VoIP with PPTP and i2004 Sets

[FrankOwen]

We currently have all the hardware and software setup for the VoIP to work (it works on our internal LAN) but the problem I have is getting the phones to work in remote locations.

I know the most common practice is to use a VPN Endpoint (like a BEFSX41) to connect into a IPSec VPN but it looks like you have to have static IP's at both ends for IPSec to work properly and we can't get static IP's at the users houses (since they are using a home internet connection).

We are currently using a PPTP connection for the users to connect into the LAN from home and do work over RDP. What I am hoping can be done (I hope I can explain this good enough) is add a second NIC card into their home machines that the i2004 sets will use to connect through to the PPTP connection when they connect in to use RDP.

I have messed around with ICS on the VPN connection but I can't seem to get it to work, I think I am missing something (like the right IP address settings). Does anyone have any experience with this or have an idea on how I can make these i2004 sets work without a IPSec connection?

Thanks,

Frank

 

[atascoman]

I have used the I2004 and I2050 over a VPN connection back to my company and the main thing we had an issue with was making sure that port 4100 is open from the VPN server back to the signaling server/node IP address. I would recommend using the I2050 instead since it uses the IP address settings of the PC it is installed on. It's a lot less nonsense.

I agree the static IP issue raises an issue if you need to do IPSec. I have found that users with broadband access usually keep the same IP even though they are technically dynamic. I hope this was somewhat helpful.

 

[FrankOwen]

The ports are opened between the VPN Server and the signaling server/node IP Address. I will be checking out the softphoine on Monday to see if this will work for us.

I would still like to use the I2004 since we have 4 of these just sitting and also the user is using RDP on their machine. I would also like this to work over the PPTP connection so I don't have to run two different types of VPN technologies.

 

[I2007]

If you use softphone i2050 over PPTP and the firewall is set up correctly should not cause any problems. I've done this several times. But you could use IPSec using only on way trigger. That way you don't have to have static ip's on the homeoffices, only on the mainoffice. Your combination with i2004 on a seperate NIC card is not a good solution at all. The best way is to use i2050 softphone.

sat2phant