If anyone here has active SIP trunks with AT&T would you be willing to share what bs you had to go through to get them to sign off and be OK with talking to an asterisk/freepbx server?
I knew from past info I have seen posted that AT&T seems to think you need an older version of asterisk, and sure enough they are asking for a 1.4 release, which is easy enough to fudge on and get working.
After telling them we had the version they requested, now they are coming back and telling us not only do we need asterisk, but we must install a Cisco Cube border controller between them and asterisk or they won’t provide any 800 service.
Now I will be the first to admit I have never used this CUBE from Cisco before, and of course according to AT&T they just want it, they can’t tell you anything about it, won’t tell you how to configure it, just their spec says you must provide it (I wonder if I just say I have it sitting on the shelf if that counts… LOL).
At the moment I see now reason you would have to have some inbetween box to talk SIP, if they actually use SIP, but I am hoping maybe someone here that has dealt with AT&T can shed a little light on the subject…
We deal with AT&T and have discussed going to external SIP trunking, although have not made the change yet. In our location (FL) they insist on a session border controller (essentially a firewall), although never mentioned a particular one (though they may once we do make a decision to go SIP from the outside). The requirement as it was explained to us, was for our protection. They have an SBC on their end to protect their systems from cyberattacks from your employees, and insist on one at your site managed by you to protect your systems from any attacks coming from external sources. Sort of a new school demarc…
Salespeople and front line technicians have no idea why, but if a particular brand and model is recommended it is likely for upper tier support. That way AT&T can have a limited knowledge investment for handling any problems.
it is not their forte and when you have problems you get zero help. we support one customer using att sip. once you get it working it is fine. but good luck on getting any help at all from att on getting it up and running. setting a cisco cube is not all that difficult (or any other session border controller) and it does in some cases make the network a bit more secure but it is an added expense and one more box to maintain.