No audio/OBi device settings

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nostartnoend
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Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:40 pm

No audio/OBi device settings

Post by nostartnoend » Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:54 am

Just purchased an OBi200 device. It's cheap and it works well when it works, but it's an unholy mess of options and idiosyncrasies.

My device chain is this: I have an IPKall number (DID) that routes to CallCentric. CC is registered with SIP Sorcery. My OBi device is registered with SS.

On the first day that I set up the OBi200, a wrong number came into my IPKall. Despite the wrong number, I was pleased to see it worked. Voice quality was good during the brief call.

Three days later, however, all calls to IPKall are failing, no matter which VoIP provider I register with it. Weird. During the troubleshooting process (to see if it's IPK or somewhere further along the chain), I went straight from a softphone (Telephone for OS X) and called SIP Sorcery. The call comes through on the OBi, but there's no audio either way. Just dead silence. I have no idea why it worked three days ago and doesn't now.

So I'm left with two questions:

1. What could be the possible cause of the lack of audio, given that this setup already worked previously?

2. What are the optimal settings for SIP Sorcery and the OBi device? I've attached screenshots of the options available in the OBi interface. There are dozens of unanswered forum posts all over the Web with this very question, so it would be great if at least this one could be the Holy Grail of frantic OBi/SS newbies everywhere.

ImageImageImageImageImageImage
CallCentric, Sipgate UK/DE, Voip.ms and Vyke amalgamated via SIP Sorcery. Previously had a DrayTek 2130Vn VoIP router; now I have an OBi200.

Aaron
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Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:13 am

Re: No audio/OBi device settings

Post by Aaron » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:26 am

One way audio on SIP calls is unfortunately a common occurrence. Most SIP Providers attempt to minimise audio issues by proxying all media, however this potentially introduces other call quality problems, particularly latency, and for this and other reasons the sipsorcery service does not proxy any media. You can read more about the gory details of SIP and audio issues here http://www.sipsorcery.com/mainsite/Help/SIPAudio.

Is there any reason you are not using a free Callcentric DID? It's likely to be more reliable than the ipkall one.

On your Obi device you could experiment with the X_ICEEnable and X_SymmetricRTPEnable. Both of those options are related to how the RTP (audio) stream is processed.

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nostartnoend
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Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:40 pm

Re: No audio/OBi device settings

Post by nostartnoend » Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:15 pm

I liked having IPKall's Seattle area code; CC's free DID only seems to offer New York State area codes. Since current calling plans make area codes kind of a thing of the past, it would probably be smart to move to it and eliminate at least one link in the device chain.

My DrayTek, for all its audio quality issues, never posed a problem with one-way or no-way audio. That worked well with SS for years.

I'm going to factory reset the OBi today and see if I can't recapture that brief moment of glory when a call came through and I was able to carry on a conversation with another human being. Maybe I changed the wrong setting (it's very easy to do on the OBi) when I was tinkering.

For optimal SS performance, are those really the only two settings out of that whole list you'd recommend changing?
CallCentric, Sipgate UK/DE, Voip.ms and Vyke amalgamated via SIP Sorcery. Previously had a DrayTek 2130Vn VoIP router; now I have an OBi200.

Aaron
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Posts: 4652
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:13 am

Re: No audio/OBi device settings

Post by Aaron » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:20 pm

nostartnoend wrote:For optimal SS performance, are those really the only two settings out of that whole list you'd recommend changing?
Your Obi will only ever communicate with the sipsorcery server using the SIP signalling protocol. And with SIP if you are able to get calls through and receive calls then it's working and there's not a lot to optimise.

For the audio side of things your Obi will communicate with whichever device/provider is calling it or being called and it's the RTP settings that are likely to help with one way audio.

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