Help With Linksys Router

[JSSAUCE]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on my issue. I have been in touch with support but never really seem to get anywhere.

My ISP is Comcast and I was using a Linksys BEFW11S4 ver 3. I had NO issues for about a month while I was waiting for my number to port from Vonage. NO ISSUES AT ALL.

After the port that same day I started to experience my phone line droping. The green light on the adapter would go out and I would have no dial tone. Calls would just drop and people could not reach me randomly. My router had the most current firmware and the adapter was in the DMZ. Support changed numerous settings according to them but still issues.

I tested without the router and the adapter directly to the SB5100 cable modem and everything seemed to work and now drops but that also means no internet.

Support said that model had some issues so i went out and bought a new router.

I now have a Linksys WRT54GS ver 6 with the firmware updated and the adapter in the DMZ. Guess what dropped dial tone again. I have used all new cables too.

I am really out of solutions and support has no answhere. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Thanks
Joel

[Chulo]

Looks like you're in my boat. http://forums.hostrocket.com/showthread.php?t=21015

edit- Actually if your dial tone is dropping thats something that doesnt usually happen to me. When you connected the adapter to the modem, were ALL your calls coming through?

[JSSAUCE]

It works fine for a while the the line just drops. The adapter has no router functions so i am at a loss as to how to make it work and still have the internet.

I have been using voip since 2003 with no issues and now after the port my 2 year pre paid service is pretty much useless. I pretty much do not receive any calls and need to reset my adapter before I make any short calls and eliminate the router and directly connect to the modem if i need to make any long calls.

I am a pretty patient guy but am starting to weaken and get pi$$ed off.

Joel:(

[Brian188]

It sounds to me to be a registration problem. In other words the adapter is not staying registered or registering often enough. DracoFelis has posted some good instructions for a pretty good fix for this so I won't do it again here: http://forums.hostrocket.com/showthread.php?p=106306#post106306

Give that a try.

[Brian188]

By the way, if you are provisioned, you will need to call support and ask them to make these changes. You could turn off provisioning for a couple days and make the changes. If it helps, you could then call support to make the changes and then turn provisioning back on.

[JSSAUCE]

Thanks. I will look into this. The only problem is that I cant find the place to mark so VT dose not auto overide my new settings. I must be looking in the wrong place.

Joel

[JSSAUCE]

edit- Actually if your dial tone is dropping thats something that doesnt usually happen to me. When you connected the adapter to the modem, were ALL your calls coming through?


A straight connection to the modem and all is well but put in a router and the problems start. Funny thing was all was fine the 1st month.

Joel

[GregM]

Thanks. I will look into this. The only problem is that I cant find the place to mark so VT dose not auto overide my new settings. I must be looking in the wrong place.You could be setting the IP of the voice terminal for placement in the DMZ and provisioning is setting the device back to DHCP and the necessary ports aren't being routed through the device's firewall.

I didn't see where you identified the model of your voice terminal, but this is where you can find it on the PAP2T. I take it you already have the admin password for the device if you're making changes. Login as admin, go to the advanced view, and check the provisioning tab. Set "Provision Enable" to "no".

[Agrajag]

I'm also all for setting the adapter on a static IP which I haven't seen mentioned here. Makes it a lot easier to deal with.

[JSSAUCE]

The VT adapter is a PAP2 on the login page but the actual adapter says PAP2T. It has old firmware. I found a newer version on the Linksys site but don't want to do that unless told.

I found the provisioning and set it to No. I went into the router and set the IP in the DMZ. I also forwarded ports

5060 to 5061 UDP
16384 to 16482 TCP

I hope these were the correct ports.

Lets no wait and see!!!

Thanks
Joel

[JSSAUCE]

I'm also all for setting the adapter on a static IP which I haven't seen mentioned here. Makes it a lot easier to deal with.

Don't know how to do that??

Joel :eek:

[Agrajag]

Call support and ask them to do it for you. Also, port 5060/5061 is the default VoIP port. GET OFF of that port. Also have support do this for you (though you can do it too). Try ports in the 5090's.

