[Tom H]

Be careful if you live in one of these countries. Some governments block the ports commonly used for voice over IP, so Internet telephony is not possible.

Panama have done this and I think Turkey:

http://www.p2pnet.net/issue02/page2.html

[Muarrij]

Florian – I assume you can use a traditional cordless phone while using the CISCO ATA device?

What I would like to do however is use (eventually) a wireless handset (non Cisco), with my wireless router (broadband) and Voip calls.

Any comments please?

[Florian]

@Muarrij
Of course you can use a wireless handset (I am doing that as well). What you get is two standard telephone jacks where you can connect everything you would connect in a traditional phone jack.
On the LAN side you need an Ethernet Cable connection to your hub/switch/router. You could very well use a wireless solution (not USB) if cabling is not possible. The cisco has a DHCP client integrated and will automatically resolve an IP Address from your NAT environment.
@Joseph
This issue is known because the 64k codec can only be used at ONE time. The other side must be configured to a lower codec and it should work. But configuring an ATA is not an easy game because all the settings must be defined in binary (value 1 or 0) and then entered in hex format. The cisco guys didn’t bother about normalos and didn’t set up a web configuration menue. Instead they (respectively the company who developed the box) chose the HARDCORE version to confuse everyone. Reading the 500 page handbook is also not as much fun as reading the TIME magazine. I am ONLY able to copy and past configurations given by a telephony provider but I am quite happy with that and don’t need more. Have a look at http://pulver.com/fwd/quick/nat-ata.html
Freeworlddialup will ease up your peer to peer connection with ATA, free of charge.

[George]

Hello,
I need this thing my bill is to high but I have two questions:
Does Amazon “Vonage DigitalVoice Service” pack include for sure the ATA186? (rem: pack looks small)
How can you buy /order for Europe?
Thanks

[Florian]

@George
I does, I have purchased it myself. The only way to order, is send it to a c/o address with a friend living in the US and have this fried remail it to you. Amazon does not ship Electronics to Europe.
You can buy it from ebay.com if the seller ships internationally. ATA’s normally go there for around 130 USD.

[George]

OK. Thanks Florian!
Is it still working fine and by the way how many versions of this box? I see releases, models, .. some speaking about FXO !!??

[Florian]

@George
The FXO numbers are Cisco item numbers. Of the ATA186 are only two versions out there. One has a higher impendancy for overseas power networks, but I assume this wouldn’t make really a difference since I am using the US version in Switzerland (you may consider it Europe, although not politically 😉 Whatever you buy will be fine. The Firmware should read greater than 2.2 but this can also be upgraded when you purchase one with a Cisco license. The licensing is a headache. The Vonage/Amazon version is not shipping with a license for instance, since Vonage has a license leased for the time you are a customer. For us normalo consumers a firmware release means a bugfix and should therefore be free, not so for Cisco. Cisco ships a router and you can not use it even without buying a software license for each and every functinoality used. It’s like buying a car and paying for every seat and and every light you want to see blinking in the control panel. Funny isn’t it?

[Muarrij]

Florian, thanks for the reply, also thanks to Naser. The forum is ideal for answering bits of information that isnt always readily availble. Could you confirm whether the ata 186 is a better solution than actually getting a proper IP phone – available from some of the sites mentioned in the forum? At work we install and use 7940 and 7960 – but these are VERY expensive – not suitable for home use really. Much of the functionality probably wont be used.

[Florian]

@Muarrij
The ATA186 is an IP phone, it’s simply lacking the handset. The analog phone is used as a sound device and a dtms (frequency) sound generator for dialling the number. This handset can be anything and especially it can be cordless. The 7940 is an office phone that only shows its muscles when used with the cisco call manager server which costs the mere sum of 5000$+. One plus of the 7940/60 is the possibility to configure TWO indipendent SIP accounts. I wanted to buy this to use one line with a commercial IP telephony provider (my mantra like loved http://www.iconnecthere.com) and the other one with Freeworlddialup. But as you mention, for the streetprice of it I can get 3 ATA’s, not to mention the list price. If you want something cheap and only to be used for outbound calling when the PC is anyway turned on, you can go with a 30$ IP phone for USB. The voice encoding is then handled by the computer CPU and software. I have a pair of e-genius phones with the tigerjet chipset. They are fine for this and also perfect on the road with a portable computer. However it’s a different thing. The ATA is STANDALONE, it’s basically a small computer for VoIP only.

