EE Mobile does not support VOIP

[gavingwatson]

Have seen a few posts about EE users not supporting VOIP devices on their mobile network.

I can confirm that this is indeed the case.

Despite calls to EE business and them saying that VOIP devices are not blocked (after the typical "try turning it off and on again, try a different devices, etc", after changing the EE SIM to a Three SIM, all of a sudden VOIP phones started working correctly.

In case anyone comes looking for information about EE mobile network supporting VOIP devices or the devices not connecting, I can confirm that EE does NOT support this (despite what they claim when you call them).

[Rach_H]

Thanks for letting me know @Breazle and @voip_user. Could you give our Technical team a quick call on 150, so they can take a closer look, and see what we can do.

Rach

[Breazle]

There's no point ringing. We both have already and get very generic responses. In fact one response was go to forums and you are saying go to technical. It would be simpler if you accepted you didn't allow voip calls (which is baffling since it's the future UK phone system) 

[Rach_H]

We are unable to resolve this for you here on the Community @Breazle, and it would be best to speak with our Technical team for more account specific support.

It is possible that other users might have found resolutions to this, and they may reach out to you here.

We do support WiFi Calling, but may not be able to support all VoIP platforms, or do this across all devices.

Rach

[gavingwatson]

No, I didn't say that EE didn't support data, nowhere in my post did I say that. 

I'm saying that they are blocking VoIP traffic somewhere/somehow. I changed the EE SIM for a 3 SIM and it worked out of the box, no changes to the VoIP system or router.

There are many other people saying it isn't working either so mine is not an isolated case.

[gavingwatson]

@Rach_H 

I spoke at length with your technical team, they were not helpful, only to claim that you (EE) were not aware of any such blocks on VoIP traffic but there clearly is. There are other users with exactly the same issue.

Why you just can't admit it and save people time and money is beyond me. (I guess commercially it would look bad if you did).

For others viewing this post. EE (over 4G) do NOT support VoIP systems, changing the SIM to a 3 SIM worked immediately with no changes to either the 4G router NOR the VoIP system, so clearly this is a block on VoIP traffic on the EE network.

We've been using the 3 SIM for months now with no issues,

[TPTeledotcom]

OK, after a lot of testing and speaking to EE, they have stated that "they do not support VoIP over mobile data" over UDP and TCP. There is a way around this but it will depend on your VoIP provider. The easiest option is to move away from EE.

[pt44]

I have this exact issue. I switched to 5G broadband a couple of months back. EE SIM card (Business Account). Only just noticed this weekend, that the reason nobody speaks when I pick up the phone is the sound doesn't travel in either direction over my VoIP line. You can ring out and accept calls - but no voice.  It was working fine with Starlink. Found this thread after asking on the Asus-Merlin forum about Router settings. 

On that forum, someone mentioned that it might be fixable by changing some settings. This is what they wrote to me. But as this thread seems to clarify - perhaps EE simply do not support VoIP over their 5G broadband SIM. Which considering the UK is all going over to VoIP would be a tad annoying, as I can't switch broadband provider, as they are the only one working at any decent level in my rural area. 

"VoIP works fine on ASUS routers. I keep WAN\NAT Passthrough\SIP Passthrough disabled to prevent one-way audio... but that's a legacy avoid-SIP-ALG habit that may no longer be necessary... and is not your issue, imo.

5G cellular Internet service may not play nice with VoIP. This discussion (link to this thread) suggests that your EE 5G issue (signaling 'yes'; media/audio 'no' both ways) is caused by using the EE 5G service. If your VoIP provider and ATA both support using the TLS protocol (encrypted TCP) for call encryption, you could try configuring both the provider SIP account and registering ATA (per their respective instructions) to use the TLS protocol instead of UDP/TCP. TLS call encryption may 'hide' your SIP traffic on EE's network and allow it to succeed... and will also secure your last-mile SIP communications between VoIP provider and ATA.

Otherwise, if EE Tech Support (a person that actually understands their issue) can not help, you may not get SIP call media working on EE 5G Internet service"


Andrews & Arnold - VoIP provider
Grandstream HT801 - VoIP converter
Asus RT-AX86U - router
EE - Business 5G broadband SIM

[TPTeledotcom]

Hi, the easiest way around the issue of EE not supporting VoIP over mobile data is to use TLS encryption. Your VoIP provider should be able to do this. If not, get in touch.

[pt44]

Intersting. I just saw your reply after speaking to EE business support. The guy on the phone confirmed that VoIP is not supported on their SIM only 5G broadband plan. 

However, perhaps the solution you have suggested bypasses this - and it might work. I'll have to have a google about how exactly I set up TLS encryption on the Router and with the Grandstream device I presume. 

[pt44]

Is the setting - DNS Privacy Protocol - currently set to none - the other option is DNS over TLS (DoT)

Is that all I have to set on the router? Will this break anything else.