Do you have the password to your adapter to access it? If not then definitely call support and have them do the above. Pick an IP address and tell them that's the one you want it to have. If your router is 192.168.1.1 (which is likely for Linksys) then pick something 192.168.1.X where X is a number below the DHCP numbers. Mine is .35 for example.

Then when you forward the ports you just choose that IP address and you're done.

[JSSAUCE]

Thanks for the help Agrajag and others!!!!:D :D

Joel

[Brian188]

Once you set up the static ip, and place the adapter in the DMZ, there is no need to forward ports. I would follow Agrajag's suggestion and move to different port especially if you are using Comcast or another cable provider. With provisioning off you will have to make these changes yourself.

To set up the static go to the System Tab, and set DCHP to No, enter a static Ip that is in range of your router I.E. 192.168.2.2 or 192.168.100.2 etc. Enter your gateway (routers) Ip address. Enter the netmask i.e. 255.255.255.0 (what ever your router is using.) You will also need to enter the primary DNS too, I would suggest setting this to your gateway (routers) ip address.

One other thing since you have the adapter in the DMZ you should set up a USER password on this same tab. This will require a user name (user) and password to access any part of the adapter in the future.

[GregM]

I'm using the 5.1.3(LS) firmware on my PAP2T and it's good-to-go. I use a static IP on the PAP2T and put it in the DMZ of my WRT54Gv5.

[JSSAUCE]

Well thanks for the help. I stopped e-mailing support and just called today. Here is what they did based on my problem and everyones advice.

1. There was some issue with a crazy ip address from the modem and router not matching. They did something, not sure what.

2. They assigned a static ip in the VT adapter setup pages along with gateway, dns etc...

3. They had me put the static ip in my routers dmz.

4. He said he changed the port settings. Is that the SIP port? It is 5083.

5. Provision enable is no.

Not too sure about a additional password as some suggested. It already requires one Brian188??

Not too sure about forewarding ports. Told since its in the DMZ its not needed.

Should I upgrade the firmware to 5.1.3LS from 3.1.15?

Thanks in advance. I think I'am almost there!!

Joel

[bubbanc]

Correct, you shouldn't need to forward ports if your device is in the DMZ. I'm not sure if WRT54G v6 supports QoS out of the box, but if it does, you might configure the MAC address of your PAP2T and give it the highest priority so things like Bittorrent don't reduce your outgoing bandwidth so that calls cannot go through.

[GregM]

The Linksys WRT54GS v6 supports QOS out of the box. Using the device priority by MAC and setting it to "highest" priority is a good idea. That's what I do with mine. My calls are not disturbed during intensive network activity.

[Brian188]

4. He said he changed the port settings. Is that the SIP port? It is 5083.

Not too sure about a additional password as some suggested. It already requires one Brian188??


The sip port is the port that the packets (phone conversation) are transmitted through. If there is a lot of traffic/congestion on that port it can effect your quality. It has been speculated (not proven) by some that some ISP's will willfully block/congest port 5060 (the default SIP Port) to degrade quality so you may favor their (your ISP) VoIP service in place of a 3rd party i.e. VT. That is one reason I suggested changing ports. You are using 5083, so that should help.

If you already have a USER password set up then, don't worry about it. This is NOT a default on the PAP2. You or VT would have had to set it up at some point. Make sure it is the USER password, not just the ADMIN password. The reason for this is because you have the adapter in the DMZ it not protected by your router's firewall. Therefore if someone were to enter your IP address in thier browser they could access your adapter. Granted they would not have ADMIN access to hyjack service or anything like that, but they would be able to see your name and telephone number among other things.

[Agrajag]

One thing that concerns me is that you mention Provisioning is set to No.

If so, if they made all those changes on their side, none of them would be live on the adapter unless they talked you through all this and had you do all this work on the adapter from your end. If they did it on their end, you still don't have these settings until you turn provisioning on, at least long enough to turn it on, save, unplug the adapter, plug it back in, let it get the data and then turn it off.

[JSSAUCE]

Brian188,

THANK YOU!!

The password was given to me by VT. I log in with admin then ******
Is this what you mean. I am not sure where to put a USER password.


