[Asterisk-Users] [RANT] Today's possible problems with Broadvoice????

[Wolfgang S. Rupprecht]

akohlsmith-asterisk at benshaw.com (Andrew Kohlsmith) writes:
> That's not asking ofr help.  He knows his system hasn't changed.  He
> knows that BV is up and down like a bride's nightie.  

Hey, without this thread you wouldn't have gotten to use that great line.

Thanks for the chuckle!

> The thread is no longer about help.  It's a bitch and moan and
> status report on BV.

Actually there are a few asterisk issues mixed in there along with a
VIOP service provider that has technical pains.

The fact that asterisk doesn't periodically re-check or deal with
multiple IP's handed out by DNS and register with all of them is an
asterisk problem brought to light by the BV configuration.

The other problems are more VOIP provider issues, but one that
asterisk newbies might not realize would be problems before they put
their money on the table and try to get asterisk running with a
particular provider.  Here is my checklist that I will use to evaluate
future VIOP providers.

* Does the provider give you the raw settings so you can use a generic
  SIP device (such as asterisk)?

* Can the VOIP provider assign you a local telephone number or will
  people be forced to call long distance to reach you?

* Does the VOIP provider have an 8-bit clean ulaw path or is one
  forced to use their choice of compression?

* Does the VOIP provider try to hide their ping times by filtering
  ICMP echo-requests and/or echo-replies.

   # Does the VOIP provider filter all ICMP's at the border router
     because of some "security issue" involving copious hand-waving.

* Does the VOIP provider have SRV records setup for
  _sip._udp.<company>.<topdomain> ?  (Shame, shame on any provider
  that can't take the minute or two to add those DNS records!)

* Does the VOIP provider have forward and reverse DNS entries in place
  for all machines that send packets to customers?

* Does the VOIP provider have low delay times (say 20ms - 40ms) for
  SIP-pings to their server?

  (Asterisk issues: Asterisk could really have a yellow/orange/red
  alarm system for indicating when delay times are heading upwards and
  user's will notice and complain.)

* Does the VOIP provider force you to mung your native SIP address and
  make it impossible for your SIP device to re-invite and cut out the
  delays associated with forwarding all packets through their server?

* Does the VOIP provider allow you to inject your SIP name and number
  on a per-call basis?  

  (Eg. Can family members have the sip name aka "caller id", indicate
  the real calling party's name?)

-wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht                http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
openbsd amd64 http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ftp/asterisk-openbsd35.patch