sipgate filtering touch tones on Google Voice number verification calls?

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What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Sign up for a sipgate account and make sure you can make/receive calls on it
2. Sign up for a Google Voice account
3. Add your sipgate phone number to your Google Voice account. Attempt to 
"verify" the number.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Google Voice will dial your sipgate phone number. Answer the call. Google's bot 
will ask you to put in your verification code. Try dialing it in on the 
touchpad. If you were dialing a non-sipgate phone number, this would be the end 
of the verification process. With sipgate, though, the bot will complain that 
"she didn't get that" over and over again. Fail.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

I'm using a Linksys PAP2T with an analog telephone. I have brand new (as of 
24-Dec-2010) sipgate and Google Voice accounts. Both have been verified to be 
working correctly.

Please provide any additional information below.

I have also verified that the touch tones go through from the analog phone as 
expected for other services, for example by calling my cellular voice mail 
number and responding when it asks for me to dial in my password. I have also 
used my cell phone to call my sipgate phone number and then listened for 
confirmation that the tones dialed on the PAP2T-connected analog phone are 
audible.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by brian.ro...@gmail.com on 24 Dec 2010 at 8:37

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Keywords: outbound DTMF

Original comment by brian.ro...@gmail.com on 25 Dec 2010 at 1:03

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This appears to be an issue with the Google-bot's DTMF recognition. People are 
having it on all sorts of setups, especially mobile VoIP apps. Google has 
acknowledged the issue and will hopefully respond: 
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=4cd116c32194c80c&hl=en

Original comment by brian.ro...@gmail.com on 25 Dec 2010 at 1:03

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It could be a long wait (for Google to respond). I'd play with DTMF settings in 
your ATA (or installed a softphone on my Windows PC and play with DTMF settings 
there). There are 3 options: inband DTMF, AVT and INFO methods of DTMF 
transmission. There also is a "DTMF duration" parameter. Try setting DTMF 
duration to 70 ms and then try all 3 options. It's likely that inband DTMF will 
work.

Original comment by mte...@gmail.com on 26 Dec 2010 at 5:42

• Changed state: WontFix

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Brian,

The short answer I typically like to give for people who don't want to deal 
with the technical issues is to just temporarily forward your sipgate number to 
your real cellphone. Then use your cellphone to authorize the sipgate line. BE 
SURE to delete the call forwarding to your cell. It consumes sipgate and 
cellular minutes (and totally defeats the whole purpose of doing this). That 
will get this resolved for you immediately.. particularly if getting this line 
authorized the only DTMF-based function you are unable to perform at this time.

As I'm sure you're aware, Brian, this isn't an issue with our scripts. I 
changed Mike's prior status to Invalid, Other, Low instead of making it appear 
we won't work on this. There's nothing for us to work on. Hope this helps.

Original comment by easter...@gmail.com on 27 Dec 2010 at 12:34

• Changed state: Invalid
• Added labels: Priority-Low, Type-Other
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium, Type-Defect

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Thanks for the feedback, guys! The plot thickens:

I temporarily forwarded my sipgate number to my cellphone using sipgate's 
routing capabilities, as you suggested. I am STILL unable to verify the line 
with Google Voice. The issue is the same; the Google-bot does not recognize the 
DTMF tones that I am generating with the cell phone. Weird!

Great work on these resources, by the way! Cheers for all of your efforts!

Original comment by brian.ro...@gmail.com on 27 Dec 2010 at 5:05

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Wow that's a new one. I have never seen that fail in the past. Do you have any 
other landlines you can use? House line? It also means that the issue isn't 
even related to the transcoding that may go on between sipgate and any other 
service you may be using between your phone and sipgate. I'm sorry that didn't 
work for you, like I said, I've never seen that fail before!

Original comment by easter...@gmail.com on 27 Dec 2010 at 5:55

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I concur I am having the same issue.  I have SipGate to forward to my cell 
phone, landline home phone and also the SipGate VoIP software on my PC. When I 
add my SipGate number to Google Voice for verification, it calls my SipGate 
number, all three of the phones ring, my landline, cell phone and Sipgate VoIP 
but when I pickup and punch in my 2 digit code, Google Voice doesn't recognize 
the tones; she just keeps telling me she's sorry she didn't get that. But when 
I just plug in my landline or cell phone number directly, Google Voice does 
recognize the tones and I can link them. 

