I just switched 4 business lines from Vonage to Broadvoice. Vonage went from bad to worse. It was completely unacceptable. It was running over a 768K U /6M D Comcast cable modem. I ran the Broadvoice lines over the same setup and it works perfectly. There are no calls dropped, no one way audio, and no static. I highly recommend this service. I am using this service from behind a firewall that is natting all outbound traffic. This has not affected or caused any problems with the service. I am using a pfsense firewall without the traffic shaper enabled.

Robert

hi,
i have trixbox installed and running. what i really want to achieve is to use it only as an answering machine, keeping my analog phones attached to BV's sipura boxes (i have 2 BV lines and sipura adapters) for calls. i succeded in having trixbox register to BV but at that same time trying to make a call with my regular phone resulted in a 'device not registered on the network' error. any suggestions what i need to do to get my desired setup working?

• Edit*** changed dtmfmode=inband to dtmfmode=rfc2833. RFC2833 seems to be much more reliable on SIP phones and corrected incoming dialplan issues where DTMF was required.

After a recent extended power failure I had to spend some time getting my Broadvoice service working again with Asterisk. I'm still unsure why my previous configuration didn't work when the power was restored but I've since had no problems with the configuration listed below.

First the most important thing with Broadvoice is to *NEVER* try to restart asterisk or stop and start asterisk without waiting 60 seconds in between. If you don't do this you will have trouble registering and you will think it is your configuration when it is actually Broadvoice denying your register request. After multiple restarts they will block you for an unknown amount of time before you can register again. This will again make you think your configuration is wrong when it's not. If you do this stop Asterisk and wait 20-30 minutes before starting Asterisk.

;These configuration files are for Asterisk 1.2.1.
;/etc/asterisk/sip.conf
general
pedantic=no
register => phonenumber:secret@BV1/phonenumber
register => phonenumber:secret@BV2/phonenumber

;replace phonenumber with your Broadvoice phone number
;replace secret with your auth_password obtained from Broadvoice
;BV1 and BV2 can be changed to whatever you wish to call the two accounts
;do not use sip.broadvoice.com or your phone number
;if you only have one account only register the one account

BV1
type=peer
dynamic=yes
username=phonenumber
fromuser=phonenumber
authname=phonenumber
user=phone
secret=secret
host=sip.broadvoice.com
fromdomain=sip.broadvoice.com
outboundproxy=proxy.nyc.broadvoice.com
insecure=very
disallow=all
allow=ulaw
dtmfmode=rfc2833
canreinvite=no
context=context


BV2
type=peer
dynamic=yes
username=phonenumber
fromuser=phonenumber
authname=phonenumber
user=phone
secret=secret
host=sip.broadvoice.com
fromdomain=sip.broadvoice.com
outboundproxy=proxy.dca.broadvoice.com
insecure=very
disallow=all
allow=ulaw
dtmfmode=rfc2833
canreinvite=no
context=context


;BV1 or BV2 should match what you used in the register statement
;replace <phonenumber> with your Broadvoice number
;replace <secret> with your auth_password obtained from Broadvoice
;replace <context> with where you want the calls to go to in your dialplan
;outboundproxy can be set to whichever proxy is closer to by pinging the hosts
;if you have to accounts set each to a different proxy. It will work with the same proxy
;but due to Asterisk sip matching IP's debugging info will not be correct and you may
;experience problems. So it's best to use different ones.
;again if you only have one account you only need the one peer

;/etc/asterisk/extensions.conf

incoming
exten => phonenumber,1,Dial(Zap/1,30)

;incoming should match whatever you set context to in sip.conf
;change phonenumber to your phonenumber you can set whatever you wish to do with the incoming call here

longdistance
exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@BV1,45)

;longdistance can be whatever you wish as long as it's included in the context you are dialing from
;BV1 should be whatever you used in your register statement
;if you wish to dial out on the other account add a statement something like

exten => _71NXXNXXXXXX,1,dial(SIP/${EXTEN

1}@BV2,45)

; then use 7 when dialing from the phone to use the 2nd account.

