank you.


D-Link router DIR-601, Linksys PAP2-NA

[Jake]

I don't have that router, but in the IP box under the filter name, is that a limit to IP? IE will it only forward port from 192.168.1.100 as you have that IP in there. Can you put in a wildcard (eg *) or leave it blank to see if that will help? It looks like the next box over tells it where to open the port to, so it seems redundant to have you input it twice which is why I am wondering if it an IP to limit that traffic to.

[moneytoronto]

Thank you for replying, Jake.

I tried to change the IP address to blank or to "*" , and I get the following message "The IP address is an invalid address".

So I returned the IP address to 192.168.0.100.

Still cannot hear my callers.

[FONGO_steve]

Try opening port 5060 instead of 13000. 5060 is the SIP port and is generally the one which will cause audio problems ahead of the RTP ports (13000).

The DIR-601 is a router model which unfortunately doesn't always play well with SIP, but at least you seem to have the latest firmware. I have a DIR-601 on my desk and until I updated the firmware I never was able to get it working with SIP at all, but it's been pretty forgiving with the latest firmware and my Grandstream ATA.

[moneytoronto]

Hello Steve,

I opened port 5060 (see attachment). Nothing changed, still can't hear people.

[FONGO_steve]

For experimentation sake (don't leave it like this) have you tried putting the ATA in the DMZ? This would forward ALL ports and is best to do just to see if the behaviour changes, I'd never leave a SIP device in a DMZ permanently though because it's a security risk.

[moneytoronto]

Hello Steve,

I tried to put my PAP2-NA into DMZ of my router, and the phone worked fine.
But how unsecure is such setting ?

I also tried to connect my PAP2-NA directly into my modem, and the phone also worked fine.

So what else can I do with my router to make the phone work and keep the security on at the same time ?

Thank you.

[FONGO_steve]

Hello Steve,

I tried to put my PAP2-NA into DMZ of my router, and the phone worked fine.
But how unsecure is such setting ?

I also tried to connect my PAP2-NA directly into my modem, and the phone also worked fine.

So what else can I do with my router to make the phone work and keep the security on at the same time ?

Thank you.

Too insecure to leave permanently like that. It exposes every single port the ATA uses directly to the web so people could attempt to login/brute force it, among many other things. So if it works in DMZ and directly on the modem then that's a good sign, we've ruled it down to the router.

If you login to the ATA it should show you which SIP ports and RTP port range it uses. I'd suggest forwarding the SIP port and forward the entire range of ports used by the RTP. The 13000 RTP port you were originally forwarding is the RTP port of our softphone - Linksys ATAs usually use a port range much higher than that I believe.

[moneytoronto]

SIP port = 5060 , I already forwarded this port before.
RTP port range = 16384-16482. I forwarded this range, and the problem seems to be solved.
Called freephoneline 3 times from my cellphone, and was able to hear both ways, so I hope it will work from now on

Thank you.

[TheHardy]

Happy to hear that the problem was resolved! Welcome to the experience!

[FONGO_mike]

We are also happy to hear this resolved the issue for you.