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Wireless operator

Posted on 26 Oct 2006 at 11:22

Paul Ockenden tries to make some sense of the confused world of Wi-Fi, and configures his new nokia e61 to run voip

need a fixed IP address, and even in most corporate environments that's a pipe dream. So does that mean the E61's internet telephony client is useless? It certainly isn't as usable as it would be with STUN support, but there are a couple of workarounds.

First, if you're in charge of your own wireless network, you should be able to set up port forwarding: force the E61's Wi-Fi connection to always have the same IP address, either by choosing one outside of the scope of your DHCP range, or else by using address reservation to always give a particular MAC address the same IP address. Once that's set up and tested, forward UDP ports 5004 (Real-time Transport Protocol) and 5060 (the main SIP port) to the device. If possible, you should also lock down your firewall rules so they only do this port forwarding for incoming traffic from your VoIP provider - for Sipgate, I normally set up the range 217.10.79.1-217.10.79.254. Once you've done this, your E61 should work fine with your VoIP provider, but be aware that some providers run the SIP traffic across some other UDP port than 5060, so you may need to alter this.

What if you want to use public Wi-Fi hotspots? Try asking the barista at Starbucks to set up port forwarding on their Wi-Fi router? Perhaps not. That's where the second workaround comes into play. UK-based VoIP provider VoIPtalk (www.voiptalk.org) has set up a NAT traversal proxy that allows anyone to access their VoIP service, even if they're sitting behind a NAT-based router. To get it working on your E61, sign up at www.voiptalk.org, where not only will you get the account for free but they'll also give you an initial £2 of credit - again, useful for testing. It's probably best to follow the instructions, including downloading their soft-phone, as at least that way you can check the account is working properly from your PC.

Next, you'll need to configure the E61. From the main menu, go to Tools | Settings | Connections, then click on SIP settings. From the Options menu, select Add new and choose Use default profile. Then set up the SIP account as follows:

Profile name: VoIPtalk

Service profile: IETF

Default access point: <a Wi-Fi access point you've previously configured>

Public user name: <mysipname>@voiptalk.org (where <mysipname> is your VoIPtalk SIP username)

Use compression: No

Registration: Always on

Use security: No

Proxy server settings

Proxy server address: nat.voiptalk.org

Realm: nat.voiptalk.org

Username: <mysipname> (your SIP username - don't add @ voiptalk.org this time)

Password: Your SIP password

Allow loose routing: Yes

Transport type: UDP

Port: 5065 (note that this is different from the default 5060)

Registrar server settings

Registrar serv. addr: voiptalk.org

Realm: voiptalk.org

Username: <mysipname> (your SIP username - don't add @ voiptalk.org this time)

Password: Your SIP password

Transport type: UDP

Port: 5060

Next, you'll need to register your Internet Telephony settings. From the main menu, go to Tools | Settings | Connections. Click on "Internet tel. settings" and from the Options menu select New Profile. Give the profile any name you like and select the SIP profile you just created. Now, if you go back to the SIP Settings screen, you should see "Registered" underneath the VoIPtalk profile. Except that I'll wager what you're probably looking at now is "Registration failed". The reason is that when you configured the SIP profile, you probably entered the password you set up when creating the VoIPtalk account - I know that's what I did, and looking around various forums it seems lots of other people are doing the same and are failing to get registered.