Original comment by plumpls....@gmail.com on 16 Feb 2011 at 2:18

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So when you call your sipgate number from your cellphone and answer on your 
house phone, what do you hear when you press buttons on your house phone? It 
would be interesting if sipgate is either blocking DTMF tones altogether or 
just when Google Voice is calling to register a new number. 

Have you tried IPKall? Mike, the author of the scripts distributed here, isn't 
too big a fan of theirs when it comes to receiving calls, but for making calls, 
he's perfectly happy with them. I also want to be clear in making sure you guys 
understand that we don't provide official support for Google Voice, sipgate or 
IPKall here. That's why this ticket is actually in a closed state. This isn't 
the site for any of those services, but we appreciate you logging your notes 
here. 

Original comment by easter...@gmail.com on 17 Feb 2011 at 4:37

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I think I know whats causing people's problem. I tried what you said by calling 
my Sipgate number from my cell phone. I have an Android phone which I use to 
make inbound and outbound calls through Google Voice app installed on the 
phone. If I do not use GV app to call, when I call my Sipgate number from my 
cell phone I hear normal tones when I press buttons when I answer on my home 
phone. However, if I call my Sipgate number through the Google Voice app on the 
phone, which essentially uses the GV network to make and receive calls, all I 
hear is extremely loud line noise on my cell phone but I do not hear the line 
noise on my home phone; if I let voicemail pickup, I can barely hear my 
voicemail greeting. If I press buttons on my home phone, the tones are not 
audible at all.  This is probably most likely what people are getting. For some 
reason the line noise is not audible on the receiving end of the call so thats 
why when GV verification calls our verified phones, we don't hear the line 
noise when pressing in the 2 digit verification code, but the GV system does.

So I don't think the problem is with Sipgate blocking DTMF tones. The problem 
is there's so much line noise the GV system cannot hear the DTMF tones.  I 
don't know if its a compatibility problem between GV and Sipgate or a 
malfunction on one or the other's end but I only hear this line noise if 
calling through Google Voice and Sipgate. If I dial my Sipgate number without 
Google Voice, the call is clear.

Original comment by plumpls....@gmail.com on 9 Mar 2011 at 5:09

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Thank you for this insightful input and thorough testing. How many times have 
you tried? I'm wondering if it is coming from the system Google is choosing to 
place the call. In particular, why is this only happening for a "vocal 
minority"? As it always is with technical support, no one posts to say "it 
worked great" :) Excellent job testing and reporting your results.. I 
appreciate the effort. Also, have you tried IPKall? We're only using the subset 
of sipgate's functionality that is a complete overlap with IPKall's entire 
suite of capabilities.

Original comment by easter...@gmail.com on 9 Mar 2011 at 4:29

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I tried about 5 times. I tried 3 times from my cell phone calling to my Sipgate 
number through GV, and got line noise all three times. Then I tried twice 
through just my cell phone to my Sipgate number without calling through GV and 
both times it was clear. I'm starting to wonder if Sipgate may just have a bad 
batch of numbers because some people have gotten Sipgate to work fine with GV. 
I don't know. I'm not nowhere near an expert regarding telephony. But I know 
line noise usually has to do with not enough data being carried through the 
call or not enough power. I do not know if this also affects virtual calling. 
And if thats the case, theres nothing anyone can do about it.

I read somewhere someone else had the same problem and they got a different 
Sipgate number and it worked. So I may try getting another Sipgate number 
although Sipgate is closed for new numbers at this time.

I will try out IPKall. Thanks.

Original comment by plumpls....@gmail.com on 9 Mar 2011 at 7:31

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got this issue resolved yesterday. i contacted sipgate support regarding this 
and they gave me some troubleshooting steps to do but none worked like i 
suspected because i had already done everything on my own. i kept telling the 
guy it was between two phones and not sip software but i guess that didnt sink 
in and he kept emailing me stuff to do in sip software. i asked him if i bought 
a new number (since they were closed for new numbers) would they refund me if 
it still didnt work but the sipgate guy told me a new number wouldnt fix it. 
but anyways, new registration for sipgate numbers opened back up again, i 
signed up with a new sipgate number and voila it worked! so sipgate might deny 
or just doesn't know it but they got some bad numbers out there. i still get 
static on my old sip number and this new one i don't. so all i can recommend to 
people who are getting the same thing is just get another sipgate number.

Original comment by plumpls....@gmail.com on 6 Apr 2011 at 6:38