Problems using VoIP with router

[freedomfighter87]

Hello all. I used to be a regular here but stopped visiting a few years ago when work and everything else left little time for my hobby. But now I'm back and this is my first post.

Anyway, to the point...

I have VoIP service set up on my computer. I don't use an EMTA modem or router with built-in phone adapter. Rather, I just use a soft phone. The program I use is X-Lite by CounterPath. Anyway, until recently, I did not have a router, and my modem was directly connected to my computer via patch cable. At that time, my VoIP worked normally. After I installed the router, my VoIP connection began to act strangely. Incoming calls work fine, but when I try to call someone, the connection terminates after exactly 20 seconds. It happens every time and I'm not sure why. Even stranger, like I said before, the outgoing calls will connect and I will be able to talk for 20 seconds, but after 20 seconds, it dies. And its at EXACTLY 20 seconds. I reconnected my modem directly to the computer just to verify that it was indeed because of the router.. and my suspicions were confirmed. It worked fine without the router. So, why would my router cause these problems? It does have a built-in firewall but I don't understand why it would work for 20 seconds and then not work. I am proficient with computers but I will admit I know next to nothing about networking aside from installing the hardware and connecting to networks. Do I need to use port triggering or port forwarding? I'm lost...


Thanks for your time!


Travis

[GroundZero3]

What is the model of the router you are using? Mostly likely NAT is causing problems with SIP

PortForward.com - Free Help Setting up Your Router or Firewall

Pick your router, then choose X-lite and it will tell you what ports you need to forward on your router

[freedomfighter87]

Thanks so much for that info! I'm going to try this right now.

BTW the router is a Netgear WNR2000.

[freedomfighter87]

Okay I found the page for using X-Lite with the WNR2000. I found the ports I needed. But now I don't understand what it means by "the static IP I want to forward to"

Here's the page:

Port Forwarding X-Lite on the Netgear WNR2000


I don't know what static IP its asking for.

[GroundZero3]

Generally when you forward ports, you forward them to a machine that has a static ip address. The reason for this is if the computer gets a new DHCP address the port forward will still be sending it to the old address breaking the configuration

[freedomfighter87]

So I need to forward it to the ip address of my computer? Do I need to set my computer with a static ip?

[GroundZero3]

Yes you use the ip address that needs the port forward, and like i said its good practice to setup the box with the forward rule with a static ip address. You dont have to if you dont want, but just keep it in the back of your mine if you start experiencing the same issues. Your ip might have changed!

[freedomfighter87]

Okay I did everything it said, put in 192.168.1.2 (my computer's ip) and it did not fix the problem. I double checked to see that the correct ports were open.

[GroundZero3]

Do you have the latest firmware installed on the router?

[freedomfighter87]

Yes, I updated the firmware when I got it, and there's been no new release since then.

I tried setting a static IP on my computer and it screwed up the whole connection. I couldn't even connect to the router then, even though I set it as the same ip that the dhcp assigned anyway. I decided that since all my computers have x-lite on it I could just set up port forwarding on a range of ip addresses, like from 192.168.1.1 through 192.168.1.5, and that should do it, since I only have 4 computers anyway, it should never go above that, assuming the dhcp assigns ips in sequential order. That would be awesome if the port forwarding actually fixed the problem. I'm going to close x-lite on my desktop try and use x-lite on my laptop and see if it does the same thing. I haven't tried it yet...