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Sipdroid and trixbox – it works

Thanks to a few helpfull soles on the sipdroid site I have been succesful in getting sipdroid to register with my Asterisk server AND be able to make calls.

The trick is (thansk to Adrian)
In your sip.conf, comment out “secret = …”. Instead use the following: auth=username@password@host

I also made a change to the extension sipdroid runs on in asterisk and changed: qualify=no

Sipdroid registers to my asterisk box fine and is able to make and receive calls fine. As for the call quality – well that is another thing – keep in mind my testing to date is over Optus 3G.

The first issue I am having is that if I call someone’s mobile I loose the first say 10 seconds of the conversation, ie, I miss them saying “Hello” which starts the conversation off on a failry bad footing, the person I called is usually first heard by me saying” Hellllloooooo, any body there” or something to that effect – not great. Secondly there is still some lag. This is odd becasue I thought the lag I experienced using pbxes.org would reduce given the server I am regsitering to now is local and not in Japan.

Lastly, you need a very stable and good internet connection. I believe now that my data usage has doubled for calls I make as effectivley my asterisk box uploads and downloads from sipdroid AND it uploads and downloads to my VSP. Given the codec used in sipdroid is G711 data usage is high so keep that in mind – 80kbps up and down times two = 160kbps up and 160kbps down for a phone call.

Anyway, best of luck for anyone deploying sipdroid on their asterisk server. Let me know how you go.

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VOIP over 3G – Update 2

OK, so I have been living with VOIP over 3G for a little while now. It is working fine providing you have a good 3G connection. How you know you have a good 3G connection is a mystery to me but I guess the signal strength is a factor. The service provided by Exetel is very good and the price – well it almost unbeatable.

The calls I have made have almsot all been very clear with just a little bit of garble now and then. Last week I had an 8 min phone conversation and the call was very acceptable, especially given the whole thing cost me on my calulation about 50c (data of 2MB per min and VSP cost of 10c).

I think the major issue still is the fact that SIPdroid only supports the G711 codec. With luck the recent bounty proposed on SIPdroids site for the development of low bandwidth codecs (lets hope G729) will help make this an even better experience (an even cheaper).

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VOIP over 3G – Update 1

Today I received my new SIM from Exetel. After a slight hitch porting out from my old mobile provider I was up and running in no time.

I got a mate to call me on the DID number that I have assigned to my Pennytel account that is a trunk with my PBXes account that SIPdroid registers with (the hoops i go through). It worked fine with just a few seconds of jitter during the conversation that lasted a few minutes. So, so far so good. We will see how it goes over the next few weeks and see how mad it drives me.

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VOIP over 3G

I’m excited by the prospects of mobile VOIP using my ADP1 and Sipdroid.

Sipdorid has its draw backs, the main one being development has been pushed to interoperate with PBXes as opposed to any old VSP or even my Asterisk box at home but thats what you get and I can’t bitch to much about something that works (through PBXes) and is free.

So, today I signed up with a provider that re-sells (among other things) Optus 3G data. I can’t get over how cheap (at least for Australia) the data is. They are charging 1.5c per MB of data. At this rate it makes sense to ditch my current MVNO (who re-sells Vodafone) and go with the new mob. Exetel, who I am switching to, are also an ISP here in Australia and I like their style, its cheap and they don’t piss about with the facts. Its kind of ‘here are our prices and this is how we will do you over, if you don’t like it then piss off, and, if we don’t like you we’ll also tell you to piss off’ which is an interetsing but kind of likeable quality in the business that they are in.

The man that runs the show, John Linton, has a blog and his outlook on things is what tipped me to try them out, its refreshing to see these kind of comments in business. Here is a perfect example.

So, we’ll see how it pans out. I’ll be going VOIP for all my calls (when possible) and text messages also using a VSP. Lets hope the Optus service and network here in Perth doesn’t let me down.

EDIT: I’m crapping my self now that this will not work. Sipdroid only supports the G711 codec which is a monster when it comes to bandwidth consumption. I wish it supported G729 – this could be a short experiment ending up in failure due to Sipdroid and the Andorid OS. Please, please Optus network deliver me a fast stable 3G connection.

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Trixbox Astersik server – some success with other stuff.

Last weekend I cleaned up some network issues at home. In short I had run into some issues becasue I was running and BIND DNS server that was being used by my webserver plus the webserver had entries in its hosts file plus I am running m0n0wall which handled DNS resolution for other clients on the network. It was all very confusing but I think its sorted now.

