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Using Nokia Devices with FreePBX or TrixBox

Authors Name: Jon Katz
Article Posted On: Mon May 19 2008

The need to expand a small office phone system to portable Wi-Fi and 3g enabled devices is growing at a rapid rate. With the growing popularity of the Nokia Smartphone in the US market, an end user or an IT admin can easily enable this native feature in the Symbian OS. I have successfully configured and used the Nokia e70, Nokia e90, and Nokia n95 US to function as full featured SIP Wi-Fi phones, and the Nokia n95 US as a full featured SIP 3G phone. Unfortunately the e70 does not support 3G and the e90 lacks US 3G support. This means using these devices for SIP leaves you bound to a Wi-Fi network. The configuration is very simple both on the PBX side as well as the device side.

I'll start with the PBX.
  1. Open the "Admin" tab of FREE PBX.
  2. Click on "Extensions" in the left navigation pane.
  3. Select "Generic SIP Device" and click "submit".
  4. Enter the User Extension, Display Name, CID Num Alias, SIP Alias, DID, Secret, and all other features you would like to enable. Click "Submit".
  5. Click on the newly created extension in the right pane.
  6. Leave all default settings besides: nat=yes, qualify=60000, disallow=all, allow=ulaw.
  7. Click "submit" once again.
FreePBX is now setup to accept and register your Nokia device.

For the Nokia device, do the following:
  1. Hit your "Menu" Key.
  2. Then hit "Tools".
  3. Then hit "Settings".
  4. Scroll and select "Connection".
  5. Scroll down and select "SIP Settings".
  6. Select your "Options" key, add "New", and use default profile-
    1. Name your profile; this is to differentiate between multiple profiles and servers.
    2. Keep service profile as "IETF".
    3. Select your default access point; typically this is the access point you are using at the location you are at. For n95 users on AT&T that want to register 3G, you would select "AT&T Internet" as the default access point. As a side note, make sure you have an unlimited data plan or you will be getting charged by the KB.
    4. Enter your public username in the following format sip:1234@123.123.123.123 on the e70 and sip:1234@123.123.123.123 or sip:1234@sip.yourdomain.com on the e90 and n95. The e70's poor NAT support leads to DNS lookup and SIP RTP issues. I find using an IP address on this device limits these issues.
    5. "Use Compression" = No.
    6. "Registration" = Always on.
    7. "Use Security" = No.
    8. Proxy Server Settings:
      1. Enter the "Proxy Server Address" in the following format: sip:123.123.123.123 on the e70 and sip:123.123.123.123 or sip:sip.yourdomain.com on the e90 and n95.
      2. "realm", if not changed in your server, must be "asterisk" (all lowercase).
      3. "username" is your extention.
      4. "Password" is your secret.
      5. "Allow loose routing" = Yes.
      6. "transport type" = UDP.
      7. "port" = 5060.
    9. Registrar Server Settings:
      1. Enter "Registrar server address" in this format sip:sip.yourdomain.com.
      2. "Realm" = none.
      3. "Username" = none.
      4. "Password" = none.
      5. "Transport Type" = UDP.
      6. "Port" = 5060.
    10. Now back out of the menus until you reach the "Connections" menu again:
      1. Select "Internet Tel. Settings".
      2. Click your "Options" key, "New profile".

Once this is done, you should have a profile called "Default" with your newly created sip profile under "SIP profiles".

On the e70, a restart of the phone is usually required. The e90 and n95 should connect and register without the restart.

You are now at your office extension on your Nokia device. By default, the "default call type" is set to "Internet call" so whenever you are in that Wi-Fi hotspot or in a 3G coverage area, you should be calling out from the phone system.

To add more access points, simply "Add new profile" using your newly created profile as a template. Just change the default access point. After adding the new profiles, be sure to add them to your default profile under "Internet tel. settings". This will allow registration in any pre-defined Wi-Fi areas.

Alternately, you can use Nokia's "Internet Tel." shortcut within "Menu -> Connect" to connect to hot spots on the fly. This feature was a bit lacking in the e70 but happens to work great on the e90 and n95. Just a note: if you do decide to use this feature it will disable the "registration = always on" on your SIP profiles.

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