(this is a repost, not sure where the original post went)

Hi all

I've been playing around with VoIP and Asterisk (using FreePBX).

I have a Xnet VFX line as the 'control' separate from any of this (except they all go over the same DSL connection), it goes from line 1 on my PAP2T to my cordless phone. No problems there at all; it hasn't missed a beat.

The * box has been set up to work with two IP phones, one SIP, one IAX, as well as line 2 on my PAP2T, and a softphone on my laptop. No problems there either.

I've set up two trunk lines - one to iTalk and one to Sipserve - here is where interesting things happen.

I've worked through a few issues with Hamish from Sipserve and by and large it's working okay in both directions.

iTalk isn't so good - if I call from my VFX line to my * iTalk number, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes my extensions ring for a couple of seconds, then stop, then start again (this happens occasionally but not as much on the Sipserve trunk too). The calling party doesn't hear any ringing tone until the second time (the ring is supplied by iTalk, mine still uses US ones and the calling party hears a NZ one). Sometimes the call simply fails to go through.

If I dial out from * via iTalk, the called party picks up, sometimes all is ok but sometimes but the call won't actually connect for up to seven seconds. (Once it does, latency is about 0.5sec so there definitely isn't some seven second holdup somewhere).

edit: Sometimes also a call coming in through iTalk will die after about five seconds. During those five seconds audio does go two-way so the data is getting through.

These problems are all intermittent.

It's running over a Xnet FS/FS ADSL connection which is about 5Mbps down and 600kbps up. The ADSL router is a Dynalink RRTA1335 which is set up with QoS.

I've heard stuff about problems with iTalk but was wondering what other users' recent experiences with Asterisk and iTalk are?
Because I'm relatively new at VoIP and Asterisk, I'm not quite ready to blame the provider until I better understand what's going on.

Thanks,

Andrew