So, now that my network is decent I got stuck into Trixbox. The issues I had were as follows:-
1. Couldn’t received call on my Ekiga SIP client running on my laptop in the man cave, strangely I could call other external extension from Ekiga but not receive calls. It was just always engaged.
2. I couldn’t seem to get my SPA3102 to act as a VOIP to PSTN gateway or PSTN to VOIP Gateway.
3. Couldn’t get Sipdroid runinng on my ADP1 to register with my Trixbox to then beable to act as an extension and receiv calls etc.

Point 1 must have something to do with Ekiga, I say this becasue I installed X-Lite last night and could make and receive calls fine with it. Anyone know why Ekiga will not receive calls, despite it registering fine and being able to make calls fine???

Point 2 was a little more tricky. It turned out that the other day I moved my modem into the man cave as there was a phone line extension there. The ADSL worked fine but strangely when ever I called my land line it was engaged, this as a result frustrated my attempts to get Asterisk answer PSTN calls and vica-versa. This isn’t so bad becasue know one knows what the number is but its a worry. It turns out I had to move the modem back up stairs to where I had installed an ADSL filter splitter. Writing about this now leads me to belive that perhaps the problem is from the way the phone extensions were installed and having a filter/splitter upstairs and only using it for PSTN then having another filter/splitter down stairs and only using that for ADSL is causing the problem. I’ll buy an in-line filter for my phone only and plug the modem back in the man-cave without a filter and see if that solves the problem.

So anyway, I re-set the SPA3102 back to factory default and re-entered the various setting to ensure the thing woirked in Australia again and also sounded like and Australian phone. I re-set it up a–la Trixbox without the tears and now…..it works! Sweet.

Point 3, I admit, II buckled and signed up with PBXes. It hurts me to do this and I’m still annoyed but at this moment its the easiest way to achieve what I would like, ie, Sipdroid working. IN the end I opened a new account at Pennytel and set up Pennytel as a trunk at PBXes. Whats cool is that I also have an account with Pennytel so Pennytel to Pennyytel calls are free. Thsi way, if my fike wants to speak with me and Sipdroid is regiustered to PBXes OK she just calls me Pennytel account number and its a FREE call, of course this depends on if Sipdroid is using 3G or if its on Wi-Fi.

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ADP1 and cupcake 1.5 – no rooot!!!!

So I received my replacement ADP1 at the start of the week, all is good.

Having installed the fabulous app connectbot I had a poke around in the internal file structure on the ADP1 and tried to become root by using su. It says that that UID can not run su!!!! I thought that the ADP1 was rooted out of the box, short answer, it is, till you upgrade it to 1.5, then it isn’t.

This is a little annoying but I’ll live with it. What I need doing can hopefully be done using the adb tool supplied with the android SDK. The uni I go to has wifi but uses EAP and TKIP which I can not see in the setting available in the WI-FI GUI, as a result I need to hand code the wpa_supplicant.conf file and with luck i’ll get on-line.

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Replacement ADP1 received

Great couple of days, rebuilt modem works and now, today, I received my replacement ADP1. Another night of updating and loading of my favourite apps.

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ADP1 faulty keyboard – back its goes

Well, actually back to Brightstar it goes.

After a week with me I can stand this fault no longer. The number 7 key is faulty, it doesn’t have the click that all the rest of the keys have and its actually difficult to get any output from pressing the key.

I figured I paid good $$$ for the thing, I may as well have it in 100% working condition so I got an RMA from Brightstar and sent it back today. Perhaps this is a false economy and I should consider the purchase a sunk cost and forget about spending more on it but I just can’t.

I miss it already…..

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Android Developer Phone 1 – Its arrived

After tracking its progress from the USA to me here in Perth (via Germany, Dubai and Asia) I finally got the phone yesterday at work.

Enabled 3G with my mobile provider and off I went. Sweet machine but I’m worried about data usage on this thing. My provider charges by the MB, I’ll see how it goes for a couple of days then find out the damage. If its worth it I will change to another provider perhaps with a Data package that gives you say 500MB for a fixed amount.

Up till midnight last nigh flashing it with new firmware and radio stack so it is now running Cupcake (1.5).

Might have a play with the ROM’s flying around on the XDA Developers site I see. They look cool.

Have to get the follow apps I think at this stage..
wpTOgo
ConnectBot
Sipdroid