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max number of simultaneous sessions / rings / devices?

Started by jentzd, July 28, 2017, 09:37:58 AM

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jentzd

I've run into an interesting problem, haven't seen posted anywhere else so here goes.

Based on a trial run of 3 Obi 1000 series devices, each registered with the same google voice accounts, I went kind of big time and bought 5 more. 8 total obi devices

Each device is hard wired.

When I had only the 3, they typically received 100% of incoming calls.
With the 8, it seems like only 5-6 ever ring, other weird phenomena happen too (like ringing never stops). The 5 or 6 devices that do ring always seem to be random. In other words, not all incoming calls are going to each of the incoming phones. The phones it does go to seem random (not good).


As a mitigation, I have strategically picked only 5 devices for each line, and kind of mixed the lines through the office. Definitely not ideal. With a max of 5 phones registered with each service, the quality/rings again seems to be consistent (good).

After implementing the mitigation, I came home from the office, registered a 6th device with the same service. Each of the 5 registered accounts at the office + 6th at my house were ringing consistently.

My conclusion is that 5 registered (xmpp) sessions per ip/isp? Is this anywhere close to correct? If so any work arounds? Maybe considering getting a second ISP, second router, putting 5 devices on one router 3 on the other...

I have been using tools like iptraf - do not think this is a QoS issue. Plenty of headroom.

azrobert

Maybe GV only allows 5 connections from a single public IP. You can try the $6 Simon Telephonics service for the 6th device. I think you can have multiple devices register to the service, but I'm not sure.

https://simonics.com/services/

If that doesn't work, you can use a single GV connection for 2 OBi1000 devices and route calls between them.

jentzd

Good tips. Might have to do (try) some call routing with google voice..

I tried that with Anveo and was very unhappy. Did not seem to work well passed 3 devices...much more complicated (with obitalk being the incoming ringer, you couldn't see which "real" service / line the call was coming in on). Wonder if this is any easier with GV.

The multiple registrations google voice allowed seemed a  easy answer. I just assumed it scaled....

Also going to look at STUN.

Will post the results, regardless. Open to other ideas..

drgeoff

Yes the Simonics GV gateway permits multiple devices.
http://support.simonics.com/support/solutions/articles/3000031438-what-is-the-sip-login-prefix-

I doubt Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) has any relevance. NAT traversal issues don't appear to be a problem in this case.

jentzd

Aren't devices like obi 202 GV to SIP gateways themselves?

When I do iptraf, and receiving a call, I am seeing both a rush of xmpp packets, as well as udp 4500 packets (nat traversal) at the exact moment the 5 phones start to ring. Interestingly, not such a rush once they have been ringing..

That is why I thought STUN might help
https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2010/07/nat-traversal-for-voip-calls%E2%80%A6how-stun-helps/

Alternative to that, I saw in the OBI configs you can enter your external IP directly via X_PublicIPAddress...and luckily in my case it is static. Might be the preferred way. X_KeepAliveEnable looks interesting, too

jentzd

Well, STUN didn't help. Tried it with a self verified public stun server, couldnt get passed 6 devices working at once.

X_PublicIPAddress didn't help. I'd think having this would be a bigger help than STUN.

Going to skip KeepAlive for now.
A bit hesitant to use simonics for 2 reasons: - would have to give simonics my gv password, not familiar with simonics enough to know if they will be around 24/7.

next im going to try using a master obi device to convert to sip, and then have other phones use sip.

ive changed incoming call route before, and forwarded, etc, but it does not show which line the call is being forwarded..

Taoman

Quote from: jentzd on July 29, 2017, 09:06:03 AM

A bit hesitant to use simonics for 2 reasons: - would have to give simonics my gv password, not familiar with simonics enough to know if they will be around 24/7.


You don't give Simonics your GV password any more than you give Obihai your password. OAuth 2 (token based) authentication is used. You simply have to be logged into your Google account when registering.
Simonics is very reliable and has been around for years.

