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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).

Completely unrelated … VoIP QoS trials in da House!

Fact 1, SunRocket Gizmos slow down internet activity when installed as SR requests. By half.

Fact 2, Having more than 1 device on a LAN with the same MAC address is a really bad idea – google "ARP" for details.

Fact 3, Placing the gizmo behind your router is more secure, but there are trade offs in complexity and/or voice quality.

Fact 4, I’ve been working with Cisco/Linksys tech support for 6 weeks to solve this issue.

Fact 5, My setup:

• Comcast 6000down/384up Kbits/sec
• Toshiba DOCSIS 1.1 modem – replaced for a 2.0 modem recently
• WRT54GX-v2 router / 2.00.16
• Gizmo on the "inside"
• Multiple PCs and other media devices

Linksys has given me some ports to be forwarded to the gizmo – they seem like a major guess.
We have double checked my QoS settings; basically, Gizmo is HIGH and all other devices (by MAC) are LOW. Also, I’m on a beta version of the next firmware; so far so good.
Linksys Support: "kindly try to forward port 10,000-20,000, 5060-5061, 53 and 69 using UDP protocol" to the gizmo. I have no proof this will work, but wanted to share. Seems like shots in the dark to me. None of those ports interfere with others I need, so I’m willing to try.

Ok, I logged into the Gizmo on 7/27/06 to make these settings: according to it, the following ports are reserved: 68, 16384-16403, 5060. Better than what Linksys support is suggesting.

I may disable the SPI, once I figure out exactly what is really does. Facts, not hearsay.

If someone finds this interesting, throw me an email in a week or so with the URL back here. Once I have a known good config, I will create a clear picture of the network and settings, if there is interest.

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.

I came across a video editor – not fancy, but it works.
The name is ‘cbreak’. It is a MS-Windows command line utility – no don’t be afraid. It has a manual mode that goes through the entire AVI file (only works on AVI files) and figures out where the black frames are. Then it can ask you to confirm each segment to remove or keep by showing you the segment in question. It knows about key frames, so your cuts happen on them.

Sounds dumb? It is. Get it here What do you want for free?

I’ll keep a local copy in case he decides to stop publishing it. It is available in C source code and is released under the GPL

If you’re looking for MPEG file commercial skip, check out ComSkip – not nearly as useful, but with more features for detecting commercials. Eh.

April 2007 Update: I’ve given up and purchased VideoRedo, yes, it was worth it to me. It uses the same commercial location methods that all the other programs use, but with the added TiVo file reading benefit.

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)

Ok, we all need energy. We need it for our homes, computers, refrigeration, radios … normal household items. We need it for our cars, our businesses, to pump water, to mow our yards and just to have fun. Basically we either need energy at a static place OR a type of energy we can take with us, portable energy. Energy is either kinetic or potential; moving or something that can be moved.
Fossil fuels are good because they are portable and we have 100+ years of experience handling them, but there are negatives. Agreed?

For simplicity, let’s ponder just on home and car energy needs. If we can create a plan that solves those two energy types, most of the other energy problems can probably be solved.

For your house, we use solar, geothermal and wind power to create electricity. On sunny or really windy days when excess power is created, that excess power is used to convert hydrogen monoxide, water, H~2~~O into hydrogen and excess oxygen. The hydrogen is stored in containers in your garage for "other uses." If your solar panels leave room for water heating panels, use them to heat your water for bathing, washing, AND heating your home during cold periods. Today, solar and wind probably can’t fully support your total energy needs, but even 20-50% would make a huge difference if most of us did it. Higher efficiency solar panels are on the way, but you still need a way to have power at night and on cloudy days that last weeks, so plug into the power grid anyway. Geothermal power isn’t an option for most folks, unless they happen to live near geysers. This energy is all about having a thermal gradient that can be leveraged to heat and cool some type of liquid. In most states, the power company has to pay you for excess power.

For your car, we need a portable power solution and works at night, for over 300 miles of travel, and can be replenished along the way in 5 minutes or less. Your house will create hydrogen for this portable power need. The fuel cell in your car can work, just like the Space Shuttle uses. A car with 300-500 miles per tank is needed with performance similar to cars in use today. If you like, an electric car can also work, but battery power cars generally can’t have air conditioners too and need 4+ hours to recharge. Electric cars today have a 30 mile range except a few models with 60 mile ranges.

Sound too simple? It is. there are lots of problems. Solar cells are only about 20% efficient and are very expensive. Recently there have been headlines for new solar cell technology with 40% efficiency. Great, when can I buy them? I propose a requirement that wealthy homeowners building new homes worth, say, over $700K (inflation adjusted), be required to install solar panels on the roof. This will cause many benefits beyond local power generation. As there is more demand for solar cells, greater efficiency in production and in the cells themselves will occur bringing the price down for everyone. Also, these larger houses require more energy just to exist, so think of this as a way for the wealthy to pay back on their overuse in a small way. Over the long term, their homes will actually cost less to run thanks to this surcharge. Al Gore, are you listening ?

Hydrogen created from anything other than solar or geothermal or wind power or some other non-carbon creating renewal energy source isn’t very smart. That’s a mouthful. Hydrogen, H~2~~, appears in nature, but only rarely and never in the quantities we’d require to drive cars.

The US Government should sponsor an X-Prize -like contest for the first solar cell with 85% efficiency and a 50 year lifespan installed in over (500) 2000 sq ft homes, say the prize is $30M US. That provides a highly efficient, reproducible, manufacture-ready solution for everyone and it creates a buzz in the industry.

Cars and hydrogen power? Why? Purely electric cars don’t have the distance needed for most households and can’t be recharged in less than 5 minutes. Hydrogen cars can. The key to hydrogen cars is local generation using electrolysis, storing the hydrogen and having water available. Storing hydrogen is fairly difficult – it is the smallest atom and slowly escapes from all containers. This means some kind of chemical storage device is needed – something like a sponge for hydrogen that will easily release it. Perhaps another Auto X-Prize is needed? The other key is to have these hydrogen generation at every house and business. Basically, if there is electricity, there ought to be a hydrogen power plant. Decentralization, that’s the key.

So you have some items to think about. Can it be done? Certainly. Popular Mechanics

Lastly, ethanol from corn is just crazy! It takes almost as much energy to create (need 1 acre of corn to power the tractor used to farm the 1.24 acres corn) than you get back from the ethanol. Stupid, stupid, stupid . Why bother? This is anti-GREEN. Just because you aren’t causing the CO~2~~ to be released, doesn’t mean someone else in the chain is. The only way using ethanol makes sense is if it can be created using either solar or wind, 100% renewable energy sources.

Article on Well to Wheel efficiencies. The total cost of getting the fuel from the ground and making a wheel turn are calculated. This article confirmed what I knew intuitively – we must use solar or wind energy to create hydrogen, converting other fuels into hydrogen is too lossy to consider.

Ok, so let’s agree all this can be done. Who might want to stop this? Well, who has the most to lose or would need to change the most for local power generation and non-petroleum power? We all need to watch those industries carefully to ensure they don’t stop the changes. We need to convince these companies to change – and risk the change – into creating we need for local power generation and support the early adopters. Governments should also take bold steps to encourage risk takers in these areas. Just look at what Germany has done for electrical power already.

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.