Don't hear ringing of called phone

I keep being told it is my firewall settings that is causing the problems I am experiencing. So, I opened up my router/modem, went to the firewall settings and printed a screen shot of the information of how my router is set up and sent it to the Voipo techs. They said that my settings are correct. By process of elimination, that only leaves the problem on Voipo’s side, and they, the techs, suggested the same thing. They keep tweaking the adapter on their end, I hope they get it figured out at some point. Sometimes I can hear the dialed numbers ring, and sometimes I can’t, it seems to come and go. Maybe an exorcism is in order, to get rid of any lingering poltergeists in their system.

Do you have a static IP addressed to the voip adapter. If you do; as an experiment, you can go into the router and turn ON the "DMZ" and point it to the static IP address of the voip adapter. This basically opens ALL PORTS and forwards them to the voip adapter. if this works, then you know it's a ports issue.

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. good luck.

When I call a person, I can not hear the phone ringing, but, when I ask the person that I just called if their phone was indeed ringing, they say yes, it was, I just can not hear it ring. To weird for me. I would think it is on Voipo's end, not mine.

As far as the firewall goes, Voipo said that I am good to go. They took control of my computer, and set it up as I watched, so I would assume that the problem is on Voipo's side.

No problem. Just mentioning that SPI is a firewall setting on a router that can affect inbound traffic if it was on. Also, that SIP under the ALG area was meant for software SIP like skype and such, and can block communications with a hardware device like a voip adapter that wants SIP. Just something to look at. Not saying that is the answer, just that many have had issues with voip and those 2 settings.

I'm not sure how much detail you really care about here, but this can actually be tracked back to one of a few different things.

Not all audio you hear comes from the network
For example, when you pick up the phone you hear a dial tone, but that's actually generated by the device that VOIPo sent you. In fact, that device can generate every sound the phone network uses from ringing sounds, to busy signals, to the sound you hear for call waiting.

Not all calls are handled the same
This is the part that gets confusing. The ringing that you hear on a call can actually be generated in 2 different ways. Say you want to call 444-555-1234. After you finish dialing the number on your phone, the ATA device generates a request to the VOIPo servers that looks a little like this:

INVITE sip:14445551234@someregion.voipwelcome.com SIP/2.0
{A bunch of other stuff goes in the packet guts, mostly things like your username, what codecs your device supports, and what UDP port you will receive audio on}

VOIPo's servers can respond back with something like what you see below. The "180 Ringing" response means that your adapter should generate the ringing sound.

SIP/2.0 100 Trying
SIP/2.0 180 Ringing
SIP/2.0 200 OK
{ This signals that the call has been answered and gives the remote IP handling the audio for the call }

... but they can also respond back with something that looks like this:

SIP/2.0 100 Trying
SIP/2.0 183 Session Progress
{ This is a bit unique in that you get an IP for call audio before the call is answered }
SIP/2.0 200 OK
{ Here the call is answered, and you get an IP for where the audio will go to/from -- it's usually the same as the Session Progress IP }

This option uses what is known as "early media" because you get audio from the PSTN before the call is answered, so in this case the ringing sound actually comes directly from the PSTN. This is essential for dialing things like AT&T 800-number teleconference services because AT&T doesn't actually signal the call as being answered until after you've entered a valid conference pin code.

As was already mentioned, a lot of routers include a feature called SIP ALG. What it's supposed to do is read all of the SIP status messages and read things like what port your ATA says it will use for a call, and what IP your provider says will be used for the call audio, and automatically open a hole in the firewall and create a NAT mapping to get that traffic to the ATA. The problem is that SIP ALG sometimes has problems reading the SIP packets, and sometimes skips some altogether like the "183 Session Progress" packets -- when that happens, you have problems with incoming audio.

Since you're having intermittent problems, as an outside observer with limited knowledge of how VOIPo is setup these would be my first 3 guesses:

1) Your adapter isn't properly generating a ringtone for calls made on carriers that don't support early audio. If you go to your Call History and click on calls you can see a reference ID for each call. If you can provide to VOIPo support which calls had ringing and which calls didn't, they should be able to track down the carrier they used for each call and use that to troubleshoot further.

2) You have a router in front of your ATA with SIP ALG or similar functionality and it's eating some of the "183 Session Progress" messages, or preventing the correct NAT mappings from being setup.

3) VOIPo has a rarely used carrier that is being used to terminate some of your calls, and VOIPo's SIP gateways aren't properly translating call progress codes when relaying status to your ATA.

Spaeth; excellent comments. There's a lot about voip that people don't understand, and when there's a problem, it can be difficult to discern where that problem is. I noticed when VoipO was first starting up and I was Alpha testing with them, we had a certain problem. After a lot of experimenting, I found that the problem only existed when I called a certain state. The problem got narrowed down to one of the partner providers passing the packets. So that too is a good experiment to try. Do you get the no ringing with ALL calls, or only certain people/places you call. Not saying that a customer should have to know how to do any of this. They shouldn't. But voip is still a novelty/niche market. It's not something my 80 year old parents are going to buy. Matter of fact; probably 98% of the 2000 people who work with/for me have traditional phone service. Of the other 2% there's those with "Digital Voice". (Cable company's version of voip, but only in town. They hand off to the Ma'Bell). Besides me, maybe 2-3 others have "True Voip".

