Knowledge Base

This guide will explain how to peer two systems using IAX. Let's assume that you have two offices, one in Chicago and one in Tokyo. Both have their own Switchvox installation and broadband connection. Your goal is to be able to reach any 3 digit extension in either office without dialing extra numbers. This can be accomplished by Peering. By peering the two systems together, calls between the Chicago and Tokyo offices are free, due to the fact that we do not use any phone service provider to make them.

Your first step is to decide how to assign extensions. In order to make the call routing easier, it's a good idea to make all of the Tokyo extensions start with one number, and all of the Chicago extensions start with another number. For example, you would make all the Tokyo extensions start with 2 and all the Chicago extensions start with 4. e.g.,  2XX will reach Tokyo, 4XX will reach Chicago.

The next goal is to allow calling across any network router that performs NAT. If the IP address of your Switchvox PBX is in the following ranges, it is likely that it is behind a NATting router:

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.32.255.255

You will need to enable port forwarding on your router to allow calls to reach your PBX. The following ports need to be forwarded from your router to your PBX for IAX:

UDP port 4569

To enable port forwarding, check with the documentation for your router. Documentation on port forwarding for many common brands of routers can be found at: http://www.portforward.com

You will need to forward the above ports on both networks, i.e. both the Chicago and Tokyo routers will have to be configured in our example.

After port forwarding has been enabled on both routers, you will need to tell the PBX of this change. This will need to be done on each PBX that is behind a NATting router.

• To do this, go to the "Network Settings" tab of the "Machine Admin" menu of your Switchvox admin page.
• Select the "Yes" option under "Allow Nat Port Forwarding", and fill in th external IP address of your router in the box below. If you don't know your router's external IP address, click on the "Lookup External IP button."
  
• Click the "Update Network Settings" box.

On the Tokyo PBX admin:

Click the "VOIP Providers" option of the "System Setup" menu. Select "Add A New IAX Provider".

• Name the PBX you are planning to peer with and fill in the "IAX Provider Name" section with something like "Chicago Office".

• You'll need to come up with a provider label, account ID and password. These are completely arbitrary but you will need to remember them. Fill in the "IAX Provider Label", "Your Account ID", and "Your Password" fields. Understand that you will be doing this process on both machines. The IAX Provider Label from one side will match the Account ID on the other. Currently we are making these settings in the Tokyo PBX. The provider label we use is "chicago", therefore, the Account ID used when we setup the other machine will be "chicago". The Label and ID will match across the 2 machines. Case (upper/lower) matters, so make sure they match. For simplicity's sake, the Password used on both machines will match (ex. "admin").
  

• For the "Hostname/IP Address" you will fill in the External IP address of the Chicago office.

• Leave the "Callback Extension" option blank, and "Incoming Authentication Type" is fine at "MD5". Caller ID fields can be left blank. Expand the "Click to Show Advanced Options" button.

• There are only FOUR options you need to change in the Advanced section. First, change the "Host Type" option to "Peer". Next, select "No" for "Apply Incoming Call Rules to Provider". Check the box to ALLOW for Internal calls. Set Qualify Hosts to "Yes".




Scroll down and click on the "Add IAX Provider" button.

In order to complete the peering setup, you need to repeat these steps on the Chicago admin screen.

On the Chicago admin page:

Click the "VOIP Providers" option of the "System Setup" menu. Select "Add A New IAX Provider".

 

• Follow the steps the same way as above, but with the appropriate alternate values.

• The Advanced settings will have the same adjustments as the Tokyo setup:

Now that the two peers have been created, you need to tell Switchvox how to route calls between the two sites. As with the SIP Providers setup, this needs to be done on both PBXs.

On the Tokyo admin page:

• Select the "Outgoing Calls" option from the "System Setup" menu. Click "Add New Rule".

• Under "Rule Name" you will type "Chicago Office". This is a rule to tell the PBX how to reach the Chicago office.

• "Is this rule final?" should say "Yes".

• For the "Pattern to Match" section, fill in 4 for the digits that the number begins with. Since this example uses 3 digit extensions (e.g., 4XX for Chicago), the rest of the number must be between 2 and 2 digits in length. You can leave the last two boxes blank for this rule (there's no need to trim or prepend any digits).

• Under "Call Through" select "IAX Provider". Under "IAX Provider" select the name of the peer you setup in step 5.  (Chicago Office).

• Click "Add Outgoing Rule"

• You should now see the message in green "Successfully created the outgoing rule" along with the list of outgoing rules below. Your new rule should be highlighted in blue. Click on the Up arrow next to your new rule to move it to a higher priority than internal.

Next, return to the Chicago admin page and add a call rule to allow Chicago to call Tokyo.

On the Chicago admin page:

• As before, select the "Outgoing Calls" option from the "System Setup" menu. Click "Add New Rule".

• Under "Rule Name" you will type "Tokyo Office".

• "Is this rule final?" should say "Yes".

• For the "Pattern to Match" section, fill in 2 for the digits that the number begins with. Since this example uses 3 digit extensions (e.g., 2XX for Tokyo), the rest of the number must be between 2 and 2 digits in length. You can leave the last two boxes blank for this rule as there's no need to trim or prepend any digits.

• Under "Call Through" select "IAX Provider". Under "IAX Provider" select the name of the peer you setup in step 5.  (Tokyo Office).

• Click "Add Outgoing Rule"

• You now should see the message in green "Successfully created the outgoing rule" along with the list of outgoing rules below. Your new rule should be highlighted in blue. Click on the Up arrow next to your new rule to move it to a higher priority than internal.

You are now ready to call between peers. At this point, a person in Chicago can dial a 2XX extension and reach somebody in Tokyo free of charge.