VoIP fron A&A with Altnet and CGNAT Incoming Calls Only

Hello

I enquired today about porting my landline number from Sky Broadband to A&A Voip because we moved to a Altnet (Lilaconnect) and we are paying for 2 isps at the moment to retain the landline. I was told by A&A voip that because our ISP uses CGNAT there voip will not work. Can I please ask does anyone here use A&A for incoming calls only with a CGNAT enabled ISP and is it working ok with your setup.

I have a Grandstream HT801 ATA and an asus rt-ax82u router.

Thank you in advance.

CGNAT is to be avoided for this sort of reason. Having said that, up to a year ago we had a Grandstream GXP1620 phone running behind CGNAT, which worked to a substantial extent, sometimes dropping out for a few seconds, but workable. Not sure if the problems were due to CGNAT or just shonky connectivity - this was with a wireless ISP. Probably A&A were understandably just avoiding taking on a problematic situation.

Probably the best thing would be to go to a company like Voipfone who do a free months trial and see what happens

Edited by DFScale (Wed 12-Feb-25 21:18:41)

According to their website Lilaconnect offer a public IPv4 address on most of their packages.
Check with them whether that is possible (or alternatively ask whether they support IPv6).
If any of the above fail, you can alsways get an L2TP tunnel from A&A

Thank you for your replies

In reply to essex_man

Yes Lilaconnect offer a Public IPv4 address for £6 per month but my parents signed up for a 12 month discount meaning they are paying £30 per month. If they had there ipv4 public IP (just for voip because they do no gaming they are elderly) then that would mean under Lila's terms the discount would be removed and they would be paying for the full price per month plus the IPv4 Public IP address meaning that there monthly bill will go from £30 a month to over £41 per month just for a public IP address and that does not include the Voip subscription. So this is not an option and it should not be an option of having to pay an extra £11 per month just to be able to use a Voip provider.

Lilaconnect do not supply a IPv6 address.

Thank you for your suggestions but I am finding this all a little overwhelming. Everything I try always seems to hit a brick wall.

Edited by harryhamster (Wed 12-Feb-25 22:09:11)

In reply to a post by harryhamster:

Everything I try always seems to hit a brick wall.

You could still try Voipfone or probably some other suppliers for a month's free trial. See whether it works.

Remember that if you port your existing landline number that will have the effect of ceasing your Sky broadband and phone. As others have suggested you could try something like voiphone but try it as a standalone using the number supplied by them to see if it works before starting the porting process.

Again thank you all for your replies it is most appreciated.

I have tried Voipfone but had problems with the call guardian feature on the bt4600 telephone and there service. They tried to resolve the problem but it was never solved. The problem was that when a caller telephoned the number and the call guardian activated then the person calling needed to announce there name and then press the # key (hashkey) to be connected but it was not connecting and jusr replaying the request to announce there name then after 3 attempts it cut the caller off. Dont know if it was my router at fault or the Grandstream HT801 with voipfone but it did not work for me but not saying it wont work for others.

The BT Phone and Call Guardian worked fine with another voip provider but I had problems with outgoing calls and one way audio with sky landline numbers. So the plan was to use a voip provider to just use for incoming calls only then use mobile phones with unlimited call sims (1 month contracts) for all outgoing calls hence my interest in A&A but after being told that they do not support CGNAT it has put a spanner in the works as I do not want to port my elderly parents landline number to a provider that wil not allow incoming calls because they rely on the landline for hospital and doctors etc.

I understand porting the number over will cease the ISP connection with Sky Broadband. They have been paying Sky Broadband for the past 3 month £55 just for the privilage of keeping there landline number and I want to stop that. They are paying for 2 broadband services and only using one because the landline is tied up with the sky broadband service. They are elderly and cannot keep affording to pay for 2 services just to keep there landline that they have had for 40 years or more active.

This is a very frustraiting situation for myself who is trying to get this sorted out for my parents and my parent who are paying through the nose for a service they are not fully using just to keep and active landline.

Edited by harryhamster (Thu 13-Feb-25 04:46:19)

In reply to a post by essex_man:

If any of the above fail, you can alsways get an L2TP tunnel from A&A

I have looked at the L2TP tunnel from A&A and I have been trying to work out how I would configure that to work with a Grandstream HT801 ATA for the Voip to bypass CGNAT. All I have found is instructions on adding it to an asus router as a VPN but if activated it would act as a active connection for all internt traffic over riding the ISP FTTP connection meaning if I opted for the light 3mps for use with voip then the connection would be limited to 3 mps or am I thinking this wrong?

How would I setup a L2TP service from A&A to use voip and keep the 1gps fttp connection active at the same time for all other internet related activities?

Been doing extensive research in the internet about setting up a L2TP for Voip and there is no information and been getting nowhere.

Thanks in advance

In reply to a post by harryhamster:

I have tried Voipfone but had problems with the call guardian feature on the bt4600 telephone and there service. They tried to resolve the problem but it was never solved. The problem was that when a caller telephoned the number and the call guardian activated then the person calling needed to announce there name and then press the # key (hashkey) to be connected but it was not connecting and jusr replaying the request to announce there name then after 3 attempts it cut the caller off. Dont know if it was my router at fault or the Grandstream HT801 with voipfone but it did not work for me but not saying it wont work for others.

I have just checked and found your earlier thread - sorry it did not register with me.

I have Voipfone, Grandstream HT802 and BT Call guardian 8600, which work OK, apart from a dodgy handset. So a very similar set up to yours. I doubt your router is a player in this as you can establish a call inwards, even if it is not handled correctly by the BT4600 and presumably you can call out too. Your problems are either the finer settings on the ATA or the BT4600 itself.

In reply to a post by harryhamster:

How would I setup a L2TP service from A&A to use voip and keep the 1gps fttp connection active at the same time for all other internet related activities?

There are some ATAs which support L2TP tunnels, so you could replace the Grandstream with such an ATA and plug that into the router.

Alternatively, you could try to get a router that allows "split tunnel", i.e.where only one ethernet port is tunnelled.

Or you could put another box between your existing ATA and your router which terminates the tunnel.