I hope this helps others.

I measured time taken to setup traffic (RTP) stream when a POTS phone dials my Broadvoice DID (sent to Asterisk) : 5.09s.

That is the POTS phone dials POTS number, and Broadvoice takes 5 seconds to turn that call around and send RTP traffic to SIP. That sounds like a lot. RTT to Broadvoice sip proxy is <20ms. My Ip link has 1+Mbps.

---

Plan Abuse Service Suspension
4 messages

---

BroadVoice <bv@broadvoice.com> Tue, Apr 4, 2006 at 8:51 PM
Reply-To: support@broadvoice.com
To: xxx@gmail.com

Account Number: XXXXXXXXXXX
BroadVoice Phone: +1-213XXXXXXX
Suspension Date: 4/4/2006

Dear XXX:

Unfortunately BroadVoice has been forced to temporarily suspend outbound calling on your account.

It appears that your account may have been compromised, or is in violation of our Terms and Conditions for Use.

This action was taken because your usage pattern indicates your account is being used for business. If you have subscribed to BroadVoice's Residential services, the Service and Device are provided to you as a residential user, for your personal, residential, non-business and non-professional use. This means that you are not using them for any commercial or governmental activities, profit-making or non-profit, including but not limited to home office, business, sales, tele-commuting, tele-marketing, autodialing, continuous or extensive call forwarding, fax broadcast, fax blasting or any other activity that would be inconsistent with normal residential usage patterns.

In the Terms and Conditions for Use, which you accepted at the time you subscribed to this service, BroadVoice reserves the right to immediately terminate or modify the service, if BroadVoice determines, in its sole discretion, that customer's service is being used for any of the aforementioned activities.

We would like to rectify this situation as soon as possible and want you to know that your business is important to us. For assistance and possible restoration of your outbound calling please contact us at 212-202-0300, 213-634-1400 or 312-625-1400.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Your inbound calling and voicemail will continue to work while your outbound service is temporarily suspended.

Thank you.

BroadVoice Customer Care

---

XXX <XXX@gmail.com> Wed, Apr 5, 2006 at 2:41 PM
To: support@broadvoice.com, press@broadvoice.com, billing@broadvoice.com

I received a disturbing e-mail from your company implying that I'm using your service outside of the TOS... I make a lot of calls (granted, most of them are on my cell) but I keep BV in the house to maintain a home phone. You will notice in your records, that I continued to pay for your service for almost a year with virtually NO usage while I was away on business. So, while it may look like my "usage pattern" has changed - going from almost NO usage to 30+ calls in a day - I don't appreciate this kind of invasion of privacy. As a BV customer, I have endured consistent dropped calls, and frequent service interruptions. Despite these inconveniences, I have been a loyal customer in good standing for several years now, because I like the fact that BV is independent and has some great calling features and plans.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. How long do you think SBC or any RBOC would retain customers with this kind of violation of privacy?

For the record, my sister was using my phone to look for a job. I was recently laid off, and will be using MY OWN PHONE to do the same. I have NEVER had to justify my telephone usage to a "phone company" before. Trust me when I tell you, this will be the last time.

I DEMAND my FULL service be RESTORED IMMEDIATELY. If this EVER happens again, I will be forced to terminate my BV service and blog the kind of unethical privacy violations your company practices in the VoIP forums.


-- XXX

---

BroadVoice Support <support@broadvoice.com> Wed, Apr 5, 2006 at 2:54 PM
To: <XXX@gmail.com>
Hello,


The plan that you were signed up for is designed for residential usage per our Terms and Conditions, which you agreed to at sign up.



Through routine monitoring of your calling patterns, it was determined that your usage was is direct violation of our Terms and Conditions,
specifically section 1.3.1 "Residential Use of Service", which states, "If
you have subscribed to BroadVoice's Residential services, the Service is
provided to you as a single usage (user) residential plan, for your own
personal, residential, non-business and non-professional use." Further,
usage of the service is not allowed for auto-dialing, continuous or
extensive call forwarding, telemarketing, fax broadcasting, or fax
blasting.