Agrajag,

I understand what you are saying but don't understand. The nice VT man made all of the changes and rebooted my adapter. A few hours after I checked and all of the settings were still there. Maybe you could explain the provisioning to off/on to me.

I am not home until the morning so I can't check the adapter till later.

THANKS!!

Joel

[Brian188]

The password was given to me by VT. I log in with admin then ******
Is this what you mean. I am not sure where to put a USER password.


The user password is set up on the top section of the System Tab. If you have provisioning turned on you will need to have VT set this password for you.

[Agrajag]

I'm wondering when Provisioning got set to "No". I don't believe ViaTalk is able to push ANYTHING to the phone adapter with that off. They can set everything they want on their side but it won't get pushed to the adapter, even if you reset it, until Provision Enable is set to "Yes" at least for that one push.

If you're going into the adapter and seeing the changes then clearly it was set to Yes at some point. Is it set to No now?

(I'll be out all Thursday until Thursday evening)

[Brian188]

Maybe you could explain the provisioning to off/on to me.

Joel

VT has server that contains all the settings for your adapter. They can change any setting you can see in your adapter.

If you have provisioning turned on your adapter contacts this server every hour and downloads the settings. So if you were to go in and make a change to some settings say for instance changed the SIP PORT to 5000. When the adapter contacts the server the next time your setting would be overwritten by the server back to whatever VT has it set at.

If you have provisioning turned off. The adapter does not contact the server nor download any settings. So any changes you make to the settings in the adapter will stay. Conversely if VT makes changes on the server, they will never be updated on your adapter.

Hope that makes more sense for you.

Whoops like Agrajag was posting the same time as me...

[JSSAUCE]

OK it all clicks now.

I bet it he turned it back to on, made changes, then back to off.

I will check when I get home. If all the settings are the "new" settings he made then I'am good. If not I would need to re do them. I think iam fine but now that I have a better understanding I can fix it if there is an issue with that!

Thanks for all the help!!

Joel

[JSSAUCE]

Ok Brian188,

One last quick thought. If I wanted to make another change in my adapter can I just log into it, make it, and save?

Or do I need to turn provisioning on again, make changes, turn provisioning off, and save?

Thanks

Joel

[connervt]

You have it backwards.

With provisioning ON -- ViaTalk can change your settings. In addition, they periodically will push a configuration file which has all of the settings they believe you should have.

With provisioning OFF -- The settings in your adapter stay as you set them. ViaTalk can not change anything, as your adapter is effectively locked out to them (as it isn't listening on the Internet to make changes).

If you are testing different settings, leave provisioning OFF. If you turn it on, the settings will revert to those ViaTalk has recorded for your adapter.

[JSSAUCE]

Thank you very much.

Its hard to clearly comprehend things overnight when I should be sleeping!

Joel

[Brian188]

If you want to make changes to your adapter you need to turn off provisioning. Your only other option is to call/open a ticket with VT and have them make the changes for you.

I have yet to see any down side to turning off provisioning. If you turn it off and make changes and end up screwing everything up, all you have to do is turn provisioning back on and and re-set. All your settings will be back in working order.

[Agrajag]

Generally, the "best" avenue is to leave Provision Enable set to "On" and except when you want to test things. Then turn it off, play around to your hearts content. If you like what you did, send a support ticket to VT and provide the details of what you what changed. If you don't like what you did and perhaps can't remember, just turn provisioning back on and then power cycle the adapter forcing it to "phone home" again to get the settings from VT and putting it all back the way it was.

That's pretty simplified but fairly on target.

[JSSAUCE]

Agrajag,

Thanks again for the help. All of the changes seem to be working and I have been up and running for over 24 hours!!

Joel

[GregM]

Yeah! Way to go!:)

[sbradshaw]

Ok Brian188,

One last quick thought. If I wanted to make another change in my adapter can I just log into it, make it, and save?

Or do I need to turn provisioning on again, make changes, turn provisioning off, and save?

Thanks

Joel

Make sure your provisioning is off and you can make as many changes as you like without losing them (unless you turn provisioning back on).