Soft phone - Netgear WPN824 - can't hear call(ed/er) party

[OneMoreUserName]

I am trying to setup a soft phone while I await my replacement LinkSys ATA. I've tried Express Talk, x-ten and SJPhone and with all I am having a problem hearing the answering party when I place a call. I also can not hear inbound callers.

(I also tried Firefly, as its config is listed in my VT control panel, but I don't think FireFly is an open use product any longer as I could not for the life of me find any way to enter my VT info - it seems hard programed now for FireFly service only.)

Anyway, I have the following network configuration:

1) SoftPhone running on a win xpSP2 pc.
2) PC connected to a Netgear WPN824 router (which is connected to my Comcast cable modem)

When I dial out I hear a ring tone, they show a connection, but with none am I hearing the party I called. When I remove the Netgear from the network (connecting the PC directly to the cable modem) leaving everything else the same - all is well (so I'm assuming the problem is specifically with my router config?)

I've tried placing the PC in DMZ (as was my LinySys) - no luck. I've also found many articles on NAT and port forwarding. I've attempted to forward many different ranges of UDP ports. I even tried forwarding a very wide range hoping to hit on the port that was the culprit. The range being UDP 8000-16000 and UDP 5060-5071, but this also did not work.


I've also read that symetric NAT is "always" unreliable and when I attempt to use the Express Talk Network Wizard it is telling me it is detecting a symetric NAT router - will softphones simply not work with my router?

I sure hope someone can help me. I sure would like to use my home phone while wait on my replacement LinkSys ATA.

Thank you in advance
Frank

[thetatek]

I just went through about three days and 15 hours of tech hell trying to get a Netgear wnr2000 to work with my viatalk Linksys PAP2T. On call using the router, some where between 10 seconds and 3 min. into the call the phone would disconnect. With the Linksys directly connected to the cable modem there is no problem. Viatalk technical monitored the calls and said that my system was sending a bye code (like if it hit the flash on the phone) and that was causing the hang up. After changing everything possible and every configuration of both the router and PAP2T, Netgear finally had one of there SR. Eng give me a call. Bottom line the Netgear Eng said their router could not do FIP VOIP and something about the PAP2T requiring that and I should return the router. I had a bad phone connection and he was in India or somewhere, so it was a little difficult to understand exactly what he said. I have an older Netgear FWG114P that works with the PAP2T but it does not have Qos. Everything else with the WNR2000 worked fine and my wifi range improved but it would not work with the VOIP. I would put money that your router has the same problem. The Eng also said he could do some work on the router and see if they could reproduce the problem in their lab but said that he did not think they would do anything about it in the near future. At least he was honest. The netgear and viatalk techs I worked with made a first class effort to resolve the problem like I said you would not believe how many changes were tested so no complaints about the service.