The Unlimited World/Plus Plans are designated for residential use only,
whereas the Unlimited Business Plan is for business use. Per our Terms and Conditions, accounts planned for commercial use must be signed up to the Unlimited Business Plan $29.95 http://www.broadvoice.com/terms.html
<http://www.broadvoice.com/terms.html> Section 1.2.1)



The options are the following:



1) Upgrade your plan to Unlimited Business, and continue to enjoy the
BroadVoice service.



2) Cancel the service.



Please let us know how to proceed.



Thank you, and please let us know if we can be of further assistance.



Regards,

BroadVoice Customer Care

Ke




From: XXX
Sent: Wed 4/5/2006 5:41 PM
To: BroadVoice Support; press; BroadVoice Support
Subject: Re: Plan Abuse Service Suspension

---

<XXX@gmail.com> Wed, Apr 5, 2006 at 3:12 PM
To: BroadVoice Support <support@broadvoice.com>, billing@broadvoice.com, press@broadvoice.com


Let me get this straight, you're telling me that even though your "routine monitoring of my calling patterns" INCORRECTLY determined that I violated your terms, that my choices are upgrade or cancel??

That is called FRAUD!

To proceed, I recommend that you forward our entire correspondence to the president of Broadvoice for review.

-- XXX

---

I've used Broadvoice for 19 months. At first, their Grandstream ATA didn't work very well as a router, it took them a few weeks to get the bugs fixed so that FTP transfers would actually work through it. But the phone service was pretty good.... it works better now that I've upgraded my cable service to a faster speed, too. Some calls get dropped on occassion, which is probably their fault, or internet congestion, but it hasn't generally been troublesome. There was a couple days in May when they couldn't accept incoming calls, but that was quickly resolved.

The $19.95 (really $22.09 with added fees) for unlimited world service is a great deal. And while they do have local numbers in many areas, they do not have local numbers in the 775 area code, where I live. So I have continued checking other VoIP providers for alternatives, and it seemed no one offered numbers in 775... and then along came area775.com !!! Their rate structure is very different, you pay for each call, but calls to USA are only 1 cent per minute!

And they record every call duration, incoming and outgoing, so armed with months of records, I determined that my costs under area775 would be about $6-$8 per month instead of $22.09. Everyone has their own priorities. I've really enjoyed using broadvoice, but now I found a better deal....

They sure do a nice marketing job, don't they. (AKA, snow job.)

I enlisted in this fraud in order to call Japan. What a joke. Half-the-time I get the standard "Your call cannot go through at this time. Please try your call later." The other half I do get through, but the break-up of reception is so bad that one cannot talk anyway.

A true rip-off. And their "Customer Service" is usually unavailable. (Just try their fancy 611 number.)

Avoid!

I've had an account for almost a year now - haven't switched yet due to lack of time. The service is usually up, but its not uncommon for them to break something or for the first attempt placing a call to fail. Absolutely no response from support unless you want to wait 60+ minutes on hold by calling in (emails I sent in Feb 2005 were read in October, phone support sometimes yields a resolution). Bills over their stated rates. Will be canceling and moving to another service ASAP.

My inbound connections have been down for two days.
"We are currently experiencing in-bound call issues with a carrier partner in some areas. We are aware of the issue and our engineers are working to have it resolved as soon as possible."
Unless they get their act together I wouldn't recommend signing up with them for anything other than a backup provider.

