**Hello, I was, with a Belgian number (I live in Belgium), at Sewan (France) but they, without informing me, exploded their prices (the cheapest call that used to be 2c is now €5 plus VAT), plus the cost of the number; so I ported my number to OVH (France) which turned out to be a huge mistake: on their "support" email account they do not reply, creating a "ticket" is not possible because we are relegated to the "help" pages ("running in circles"), and their "chat" (with a bot, naturally) does not work for VoIP either, because instead of being able to ask a question you first have to choose a category, where VoIP obviously does not appear. So we are invited to use their paid telephone "support" where we would then pay hundreds of euros for nothing, since it is clear that any SIP‑parameter correction requires something "in writing", not a phone call, with a call‑center where foreigners struggle to understand each other, even more when you have to spell endless strings of cryptic characters – after already having paid €50 or €100 for nothing, I would end up back at square one, and that may well be their "business model"? Apparent very attractive prices – even national calls to landlines would be included, but with a "registration fail" I am not even reachable, and after 5 hours of attempts over 2 days I am at my wit’s end… – then they charge hundreds of euros just to get the services they sold to work a little?!
I would pay you €30 (to your account, PayPal or similar) if your help allows me to communicate with my OVH SIP (I don’t know if private messages are possible here but I would gladly pay, so we should find a solution).
So:
Instead of giving me the ported number, they gave me a (also Belgian) number of their choosing for the SIP line, and the ported number is extra; I first connected the ported number ("What is a number?") with this "SIP account", but since nothing works I then removed that connection, i.e. we now only talk about my OVH SIP number (assigned by them to this account), while the ported number is currently not connected to this account and therefore cannot be the cause of the problem? (As soon as their SIP number works I will reconnect the ported number to this SIP account.)
I have scrupulously followed their instructions:
- login/username/authorization user name: always the SIP number assigned by them;
- password: after trying other passwords of my choice I finally re‑assigned their password to them, and I made no mistake there either; I checked again and again;
- domain/registrar: sip‑domain.io, as per their instructions, and outbound‑proxy also according to that, per their instructions;
- additionally, on their page it says: Infrastructure: N11 = ??? and "Date of last recording / Local port/IP/Public port/IP" – all blank, but irrelevant, except possibly the Infrastructure N11 since I have no idea what it is and I cannot enter it in my SIP phone.
My SIP phone is a Siemens/Gigaset S685 IP, and I also have a SIP account on it with several numbers (including STUN) from a foreign operator to Belgium/France, and for those foreign SIP numbers everything works (but their monthly price for keeping my Belgian number is absurd), which is why I chose Sewan and now OVH to keep the number for the city where I live…
My SIP phone has settings for each line, and for the OVH line I entered all those OVH values for the number they assigned (as I said, my ported number will be added there as soon as their number works: first we have to solve the basic problem);
It is connected via static IP: 192.168.1.2;
For the OVH line settings there is "Telephony" → "Connections" – and there the OVH connection, as explained above, and:
"Personal Provider Data" with my password, username/authentication name (everything = perfect); then:
"General Provider Data":
- "Proxy server port": 5060 (as indicated by OVH, and that is also the standard, and the setting for my other numbers);
- 5060 for "Registrar server port" as well;
- "Registration refresh time": 3600 seconds (it was 1800 seconds (without working), and OVH says 3600 is required – another thread here mentioned OVH asking for 3600);
- "Domain", "Proxy server address"/"Registrar server": all three = sip‑domain.io (OVH instructions);
Then there is "Network":
- Stun enabled: no (with: this also does not work, but maybe I will need it later to connect my own number, i.e. the ported number?)
- stun server: (blank), stun port: 3478, stun refresh time: 240 seconds (since blank, these two values are probably irrelevant right now?)
- NAT refresh time: 180 seconds
- Outbound proxy mode: Always, Outbound proxy: I copied the OVH instructions, OVH requires this, and "Outbound proxy port": 5962 (also per their instructions).
I think I have done everything correctly here, except that if one day I want/need to enable Stun (enabled: yes) the two values stun port 3478 and stun refresh time 240 seconds will become relevant, but I could not find any information about Stun on OVH…
It should also be noted that the three sip‑domain.io settings above come from OVH instructions, while the "Outbound proxy" is something‑ovh‑1.sip‑proxy.io which does not seem very consistent, but both are from OVH instructions.
Now the GENERAL (!!!) "Advanced Settings" of my SIP phone, which are common (!) for all lines/connections, including the OVH one:
- DTMF over VoIP connections – send settings – Auto
- Call Transfer – Use the R key to initiate call transfer with the SIP Refer method: yes
- Transfer call by on‑hook: no
- Derive target address: from SIP URL (no) OR from SIP contact header (yes)
- Find target address automatically: no
- Hold on transfer target: for attended transfer yes, for unattended transfer no
- Hook Flash (R‑key): R‑key settings are disabled because the R key is being used for call transfer
- = All of this should have no impact?
- Listen ports for VoIP connections: Use random ports: no, SIP port 5060, RTP port 30000‑40000 (set according to OVH instructions, previously it was 5004‑5020)
They added additional instructions here: https://docs.ovhcloud.com/fr/guides/web-cloud/phone-and-fax/voip/troubleshoot-local-network/ :
- Traffic to the network 91.121.128.0/23 must be allowed. (I have not set limits)
Traffic must be allowed on ports 5060 and 5962 UDP. (done)
Traffic must be allowed on ports 2424 and 2427 UDP (only for MGCP phones of LG and Thomson series). (not applicable here)
Port range 30000‑40000 UDP must be opened (RTP ports, audio range). (done)
UDP session lifetime (Time/Timeout/NAT Session) must be ≥ 180 seconds. (done)
If available, SIP ALG must be disabled. (not found)
And now nothing works for their SIP number: "Registration failed"…
Even if we can solve this basic problem, perhaps later OVH will refuse the connection with my ported number…
I can say that my opinion of OVH is not communicable; I also transferred one of my many domains to them – probably it will no longer work either.
OVH = total fail, and their "support" system is fake, because relevant information is missing and then also unavailable via Google, their bot, or their "ticket" system, since those two do not give access, their multiple‑choice menus push you out before you can ask a question.
Just the phone "support"… which will end up costing you €500 for nothing.
On the other hand, if a fellow user knows the solution to my problem, I would be happy to take advantage of OVH’s seemingly very low prices. In the end I would have two problems, because I would then need to connect the ported number, but I suppose that would be possible, or we could swap their number (which I don’t need) with my ported number? The whole point is to be reachable via a "fixed line".
I don’t know how this will turn out, but if your / your help solves the issue I will keep my word.
(It is quite curious that a business model like OVH’s, with only paid "support" (since mail, "chat" = bot, and "ticket" are all fictitious), and paid‑by‑the‑minute phone support that costs you money without delivering a result, is legal in France… )