Not sure Simonics would be appropriate for an office setting, however. There is an initial 2-second delay on incoming GV calls before the caller can hear you. I use Simonics for outgoing calls (via Voice Gateway) but not incoming calls because of this issue.
http://support.simonics.com/support/solutions/articles/3000032339-there-is-a-1-to-2-second-delay-when-answering-a-call

azrobert

Quote from: Taoman on July 29, 2017, 10:22:28 AM
Not sure Simonics would be appropriate for an office setting, however. There is an initial 2-second delay on incoming GV calls before the caller can hear you.

If anybody read my last post here, it would not resolve the problem, so I removed it. I must of had too much to drink last night.

SteveInWA

#8
So:  you have a business office.  You have eight OBi 1000 series IP phones.  You need it to all just work, reliably.  You need customer support if something goes wrong.

Google Voice is not the solution for your use case.  It's not a free telephone company.  It has no direct customer support.  Acquiring multiple Google Voice phone numbers via multiple Google Accounts is a violation of Google's Acceptable Use Policy.  Any (or all) of your Google Voice inbound phone numbers could be suspended by Google at any time, at their sole discretion, with very little recourse, and with the possibility that you could permanently lose the use of those numbers.

https://www.google.com/googlevoice/program-policies.html

Instead, use a business-appropriate SIP VoIP Internet Telephone Service Provider.  There are plenty from which to choose, depending on your DIY skills vs. wanting a more managed solution.  The OBiTALK web portal has pre-built configuration templates for many of them.

Many of us here on this forum use Callcentric, voip.ms, or PhonePower.  Nextiva and Dialpad are examples of more cloud-managed providers.  Some of them will even port your number(s) in for free.  These ITSPs have customer user portals or "dashboards", which usually allow you to assign multiple extensions, add, change or remove extensions at any time, set up forwarding, hunt groups and/or simultaneous ringing, and include voicemail.  You can accomplish the large majority of configuration tasks on the ITSP's portal, without any need to get into the guts of OBi expert mode configuration.

Lavarock7

Steve is correct. I too suggest a regular Voip provider.

I am most familiar with Voip.Ms but many have the ability for "extensions" or "sub-accounts" or "ring groups", etc

Visit a few providrs and look at their capabilities. You may find a better solution .
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

jentzd

SteveInWA and Lavarock7

I certainly would consider a paid service, if it were absolutely necessary. I do not think it will be, certainly have not explored all options yet. Our office phone bill was about $1000/month before switching to google voice. Certainly been there, done that.

I am not at all looking for support from google, or any company(service provider), quite the opposite would be preferred. I hope I was not unclear on that requirement.

To that point, I did have a mild success by following this thread
https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=7920.0;wap2

With it, I was able to forward calls on a master phone to other phones via the OBi service, while first ringing the master phone "ph". But it still didn't work quite how I'd have thought.
I put a comma seperated list of each of the 7 slave phones to ring. Only the first 2 rang.

What I then tried was registering 3 phones with google voice. Each of the 3 "masters" can then have 2 "slaves" via Obitalk service. This gives a total capacity for 9 phones (more than my 8), has less than 3 phones simultaneously registered (requirement was less than 5), and all 8 phones seem to ring consistently and simultaneously.

There is one down side to this technique. The 5 "slave" phones lose the granularity as to which line the incoming call was on. Additionally, at least using the technique here, each outgoing call is on the same line. Not the worst, but not the best. Better than what I had before, though.

I am going to look at using the obi device itself as a GV to SIP gateway, then just registering each of the slave phones as sip services to the local gv gateway. If this works I should be able to have my cake and eat it too.

If not I will look at simonics. Thanks for the tip about Oauth ( I saw another thread that specifically said they weren't using that, which was the genesis of my concern)

jentzd

And regarding googles acceptable use policy, we actually already had a google business account, for which each of the accounts are actually paid. It handles all our email, very nice.

Each one of these accounts has its own google voice account. We are just using that.

They now call this technology gsuite.
https://gsuite.google.com/products/gmail/

drgeoff

Quote from: jentzd on July 30, 2017, 01:29:27 PM
......
I put a comma seperated list of each of the 7 slave phones to ring. Only the first 2 rang.
.......

