Accessing VoIP Destinations

As the proliferation of VoIP phones has skyrocketed, there is ample reason to consider the market for outbound and inbound VoIP access when designing IVR applications. From the start, Voxeo has been ready. Herein, we will walk you through the process for dialing to and from a VoIP phone to access your XML applications, and detail the offerings that have been tested to work with the Voxeo platform.

Bear in mind, there are some rather important caveats to using the Voxeo SIP services that you should be aware of before you begin.

• All Voxeo platforms, (Motorola Voicexml2.1, CCXML, Callxml), support the SIP protocol for bridged transfers
• Token-triggered outbound calls via HTTP are enabled for SIP calls.
• Any 'true' SIP phone can dial the Voxeo network.
• The Voxeo outbound dialing feature is not enabled for all SIP phones/providers.

Softphones

Voxeo has found that the easiest to use softphone on the market is the Pulver Communicator. The Communicator's setup and configuration is much less cantankerous than other free softphones, and its integration with instant messenging clients, along with a full arsenal of other features, (video, multiparty conferencing, and phone number blacklisting, to name a few) makes the Pulver Communicator a natural choice. Voxeo has partnered with Free World Dialup, the network residing beneath the Pulver Communicator, allowing for easy application access from anywhere on the globe

Inbound VoIP Dialing

Each application provisioned through the Evolution Site site can be SIP-enabled, by clicking on the application detail screen, and selecting "Add 800+PIN/VoIP Number". This will bring up a new subsection to the application detail titled "calling from VoIP", where a new number will be added that looks something like this:

**00001111222222


As easy as that, you can plug this destination number into yourPulver Communicator softphone to ring the voxeo application. This start sequence is specific to the Pulver Communicator/FWD. However, any SIP softphone can call Voxeo development applications by dialing:


(application PIN)@sip.voxeo.net


Obviously, you will want to ensurethat the proper firewall rules are in place for these calls to function correctly.

Outbound VoIP Dialing

When making an outbound PSTN call, either HTTP token based, or via a 'transfer' or 'call' element, the default syntax assumes a PSTN bridged transfer.However, when placing a SIP call, we need to change our syntax appropriately, and add a 'sip' prefix to the string:

CallXML

PSTN:
SIP: sip:**00001111222222@fwd.voxeo.net"/>

VoiceXML

PSTN:
SIP: sip:**00001111222222@fwd.voxeo.net">

CCXML

PSTN:
SIP: sip:**00001111222222@fwd.voxeo.net'" name="line_1"/>


Predictably enough, this applies to token-based calls as well, regardless of the platform:

http://session.voxeo.net/VoiceXML.start?
numbertodial=sip:**00001111222222@fwd.voxeo.net&
tokenid=yourTokenIDhere




As this offering is still relatively new, Voxeo has not tested all services and providers with our VoIP offering. As such, results may vary upon your initial efforts to place an outbound call to your SIP phone from a Voxeo application. However, if you do encounter problems with a particular service, just let us know! If we can, we will help out where possible.

We can say for certain that most of the services that work with Free World Dialup, (X-10 softphone,and the Pulver Communicator), work smashingly with the Voxeo platforms, and shouldn't encounter any errors. If you are calling a non-Pulver softphone/network, then you will likely need to change the prefix::

Using the "sip:any-fwd-number@fwd.voxeo.net" works just dandy to connect to the FWD network. Furthermore, FWD has a Vonage interconnect, as well as many more using a ** nomenclature. Just as **869 will get you from FWD to Voxeo, **2431+any-vonage-number will get you to Vonage, **8981+any-packet8-number will get you to Packet8, etc. If you are using another provider, you would do well to check out the listing of these interconnects to see what prefix you will need.

Local International Numbers

In addition to providing free softphone access for our developers, voxeo has recently unvelied a new offering that is bound to prove useful to our Community Members. Thats right, voxeo now offers local access numbers to a broader spectrum of players in the worldwide market. This means that instead of dialing an 800+PIN code to access your applications, you can dial a free *local* number to access our application PIN system!

Voxeo currently has local access numbers deployed on a trial basis for the following markets for our 800+PIN system:

Local Access Number	Locale
+44-20-7043 7144	London, UK
+34-93-2395107	Barcelona, Spain
+39-06-43408608	Roma, Italy
+972-2-649 9751	Jerusalem, Israel
+372-6-976953	Tallinn, Estonia
+55-21-3523 4238	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
+1-617-507 7122	Boston, USA

Throughout the rest of the year, we will be adding additional direct-dial numbers for different locales available on the system, so remember: whichever locales receive the most requests will be first in line; make your voice heard!