Voip Phone Problem

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
I know this doesn't really fit here, hence posting in chit chat. At the same time there's some knowledgeable guys who might be able to help.
I use a Panasonic KX-NT556 to connect to the work VOIP phone system. It usually works a treat but we often have connectivity problems down to the poor wiring in the office and an unreliable ISP at that end. This manifests itself with my phone losing connection and rebooting itself. The issue is that when it reboots I can no longer connect to the system.
In order to connect I have to switch off the phone, reboot my broadband router and then turn the phone on again. Then it works. This is fine unless I am working on something over the internet and can't really spare the time to reboot the router due to tricky VPN access etc. It's rather annoying to say the least.
I'm guessing that as the router reboot solves the problem it's likely to be a port issue on the home network. Can anyone talk me through how to go about diagnosing this problem? I have a Windows machine and a OS X machine available to me. The router is a crappy Huawei device from my ISP.
 

Rob Fitzpatrick

ProgressTalk.com Sponsor
Does the broadband router act as a DHCP server for your LAN? Is the phone a DHCP client or does it have a static IP address?

It may be that the router reboot is required as otherwise it isn't giving the phone an IP address. So if the answer to the questions is that the router and phone are DHCP client and server respectively, you could configuring the phone for a static IP, assuming that configuration is available to you. If not, you could try using your own router downstream of the ISP router to act as your LAN's DHCP server.

That doesn't really constitute "diagnosing the problem" but at least it's a quick test you can try.
 

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
Good question Rob. I meant to add that to the original post. The router does act as DHCP, but I've set the phone to have a static IP well outside the range of IPs the router will allocate to devices.
 

Rob Fitzpatrick

ProgressTalk.com Sponsor
Could also be a name-resolution issue. Does the phone also have static DNS config or does it get it from the router?
 

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
That I can't say Rob. I think it probably gets it from the router, but I'm not 100% sure and I don't know how to check.
 

Rob Fitzpatrick

ProgressTalk.com Sponsor
It's usually in the same place as IP address configuration. Sometimes a device can separately be set for dynamic DNS with static IP, and sometimes static means both IP and DNS servers. But there should be at least two fields to fill in the IP addresses of DNS servers, once you get it set to static.
 

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
So:
DHCP: Disabled
IP Address 192.168.1.20
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

That's the settings. Doesn't seem like an option for changing the DNS.
 

Cringer

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
Ok so it's just disconnected again. Pinging the IP address returns fine. Not really sure what else to try. And I can't reboot the router as I'm transferring a file.
 
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