The ideal network involves your Internet Service Provider (ISP) connecting onsite to a stand-alone modem that connects to a router, preferably a router recommended to you from Nextiva. If you have more devices on your network than ports on your router, you can connect a switch to your router to expand the number of ports.
There are three main areas that you should be concerned with regarding your network. They are:
SIP ALG: Nextiva uses port 5062 to bypass SIP ALG, however, having this disabled is always recommended. SIP ALG inspects and modifies SIP traffic in unexpected ways causing one-way audio, deregistrations, random error messages when dialing and calls going to voicemail for no reason. Even disabling SIP ALG does not fix the intermittent issues being experienced.
Full ISP Control: The device is managed by your ISP, and any ISP changes do not notify your or Nextiva of the updated configuration changes. If the device is reset, the issues will reoccur.
DNS Server Configuration: If DNS Proxy is being used, devices (Polycom phones in particular) can become deregistered. Nextiva always recommends using the Google DNS servers of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
For these reasons, Nextiva recommends placing this router into Bridge Mode, and connecting a recommended router to handle traffic routing and enable network consistency for VoIP traffic.
To Enter DHCP DNS and Disable SIP ALG:
NOTE: During the router configuration process, the network will be unavailable. Depending on the changes being made, as well as any technical difficulties that occur due to the change, this can take from 2 – 20 minutes. Please ensure the configuration changes are made by an experienced IT Professional, and during off hours.
- Log in to the router and click LAN setup.
- Enable DNS override (check the box).
- Enter the required information below:
- Primary DNS Server IP: 8.8.8.8
- Secondary DNS Server IP: 8.8.4.4
- Disable DNS Relay (uncheck the box).
- If this is your only router, set the NAT mode to RoutedWithNAT. If this router will be bridged, NAT mode should be set to Bridged.
- Click Apply.
- Click Firewall.
- Disable Ping Blocking (uncheck the box).
- Click Apply.
- Going back to Firewall, click ALG.
- Disable SIP ALG (uncheck the box).
- Click Apply.
- Notify all affected parties that the network will need to be reset for the changes to be saved. After confirming that the network can go down temporarily, reboot the router and all devices.