JD

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
I'm also experiencing a "Failed to authenticate on INVITE" error (see output below) whenever I try to MAKE a call through the Broadvoice account. I'd be grateful for any assitance. Here's what I've done so far:

1) I downloaded the latest stable version of Asterisk and compiled it today (27-Mar-05).
2) I updated my conf files as per the Broadvoice web site (see below)
3) I CAN make and recive calls through the Broadvoice account using X-Lite.
4) To avoid typos, I used cut and paste in sip.conf to copy the phone number and password from the register line to the sip.broadvoice.com section
5) When I run Asterisk:
  i)   The Broadvoice account registers OK
  ii)  I can receive calls on the Broadvoice account
  iii) I CANNOT make calls through the Broadvoice account.  When I do, my computer freezes up but eventually comes around a while after I hangup and warns - Failed to authenticate on INVITE to '"asterisk" ;tag=as4a325b3a' (see below)

Any ideas?

Finally, I'm still unclear about assigning an extension to the Broadvoice account as part of the registration line (see where I commented out ;/3003). What does it do? I rely on the context defined under the sip.broadvoice.com section. What do you gain by assigning an extension in the Register line?

My conf files and the Asterisk output are below.

Thanks,
Jewel


;*****************************************************************
;/etc/hosts

1. Do not remove the following line, or various programs
2. that require network functionality will fail.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

1. proxy.dca.broadvoice.com

147.135.0.128 sip.broadvoice.com
;
;*****************************************************************
;
;/etc/asterisk/sip.conf
;
general
port=5060 ; Port to bind to (SIP is 5060)
bindaddr=0.0.0.0 ; Address to bind to (all addresses on machine)
context=from-sip-external ; Send unknown SIP callers to this context
pedantic=no
register => 8145551212@sip.broadvoice.com::8145551212@sip.broadvoice.com;/3003
;
sip.broadvoice.com
type=peer
user=phone
host=sip.broadvoice.com
fromdomain=sip.broadvoice.com
fromuser=8145551212
secret=
username=8145551212
insecure=very
context=from-broadvoice
authname=8145551212
dtmfmode=inband
dtmf=inband
;Disable canreinvite if you are behind a NAT
canreinvite=no
;
;*****************************************************************
;
/etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
general
static=yes ; These two lines prevent the command-line interface
writeprotect=yes ; from overwriting the config file. Leave them here.
;
;
from-broadvoice
exten => s,1,Dial(ZAP/1,30)
exten => s,2,Hangup

from_FXS
exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX, 1, dial(SIP/${EXTEN}@sip.broadvoice.com,30)
exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX, 2, congestion()
exten => _1NXXNXXXXXX, 102, busy()
;
;*****************************************************************
;
;/etc/asterisk/zapata.conf
;
; This is the bare bones of what is required to get your X100P
; card working on a "normal" line provided by a local phone
; carrier in North America. For more details on all options,
; see /usr/src/asterisk/configs/zapata.conf.sample but I would
; strongly suggest starting simple with the bare minimum of
; configs and working up from there - PSTN telephony interfaces
; are notoriously touchy with the large number of features
; they offer.
;
channels
language=en
context=from-FXO
signalling=fxs_ks
usecallerid=yes
echocancel=yes
echocancelwhenbridged=yes
channel => 4
;
language=en
context=from_FXS
signalling=fxo_ks
channel=>1
;
language=en
context=from-ILS-FXS
signalling=fxo_ksFailed to authenticate on INVITE to '"asterisk" ;tag=as4a325b3a'
channel=>2
;
;*****************************************************************
;
;/Asterisk Console Output
;
Asterisk Ready.

• CLI> sip show registry

Host Username Refresh State
147.135.0.128:5060 8145551212 120 Registered

• CLI> — Starting simple switch on 'Zap/1-1'

   — Executing Dial("Zap/1-1", "SIP/13035551212@sip.broadvoice.com|30") in new stack
   — Called 13035551212@sip.broadvoice.com
Mar 27 20:55:26 NOTICE1116941248: chan_sip.c:5047 handle_response: Failed to authenticate on INVITE to '"asterisk" ;tag=as4a325b3a'
Mar 27 20:55:26 WARNING1209214528: app_dial.c:347 wait_for_answer: Unable to forward voice
 == Spawn extension (from_FXS, 13035551212, 1) exited non-zero on 'Zap/1-1'
   — Hungup 'Zap/1-1'