Switching to VoIP

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

You lose the dial-tone every few days or so, and you can’t receive any calls from the PSTN

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You lose the dial-tone every few days or so, and you can’t receive any calls

from the PSTN

This problem usually occurs if the access router that connects to your Internet ser-

vice provider is configured for DHCP, and its IP address has changed because the

router’s DHCP lease expired. The net effect is that the ATA’s signaling socket is bro-

ken, and the ATA has no way of knowing it (remember, UDP is connectionless). So,

the ATA must be rebooted in order to reestablish a valid socket. The best way to

eliminate this problem is to get a static IP address from your ISP, or figure out a way

to power-cycle your ATA daily during off-hours. Some TSP-provided ATAs have

firmware that works around this problem. Contact your TSP to be sure.

Pay attention to the obvious…

While writing and editing of this book, my editor and I were communicating by email

about a VoIP TSP service. The editor was about to try it and was hooking up the shiny

new ATA the TSP had just shipped him. He plugged his analog phone into the ATA,

plugged in his Ethernet cable, and powered the ATA up. After a few minutes, he lifted

the receiver, hoping to hear the dial-tone, but instead all he heard was silence.

So he looked over the ...