Weird One-Way Audio Issue

[amirg]

I have been using the service for over a year with my PAP2T ATA connected to a TEW-652BRP router. Since this weekend I have started to experience one-way audio ONLY on my "outgoing" calls where the recipient cannot hear me while I can hear them. Incoming calls have no issues at all. I have tried the following things one at a time and none has worked:

- Put the ATA in my router's DMZ
- Connected the ATA directly to my cable modem bypassing the router
- Changed the codec in ATA from G729 to G711

When I use the SIP client on my PC there are no issues so I guess this cannot be related to port configuration on the ISP side. What else can I try at this point? My ATA with the same settings has been working fine before and I have not changed anything in my network.

[bridonca]

Power down the modem, ATA and router. wait 30 seconds. now power on the modem, wait 30 seconds, power up the router, wait 30 seconds, then power up the ATA. The problem should be gone for a little while.

If you want a more permanent fix, get a better router, with stable firmware, and not the mess you got from Trendnet. I forget if that model can be flashed with DD-WRT, but if it can, please do.

[amirg]

Thanks for the reply. I have rebooted everything as suggested but the problem persists. I will try a Netgear today and report back.

[amirg]

OK, I tried a Netgear router and the problem is still there. On second thought, I don't see why it should have solved the problem. As I said in my first post, I have the exact same problem even if I completely BYPASS the router by connecting the ATA to my cable modem. Any thoughts?

[dibsmft]

Did you fully configure (forward ports etc?) the router and the ATA when you first set the device up? If you did all that then what has changed recently? Sometimes, doing a hard reset of the ATA can clear problems but I would not suggest you try that unles you know for sure that it has not been unlocked (i.e. never locked). As far as I recall, old versions of TEW-652BRP could be flashed with DD-WRT but the ones around now cannot be flashed with DD-WRT so flashing is probably not a solution for you.

[amirg]

Did you fully configure (forward ports etc?) the router and the ATA when you first set the device up? If you did all that then what has changed recently? Sometimes, doing a hard reset of the ATA can clear problems but I would not suggest you try that unles you know for sure that it has not been unlocked (i.e. never locked). As far as I recall, old versions of TEW-652BRP could be flashed with DD-WRT but the ones around now cannot be flashed with DD-WRT so flashing is probably not a solution for you.

I haven't had to do port-forwarding before but I can try flashing one of my routers with DD-WRT and try it now. The thing is even putting the ATA in DMZ has not solved the issue so I'm not sure if port forward would solve it. Also I thought port-forward helps with receiving RTP packets while I have issues with my voice not being heard at the other end on outgoing calls only.

[bridonca]

what do you have for a modem? It seems that it is acting like a router, a very bad one at that if you have the ATA directly connected to the modem, and still have the one way audio problem. Power down that modem for a bit (pull the power plug out of the wall to make sure), power down the ATA also, them directly connect the ATA to the modem. Power the mode up, and 30 seconds later power the ATA, then see if the problem persists.

Better go with another stupid question. Does the phone actually work properly? Might want to try another known working phone to make sure.

[amirg]

what do you have for a modem? It seems that it is acting like a router, a very bad one at that if you have the ATA directly connected to the modem, and still have the one way audio problem. Power down that modem for a bit (pull the power plug out of the wall to make sure), power down the ATA also, them directly connect the ATA to the modem. Power the mode up, and 30 seconds later power the ATA, then see if the problem persists.

Better go with another stupid question. Does the phone actually work properly? Might want to try another known working phone to make sure.

My cable modem is a Scientific Atlanta DPC2100R2. I tried the direct ATA-modem connection after a power cycle and still have the same issue.

[dibsmft]

[quote="amirg"
I haven't had to do port-forwarding before but I can try flashing one of my routers with DD-WRT and try it now. The thing is even putting the ATA in DMZ has not solved the issue so I'm not sure if port forward would solve it. Also I thought port-forward helps with receiving RTP packets while I have issues with my voice not being heard at the other end on outgoing calls only.[/quote]

DMZ is not port forwarding (its not really even DMZ . The way to find out if port forwarding can correct your problem is to try it, though, I think it might be worth trying to figure out what or whou has changed the configuration/behaviour of your modem/router since you first started to use the ATA.
I think I would start to debug the problem by powering down everythig modem/router/ATA and disconnect any other devices on the network. Connect a computer directly to the modem and make sure that it works normally and that you can run FPL-Fongo on your MS-Windows client. If that all goes smoothly then, it you have a Windows SIP client (eg. X-Lite or Linphone) make sure that FPL-Fongo works with that. Once you know that that all that works and there is no problem with the modem then you can go forward and test the router but if that does not work then you know the problem is likely with the modem. If the latter is the case then come back here and tell us the make and model of the modem.

[amirg]

[quote="amirg"
I haven't had to do port-forwarding before but I can try flashing one of my routers with DD-WRT and try it now. The thing is even putting the ATA in DMZ has not solved the issue so I'm not sure if port forward would solve it. Also I thought port-forward helps with receiving RTP packets while I have issues with my voice not being heard at the other end on outgoing calls only.

DMZ is not port forwarding (its not really even DMZ . The way to find out if port forwarding can correct your problem is to try it, though, I think it might be worth trying to figure out what or whou has changed the configuration/behaviour of your modem/router since you first started to use the ATA.
I think I would start to debug the problem by powering down everythig modem/router/ATA and disconnect any other devices on the network. Connect a computer directly to the modem and make sure that it works normally and that you can run FPL-Fongo on your MS-Windows client. If that all goes smoothly then, it you have a Windows SIP client (eg. X-Lite or Linphone) make sure that FPL-Fongo works with that. Once you know that that all that works and there is no problem with the modem then you can go forward and test the router but if that does not work then you know the problem is likely with the modem. If the latter is the case then come back here and tell us the make and model of the modem.[/quote]

OK here is the rundown:

PC (FPL softphone) -> router -> modem : everything works
PC (xlite) -> router -> modem : everything works
ATA -> router -> modem : one-way audio on outgoing calls
ATA- > modem : one-way audio on outgoing calls

So seems like there's a problem with my ATA, even though it had no issues up until last week.

[dibsmft]

I guess the next thing is to try forwarding the ports
Set a static IP address for the ATA. Normally you can do this by setting the ATA to Static (turn off DHCP) and give it an IP outside the range that the router uses for DHCP but the router manual may give you other instructions. Put in the other information, DNS server, network mask and Gateway.
Forward port 5061 UDP (for line 1 SIP signaling) and 5062 (UDP for line 2) and ports 5080 - 5100 UDP for RTP voice packets from the router to the ATA. Configure the ATA accordingly.

Check to see if the ATA now works. If it does not then turn on STUN with a server of your choice (eg. stun.ekiga.net) and also turn on "Nat keep alive enable and "NAT Mapping enable". Check again to see if it works.