JDPFu.com 2025

I’ve been interested in saving some money on home phone service since around 2001 when I dropped the babybell service for a VoIP solution. Over the years, I’ve switched providers and ended up with the cable company phone service to get the best quality for the buck. Now they’ve raised the prices and I’m looking again. I’m not interested in Vonage at $25/month when a $3/month plan will cover me. Further, I already own the necessary equipment to get this all working. You may already own the equipment too.

It always seemed that a $3/month SkypeOut account could be linked to a PBX (Asterisk/FOSS) to make this happen. A few months ago, I asked about this on Lifehacker, but didn’t get any acceptable answers.

I was working through a problem with my VoIP service provider the other day and they recommended I trash my old ac-211 and switch to this device:
http://www.thevoipconnection.com/store/catalog/Grandstream-HandyTone-HT-502-p-16420.html
$57 Something about it working well and having good voice quality.

Ok, I’ve had this SIP ATA since before Xmas 2007 and never spent the time to get it working perfectly until this weekend (late May 2008). Here’s a summary of what I’ve learned by testing it at the front and inside my network.

1. g.729 is a nice codec for VoIP/SIP. You may have to request it to be enabled so your account can use it. g.729 is high quality with low bandwidth – see my [[VoIP Codec and Bandwidth]] table here.
2. if you use g.729, then your softphone probably won’t support it. G.711 may be your only choice – at a higher bandwidth cost 80 v. 30.
3. For troubleshooting, I began by placing my HT-502 outside my router – as the 1st device after the ISP modem.
   1. it worked here, I setup my router as a DMZ so the website, email, and other hobby stuff would continue to work.
   2. however, there was a problem – bandwidth was limited!!!! My normal 2.5Mbps down was capped at 120kbps down. UNACCEPTABLE
4. I moved it behind my router with a static IP address on my internal network. I verified all the needed firewall ports were opened (basically 5060) (see elsewhere on this site for more details) … and I began testing.
5. No joy. I played with all sorts of settings that the Grandstream HT-502 supported – no joy — until I set the NAT IP Address
   1. The NAT IP needs to be set to your public IP address. This setting allows the SIP protocol to include the IP inside SIP packets and not trust NAT. My ISP uses DHCP, but my IP address hardly ever changes, say once every 3 years, so I’m golden. VoIP/SIP is working. I can make and receive phone calls. Provided my network is quite, it sounds better than a really good cell phone with very little bandwidth used.
6. Next was to configure the QoS for the best voice/data bandwidth trade off possible.
   1. I use DD-WRT in my cheap router. It supports QoS. I configured it so all traffic is listed as bulk except SIP traffic, which gets Premium service. Just to be safe, I setup the MAC Address for the ATA with premium service level bandwidth too.
   2. Now, the test is to run a full down/up broadband speedtest – using someone other than your ISP. My results came back as 2450kbps down and 220kbps up Not stellar, but it works. Inside the dd-wrt settings, you configure what your actual bandwidth is – using 85% of each to be safe. So for me, thats around 2000/190. Enter those values in the Applications & Gaming —> Quality of Service tab.
   3. I called a friend and chatted with them while running the bandwidth speedtest again. Wonderful!
7. Next, I discovered that my voicemail access wasn’t working because the DTMF tones couldn’t be understood. My DTMF settings that work are:
   1. DTMF Payload Type: 101
   2. DTMF in audio: Yes
   3. DTMF via RFC2833: No
   4. DTMF via SIP INFO: Yes

I hope this helps someone – anyone else. As usual, your mileage may vary with any of this data based on your equipment, software, firmware, technical skill and service providers. If you are really stuck, drop me an email and I’ll help if I can (but I’m not a support service either).

Voice Over IP – Voice Over Internet Protocol.

Basically, using your Internet connection for really cheap phone service.
Sunrocker and ‘Vonage’:http://vonage.com/ are popular providers. Sunrocker has gone out of business.

There’s also a free one-number service . These folks give you a local number (u chose it) that you control where and when it rings on other phones. I use it to ring the house, cell, and work phones simultaneously. It also announces callers, so i can send folks to voicemail if I can’t speak to them right then. The system has many other features and is currently free.

SunRocket was my VoIP provider. They’ve run a number of specials – most recently $199 for 2 years of unlimited service
Let me know if you want to sign up. A referral would be much appreciated.

August 2007 Update — They’ve gone out of business. I kept my Gizmo and moved to a new, monthly only, provider. That provider has some problems. If I figure them all out, I’ll post an entry here.

Cisco has a handy table
that compares quality (subjective) with bandwidth based on most of the popular codecs used by SIP VoIP ATAs today.

BR = Bit rate
NEB = Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (one direction)

New Gizmo and router forwarding settings!

Ok, I logged into the Gizmo to make these settings: according to it (the gizmo) the following ports are reserved: 68, 16384-16403, 5060. Better than what Linksys support is suggesting. I’ll forward these from my router. VoIP quality should be perfect once this is done.

The Gizmo also has configuration settings for bandwidth management – but they aren’t clear whether they have anything to do with VoIP quality or if they help when the LAN traffic doesn’t flow thru the Gizmo.

I’ve been listening and subscribing to Podcasts recently. My favorites are:

• The Value Guys – Value Line Observer
• Security Now! – a technology podcast related to computer and network security
• PerlCast – the best hacker language
• a number of books on tape from my local library system

I’m currently listening to Red Mars and plan to listen to Green Mars and Blue Mars immediately following. Hugo Winners are almost always a good read. Heinlein is my favorite author and has won the greatest number of Hugo awards.

First, this site is for entertainment only. It contains lies, truths, half-truths, and occasionally facts. Verify whatever you read here, don’t trust us – we lie. Ok, you’ve been warned.

SunRocket Offer for 2 Years of Service for $199. Please reference my home phone number if you sign up. You’ll get a free Uniden 2.4 GHz Cordless phone with 2 handsets

Comcast has been pushing their Voice Service really hard. Too hard actually.
Tonight I was called for the 5th time after requesting never to be contacted over the phone for marketing of any services by them. I had to block their number tonight.
Then the boy tried to tell me that they weren’t selling a VoIP service – a lie. Motorola provides devices as do a few others called "eMTAs" – whatever that means. Normal VoIP uses ATA devices – SunRocket calls their version a Gizmo.

I’ve decided to help a few worthy causes here. “Heinlein Society” and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

Ok, the numbers are out on the tax revenues for 2006. Corporate Tax is up 19% and individual is up 11%. Gee, who’d a thunk it – Pro-Growth economic policies work? We are still running a deficit which is just crazy unless you are in an active war on your land. The economy has had 3+ years of growth by any reasonable measure.

Ok, Only in New Jersey is a tax increase toughted as a tax decrease. See story The governer is raising the annual expenditure by over 10%, so of course he’s having budget problems. Imagine that. This is after shutting down non-essential services for 5 days.
So he’s decided to raise the state sales tax by 1 penny. That turns into an estimated $1.1 billion per year tax increase. To get it passed, he had to agree to a tax cut for property taxes. "Over $5 billion over 10 years". Ok, lets do some simple math. A tax increase of $1.1 per year is $11 over 10 years. A tax decrease of $5 over ten years – he just increased taxes $6 billion over 10 years. If you believe that sales taxes tax the poor and property taxes tax primarily the rich, see my “Rants” on the “Fair Tax”.

VoIP rocks, but only with good QoS! I recommend SunRocket.com if you have a stable internet connection and broadband speed. Upload will be more important than download speed.