[Davidm]

Is it possible to connect more than 1 ATA 186 to the same router? I wasn’t sure if they would work, given that they would want to operate on the same port. I have a Vonage ATA 186, but would like to add iConnecthere service as well, and given the proprietary Vonage firmware, I cannot use the second port on the existing ATA for a competitor’s product.

[Muarrij]

Does anyone know about the LINKSYS WRT54G Wireless Broadband Router – its 54g – can I run a netmeeting VOIP session using this router?? At the moment I am having problems. Do i need to port forward?

[Florian]

@Muarrij
Yes, you do need to port forward, because the NAT if it’s smart does dynamic port routing or whatever it is called, meaning that you have to tell the router which port it has to let through to the same “real” port on your computer for incoming connections. Forward all the ports to your computer for a moment and check with the ItCan tool what ports your netmeeting session uses or consult the Microsoft support database if you are not the trial and error kind of person. The reason you are having problem is that Netmeeting does not use the same ports for broadcasting and listening. Your router would drop all incoming connection attempts on a port not previously broadcasted on by Netmeeting.

[Naser]

@muarrij
Try enabling the UPNP feature of the linksys router and it should work fine. It works with me on linksys befsr41.

[Marcos]

LOW COST SIP PHONES
There is another low cost SIP phone now available. I have tested it successfully on FWD, and Nikotel, only as yet.

PORT FORWARDING
As for the comments about port forwarding , that has greatly to do with the gatekeeper, more specificly the proxy, and sometimes the customer premise device itself.

MORE PORT FORWARDING
8X8 for instance has a SIP device that NEVER has seemed to require any port forwarding on the Packet8 Service. BTW I am looking for the generic firmware for this device if anyone has it here! Included firmware from Packet8 seems to be locked.

FREE SIP PHONE HERE!
By the way, Nikotel.com offers a free Grandstream SIP phone if you put $100.00 on the account. I believe however they still have issues with device to device calling through firewalls.

CISCO ATA
As for the Cisco devices, Cisco has now streamlined their model numbers. I remember about 4 months ago talking to Cisco to try to get clarification on the model numbers. Apparently many vendors are still selling old stock of older models. I believe the latest model is the ATA186-I1, but I am not certain. I do know that some versions had problems with second port activation. As for the 64 Kb Codec, There are actually 2 64K codecs “u” and “A” . I have used the newer Ciscos, as well as clients, with both ports occupied at the same time, and have never experienced any indications low bit rate codecs. The limitations on the Cisco however is that it does not allow medium bit rate codecs such as 16, or 32. With the ATA its all or nothing baby! I believe the grandstream has like 7 codec options!

FWD AND PRAISNG THE PULVER GOD!
I must take a moment to Praise the great PULVER GOD here. FWD is awesome, and the man deserves a medal! I think that it is just a matter of time before FWD becomes the Hub of all IP telephony. In other words even though you may use a SIP phone on Nikotel.com, I could place a call to you from Vonage or I connecthere, using FWD as a secondary gateway. As it stands Libretel in conjunction with FWD now allows international calling , except USA ( I wonder if that has anything to do with Pulver’s attempt to keep Federal regulators from calling “IP telephony”, “telephony”??) I Might also add I recently Picked up a Packet8 Line last week, dialed a USA number, Then dialed a FWD number, where I was then connected to a SIP phone in Australia. The call was not as good as my previous FWD to FWD call, however it worked and was intelligible. The call had a quality of a traditional telephone call from Mexico to Australia. It was NO comparison to the Pure SIP to SIP call I had made from Mexico to Austrailia earlier on FWD, which was better than being there man!

[Herman]

Is there anybody that have setup an VoIP connection in South Africa, I need some help, it seems like Telkom is blocking some of the ports. Anyone else in the world that have done an VoIP setup with D-Link products, DPH-100H and DG-104SH FXS VoIP gateway?

[Author]

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