OBi 110 - white list of callers via PSTN in Italy

[antani1971]

Hello Everybody,

just joined this forum since I would like to get a 110 in order to to set it up allowing only callers via PSTN from a white list, both by pattern matching and by exact matching, and routing to PSTN phone (voip functions come second since I have an all-you-can-eat contract with my current PSTN telephony provider)

my question is if this would be feasible and whether this product would work in Italy. I am positive about the feasibility and I have found positive experiences in UK, but none in Italy so far.

Is this product designed to work worldwide?

Thanks

[MikeHObi]

Is this product designed to work worldwide?

The product is designed to support use worldwide but the ObiTalk web interface I do not believe is.  What that means is you may need to more familiar with the configuration of the Obi than others have, and default values may not be correct for your region of the world.

[giqcass]

It definitely can do what you want.  I don't know how big the whitelist can be.  How many people do you imagine being in your Whitelist?  What does the caller ID look like for an incoming number?

[antani1971]

Thanks both.

@MikeHObi: good, it may take more time to configure, but it's ok

@giqcass: great. size of the whitelist, difficult to estimate right now, I think however that 2 or 3 patterns + 30 numbers would be ok, but it could grow so it would be good to know if there is any upper limit. the patterns all start with 0 and length is variable (9 or 10 digit), while the numbers could start with 0 or 3 - same length applies.

[giqcass]

Perhaps someone with more experience with this can chime in.  It appears the easiest way to do this is to put
{(MMyWhiteList):ph}
in the InboundCallRoute for your line port.  MyWhiteList is the label for a User Defined Digit Map. It looks like the max is 511 characters.  You Might be able to increase it by making a second user defined digit map like MyWhiteList2.

{(MMyWhiteList|MMyWhiteList2):ph}

The User Defined Digit Map would have a label of MyWhiteList.  It would have contents similar to
(04195551212|37345551212|xxxx5551212)  | is the expression for or. xxxx = any four digits.  03419xx. would allow any number that starts with 03419 to ring through.  Their are other matching patterns available.

Someone correct me if I have any of this wrong.  I'm not an expert on all of the specifics of digit map/dial plan logic.

Edit:made changes based on

giqcass's reply has a tiny error.  When referring to a map the entry starts with 'M' so if the name of the list in user defined digit maps is MyWhiteList then the string in InBoundCallRoute needs to be MMyWhiteList.  

Thanks for the heads up on the error!

[drgeoff]

giqcass's reply has a tiny error.  When referring to a map the entry starts with 'M' so if the name of the list in user defined digit maps is MyWhiteList then the string in InBoundCallRoute needs to be MMyWhiteList.  I would just give them the names wl1, wl2 etc and put {(Mwl|Mwl2):ph} in the route.

I already do a similar thing for a black list.  Its name is bl and Mbl is in the InBoundCallRoute.

[antani1971]

Hi guys,

thanks everybody. I have managed to finally get my hands on a 110 and I did some work in order to localize the setup, mainly reusing materials found on the web for SPA 3102 Linksys device.

The white list works well using user digit maps and labels, but once in a while (4 or 5 calls) a call from a number in the white list is lost, what I mean is that the line status is RINGING while the phone status is ON HOOK and so there is no evidence of arriving call.

When such 'ghost' call comes in the line is ringing but the caller ID is not correct, the Obi simply reports the caller ID for the previous call correctly routed to the phone port. Such ghost calls are not even written in the log.

I strongly doubt it is a caller ID detection problem since I tried rising the ring delay up to 6000 without success.

Any ideas?

[antani1971]

update:

- changing phone plug to which the OBi is attached in the house did not help

opened a ticket to Obihai support

[antani1971]

Hi *,

after further trial and error, I think I narrowed it down to the DSL filtering.

I have DSL and phone all on the same pair available at any phone outlet in my house and I have one filter for each phone.

This works well and BTW does not harm the DSL speed, but harms the OBi (and only the OBi!) caller ID detection.
I realized when I had a phone attached to one outlet with its filter, I had the OBi attached to another plug without any DSL filter and the caller ID was never recognized. Removing the filter from the phone outlet caused the caller ID to start working on the OBi attached to the other outlet. After that, I unplugged the phone, left the OBi attached without any DSL filter and tried 12 inbound calls in a row from number in white list with no problems.

Of course, I can't live with that because of the noticeable hiss and crackling without the DSL filter plugged. I tried to plug such a filter to the phone plug of the OBi, but with unsatisfactory results (hiss lowered but not eliminated).

Any suggestion, happily welcome.

Thanks

[sailing]

I used to have DSL/POTS setup. I'm not 100% clear on where all the filters are in your setup so I'll just tell you what I did. I just had basic service so I don't know if the other frills would  be a problem. I had a single filter on the line side to the Obi110 and no filters on the phone side of the Obi110. No digital noise (hissing) and the phone worked just fine.

[drgeoff]

The LINE port of an OBi110 should look (electrically) just like a phone.  A filter between that port and a DSL line is highly desirable.

A filter between the OBi's PHONE port and a phone is redundant (but won't have any ill effect).

[antani1971]

@sailing: right now in my setup I have only the OBi and the DSL router attached to POTS and 1 phone attached to OBi phone port.

In this setup, if I put a DSL filter between the OBi and the phone outlet, then I can reproduce this caller ID detection problem. I was not able to reproduce by removing the filter between OBi and phone outlet, which anyway is (naturally) not an option.

Strange enough, the phone caller ID detection does never glitch so it looks an OBi specific problem. OBi support told me to look at LINE port impedance, but it is set correctly to my knowledge. Also tried different RX gain settings (+5, 0, -15 dB) without any effect.

Next step will be to replace DSL filter with a (hopefully) higher quality DSL splitter from a brand that solved similar problems on Fritz boxes. Just ordered one.

[antani1971]

Hi *,

problem seems now resolved.

I have increased the RingIndicationDelayTime from 0 to 1000. I have no clue why the problem was not reproduceable without DSL filter, but so far so good with the DSL filter fit in place. First I tried going to 256 ms without results, then tried a massive increment up to 1000 and working fine up to now.

I have increased of the same amount (+1000) the RingDelay going from 2750 to 3750. I do not know if this is required or it simply enough that RingDelay >= RingValidationTime + RingIndicationDelayTime + RingTimeout (=2160 ms.); I will probably give it a try later in order to minimize the RingDelay, right now I will let it stable with current parameters and check everything is fine in a longer run.

Thanks everybody  

[antani1971]

seemed resolved... it is not :-(

not working stable, despite I was able to let incoming call from white list ring phone 22 times in a row without a single fault. Started working unreliably again.

I think now I will wait for Obihai support.