I am going to look at using the obi device itself as a GV to SIP gateway, then just registering each of the slave phones as sip services to the local gv gateway.
The maximum number of terminals that can be listed in an InboundCallRoute is 4.

You cannot SIP register to OBi10x2 phones. Only the OBi20x (and perhaps the 50x) ATAs have that functionality.

SteveInWA

#13
Quote from: jentzd on July 30, 2017, 01:33:05 PM
And regarding googles acceptable use policy, we actually already had a google business account, for which each of the accounts are actually paid. It handles all our email, very nice.

Each one of these accounts has its own google voice account. We are just using that.

They now call this technology gsuite.
https://gsuite.google.com/products/gmail/


Google Voice is not part of G Suite.  It is not covered by the G Suite SLA, and the fact that you have a G Suite account does not grant you any special status with regard to Google Voice.  And, no, you don't have "google voice accounts".  Google Voice is a service, not an account.  All Google services are accessed via, and linked to, Google accounts, in the same way as Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Maps, etc.  You are using a consumer service, under the false assumption that it is part of G Suite.  

Every week, over on the Google Voice Help Forum, users post in a panic, because their Google Voice service has been suspended for abuse.  Google can do this, per the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, at any time, at its sole discretion, without warning.  Google Voice is not a FCC-regulated telephone carrier, and you have no recourse nor remedy.

In those situations, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that any Google employee on the Google Voice nor G Suite teams can do to restore service, nor to release the associated phone number for porting out.  The numbers become permanently stuck in purgatory, and the business owner has to abandon the numbers and start over, printing new business cards, changing marketing materials, and so on.

https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status

https://support.google.com/a/answer/6336670?hl=en

You can certainly ignore these facts, at your own risk.

If you are using a "$1000/month" baseline as a comparison to "free", then clearly, you have not made any effort to compare that baseline to what you could get from a SIP VoIP ITSP.


azrobert

When routing calls to multiple devices, you need to adjust the MaxSessions parameter. The MaxSessions default on my OBi1032 is 4 for the SPx Services, but only 2 on the OBiTalk Service. This would explain why you could only fork calls to 3 devices (Master and 2 Slaves).

The inbound route allows you to route calls to 4 devices (Master and 3 slaves). There is a hack that will allow you to route calls to 7 devices or more.

GV supports a total of 2 simultaneous calls per device. If you have 2 active GV calls on single device, that device will not accept any more GV calls.

I think you're nuts if you ignore Steve's advice. You should at least have a backup plan in place.

jentzd

I did notice that google voice was not specifically enumerated on the list of gsuite and found that curious...yet each gsuite account gets its own google voice "number" automatically as soon as you log in to voice. I had done some assuming there, for sure.

The way we have it set up is each of our numbers is connected to a legit office workers email account through gsuite. They also then happen to have their account registered on an obiphone so they can answer their calls while at work.

I had tried anveo (referenced in my first post) but was sorely disappointed with their service.
Never the less your post has spooked me into considering an alternate service. Not being able to port a number out certainly sounds like a nightmare.

Regardless of all that, even if I were to switch back to an anveo like service, I think I would encounter the same type of issue. Anveo did not allow multiple registrations. I could forward calls through ob, just like seems to be working here with google voice, but unlike GV, anveo does not allow multiple registrations.
Maybe some other service will?? Or just have simple sip setup.


SteveInWA

Whut?  No, G Suite does not automatically assign an inbound Google Voice telephone number to anyone.

And, Anveo is poor example to use for comparison.  Both Callcentric and voip.ms can do everything you need, including setting up multiple extensions/subaccounts.

jentzd

Thanks for the feedback steve. I really was not aware of the GV multiple accounts issue, thinking it would all be "fine" under the umbrella of gsuite and 1 gv account per domain user.

Anyhow, have transitioned everything to phone power line by line. Taken a number of weeks to get everything ported.

Phone power does allow for some multiple registrations, up to 4 i think. Instead of this I ended up doing a sip proxy, so 1 registration then proxied to each of the 8 obi phones locally. This worked with GV, but it works well with phonepower too, and now I dont have to worry about my accounts!

Thanks again.

SteveInWA

Good to hear.  I wish you success in your business.