Following on from my initial foray into SIP a couple of weeks back, I ordered a Zoom 5801 ATA from Expansys, so I could hook my good old-fashioned cordless phone up to Sipgate.

I wasn't impressed by the six working days it took to turn up, but it was free delivery.

In terms of hooking it up, the man-traps to avoid are:

  • Your Sipgate password for registering a device is NOT the same one you use to log in to their website
  • You don't need STUN enabled or configured
  • I've got various SIP ports forwarded from my router to the ATA's IP address, though I'm uncertain if they're absolutely necessary (Google for the ranges to use).

My router is Virgin Media's latest Superhub.

    Having configured it all, incoming calls work perfectly, and my twelve quid cordless phone from Argos manages to display the caller ID, which beats both Virgin Media and BT's landlines hands down. Outgoing calls work too, and don't forget that Sipgate don't charge for 0800 numbers (unlike your mobile provider).

    Lastly, since you've got Nagios running on the PC behind your sofa anyway (right?), let's set up a simple check to scrape the web interface and verify that the ATA is correctly registered with Sipgate:

    define command{
     command_name    check_zoom_ata
     command_line    $USER1$/check_http -a administrator:yourpassword -I $HOSTADDRESS$ -r "Ready to make calls"
     }

    Now define a service using this command, and associate the service with one or more hosts/hostgroups in the usual way.