BT VOIP Nightmare

[discoveranother]

Hi all,

 

Have a primary school who have been contacted (unbeknown to me) by BT about getting VOIP phones in the school. BT aiming to sell VOIP to the school. The school has had 2 VOIP Phones put in. Basically, BT has not attended site, it's all done remotely. The school just plug the phones into the network and BT told them they are plug and play, not informing the school that firewall ports needed opening. I just wondered if anyone out there had experienced the below with BT.

 

We use Smoothwall as the firewall and I have to say, Smoothwall are always very good from our experience. They have set the ports up on the Smoothwall as per BT instructions. Here is the story so far:-

 

The 2 phones are showing at the BT end as registered and also, incoming and outgoing calls work from both phones, but the 'issue' apparently seems to be something to do with changing the actual phone numbers from the BT end and they can't get a connection apparently, they keep saying the issue is the firewall. I have asked BT to possibly speak with Smoothwall themselves but they say they cannot speak to 3rd parties which is ridiculous. I was going to setup a phone meeting. Smoothwall happy to do this but BT are not. Also, there is no way to contact BT would you believe. I can't send them emails because they say they need to contact me instead, and there is no phone number to contact those I have been in liaison with. This non-contact with them is causing delays and problems. It's pure madness. I hate anything BT related.

 

The reason BT keeps saying its the firewall is because when a test is done on the network via a link below, run either from a server or a PC:-

 

https://bt.visualware.com/myspeed/networkassessment

 

......it always passes from the server, but from an office PC the test either passes or comes back with a partial fail. This partial fail shows firewall ports, which BT keeps saying is the problem.

 

The test always passes from the server and speaking to Smoothwall, they insist all required ports have been setup and I know the firewall ports have been setup as well because Smoothwall have shown me. BT however, keep saying because it shows as partial failure from the admin PC, means the firewall ports are not open on the network, but from the PC it is hit and miss. I'm at a loss with them, other than trying an alternative VOIP company. I'm just getting nowhere with them.

 

I hope all this makes sense, thanks all.

[mavhc]

Firstly that speed test installs an auto starting service on your computer, so that's fun.

 

Secondly it doesn't work, so no idea what it's supposed to do.

 

Thirdly why would running it on a Windows computer be related to running on a phone, windows computers have firewalls built it.

 

Fourthly what port, open in what direction, from what IP to what IP?

[discoveranother]

Firstly that speed test installs an auto starting service on your computer, so that's fun.

 

Secondly it doesn't work, so no idea what it's supposed to do.

 

Thirdly why would running it on a Windows computer be related to running on a phone, windows computers have firewalls built it.

 

Fourthly what port, open in what direction, from what IP to what IP?

 

Many Thanks for the response.

 

Hi,

 

I agree. This is what I said to BT, why would the PC affect the phones !!!

 

Digging deeper and still communicating with them is a nightmare, myself and the firewall company believe it could be something to do with the ISP blocking anything upstream. We are asking them if anything needs setting up on the NAT side to a specific IP and also if anything needs allowing through inbound as the BT guide shows nothing about inbound traffic.

Edited July 6, 2022 by discoveranother

[Davit2005]

If it is talking to a cloud/external service then you won't need any inbound rules.

 

My biggest concern is why they sold such a solution to schools which frequently have proxy servers and firewalls not controlled by them. You need to push back on this and ask why this was done without any consultation with IT department.

 

Many years back worked in a company providing third party support, we get a call from customer that wifi printer not working. BT had ripped out the router we put in which had all the settings for the domain different IP etc. BT engineer jus ripped it out and put the BT router back in. Customer was good with me, left me to it and gave me a few quid next time I saw him as I stayed on site till late sorting out the mess.

[chaplic]

Id be tempted to take em home and plug into home broadband to update whatever is required just to sanity check. You also need smoothwall to tell you what's being denied coming from your admin PC or half-opened, so run the diag tool whilst they monitor.

[MatthewL]

Typically you will need out bound TCP & UDP 5060 + 5061 plus a range of ports UDP 9000-10000 outbound.

 

As BT for a list of firewall ports and IP's as they will have specific ones to their platform. You can then lock it down to their IP addresses.

[Michael]

As a temporary workaround, reserve the IPs allocated to BT handsets, then apply an Allow All rule on the FW.

 

If this doesn't work, then something's amiss!

[discoveranother]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

I know why the school has aimed to go for it. I think what has happened is BT are phoning up schools etc and panicking them with the digital phone change over prior to 2025, not mentioning dates or anything to them and trying to get targets and sales met. Schools are then believing everything BT say.

[mavhc]

Phone them up first and offer to install freepbx for way less money

[PotNoodleTech]

Is it actually BT? I would wager it's a normal company pretending to be BT (a bit like the ones we get purporting to be microsoft but then when you grill them a bit you find out theire actually from NS Optimum.....)

[discoveranother]

Is it actually BT? I would wager it's a normal company pretending to be BT (a bit like the ones we get purporting to be microsoft but then when you grill them a bit you find out theire actually from NS Optimum.....)

 

Yes its definitely BT.

[discoveranother]

Hi all,

 

Still not getting much back from BT. However, this was the response from Smoothwall.

 

"It could be down to the Virginmedia router blocking it maybe, another issue is that the Smoothwall isn't the end device so we are double NATting. All we can say is that the Smoothwall isn't blocking any outgoing ports."

[chaplic]

Are the phones actually SIP? I'd assume we'd get STUN working at some point but that's going to fall apart with double NAT?

 

Why cant you route to BT after your first NAT (virginmedia) avoiding smoothwall altogether?

[mavhc]

Sounds like you have more fundamental problems. Why do you have 2 NATs set up, can't the VirginMedia device be in modem mode?