Another part of Voip that most people don't understand is that to make a voip phone call, it takes 2 separate parts. You have the SIP (Session Initiation protocol) Which is the part that initiates the call. It usually goes through the voip provider. (I am not 100% if VoipO is doing it this way, but most do). You connect to VoipO via the internet, they send your request through their network of leased lines to the destination you are trying to call. The SIP initiates the handshake. Your request is usually then handed through Ma'Bell (PTSN) because most calls are to a land line or cellular. Once the initiation has been established, the 2nd part kicks in. That's the RTP. (Real-time Transport Protocol). That's the part where your actual voice packets in the conversation is attached to. The UDP protocol. That traffic however doesn't follow the SIP. It normally doesn't go from you to VoipO and back out. Once the SIP has the initiation established, the RTP takes a direct route (As direct as the internet can be considering they use LCR for traffic) to the handoff gateway at the PTSN. Then your voice is converted back to analog and on to the final phone.

The problem of not hearing the other end ring in your phone is not uncommon. Unfortunately, the cause is also uncommon. You'll find that some are in the Router, having SIP ALG and SPI turned on. Some routers it's a problem; some it isn't. Some, the voip adapter actually needed a firmware upgrade. Some had port problems with the customer and the server. (They changed the server in the voip adapter config and it fixed it). Some had problems in the proxy settings using a domain name and it got corrected by putting in the actual IP address. (DNS Issue). Bottom line, there can be numerous reasons for this problem. But if it's any consolation, a simple google search will show that this problem has been reported by customers of just about every voip provider on the planet. It sucks when it happens to us personally; but the problem isn't personal.

Well it happens to me with, so far, one number. Here's what's happening and why I don't see how it can not be on Voipo's end.

I call number (AT&T Wireless cell phone - area code 661) from my softphone (Bria iPad edition).
No ringing, goes to voicemail after several seconds of quiet.
I turn off WIFI bypassing router (and ATA) and use Verizon data network on iPad. Call number again.
No ringing, goes to voicemail after several seconds of quiet.
I switch dialing out account from Voipo to Callcentric (they have pay-as-you-go plan) in softphone. Call number again.
Rings! Goes to voicemail after several rings.

Clearly the no-ringing is happening when I dial out using Voipo and not when I use Callcentric. This appears to have nothing to do with the ATA or router. Any thoughts?

In all 3 of your experiments, it goes to voicemail. Forget if you hear ringing or not. Can you call the other end. Are you saying that with callcentric, if you call the at*t wireless cell phone, it DOES RING the actual cell phone? Or do you simply hear a ringing in the headset? As spaeth was saying, it doesn't matter what you hear. The ONLY REASON phone companie put a dial tone on the phone, is to make you think the phone works. As you know, there's no dial tone on a cell phone.

Now; if you're saying that you can call the AT&T cell phone from call centric and it actually rings the cell phone and it can answer your call; then yes, there is an issue. You say it HAS TO BE voipo's end. That's not necessarily true. However; for the average customer, who doesn't know how voip works, all they care about is THEIR END; meaning their phone and internet; and VOIPO's end; meaning everything else. There's a lot more in between. But for the customer, they shouldn't care about thatl.

So; IF you can call a specific number with callcentric and the other end rings, and they can answer it; but you CAN'T when using VoipO, then open a ticket with voipo. Give them the number you are trying to call and that it won't connect. I have that problem at work ALL THE TIME. I will have a customer call up and say they can't call a specific number. Find out that a new prefix has been added in a state or country and my PBX isn't programmed for that area code or prefix. I add the number, and all is good.

Another test is to see if you can call ANOTHER 661 area code AND PREFIX phone that is similar to the one you can't connect to. Life is simple. We make it harder than it really is. But open a ticket with voipo, once you know what the true problem is, and they can definitely help you. If you don't have all the facts and are assuming certain things work or don't work, then it could take voipo a long time to figure out what the problem is. Remember; you are on Voip, and you're trying to connect to cell phone and land lines. That's 3 different technologies, with 3 different providers. What you describe is not unusual and happens every day; even with cell phones and land lines. Landlines have over 100 years of experience making a process to catch these issues. Cellular and voip have to sometimes catch these issues one at a time.

Christcorp: Thank you for the thorough response. All I'm saying, really, is that when I call said number using Voipo, I don't hear any ringing. I just get silence until the other end picks up or goes to voicemail. When I call the same number using Callcentric, I hear ringing until the other end picks up or goes to voicemail. I bypassed the router and ATA just to show that it was not specific to those devices.

Since this is only a minor annoyance and, as you mentioned this is new technology, I didn't bother writing a ticket. I saw this thread and thought I'd share my experience.

Originally Posted by Stingray2U

Christcorp: Thank you for the thorough response. All I'm saying, really, is that when I call said number using Voipo, I don't hear any ringing. I just get silence until the other end picks up or goes to voicemail. When I call the same number using Callcentric, I hear ringing until the other end picks up or goes to voicemail. I bypassed the router and ATA just to show that it was not specific to those devices.

Since this is only a minor annoyance and, as you mentioned this is new technology, I didn't bother writing a ticket. I saw this thread and thought I'd share my experience.

Unlike you, I opened a ticket for it. After all, this may be an issue that, sooner or later, may lead to a bigger problem.
I also bypassed my router by hooking up the VOIPO adapter to the cable box. That didn't solve the problem. I then took my VOIPO adapter with me and tried it on a friend's cable modem (different ISP) - same problem.

The funny thing is that everything on my end used to work fine until Saturday, July 28th, 2012. Nothing changed on my end, so, if VOIPO could track down what changes they made that day (or the night before) on my line, it may lead to a solution.