Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] When Ekiga rings... and when maybe it shouldn't.

[simon <simon mungewell org>]

On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 08:53:21PM +0200, Fabien Chevalier wrote:
> My little knowledge of SIP would tend to make me believe that Ekiga 
> should start the ring tone when it receives "ringing" from the remote 
> side, and not before. In fact i tryed another SIP softphone (SJPhone) to 
> check if my assumption was correct... and it looks like SJPhone does 
> work as described above.

There are two signals which could be used to initiate the ringing noise,
'100 trying' and '180 ringing'

I would agree with Fabien that using '180 ringing' would make more
sense.

> 
> Now, why is this Ekiga behaviour annoying ?
> In fact using free.fr (one of the top alternative broadband operator in 
> France) brand new PC-to-Phone SIP service, the call setup can take 
> between 5 and 15 seconds. During this timeframe, the ringtone rings at 
> my side, which means i will have heard a bunch of ringtones before the 
> other side has started to ring ==> which means i really don't know if 
> the call is so long because the guy at the other end is not there or 
> because the call is still setting up itself.

I would check the time stamps in the '--debug=4' log to determine
exactly what is happening. It could be that the SIP server is sending
'180 ringing' early.

Examples of the signalling flow can be see here:
http://www.tech-invite.com/Ti-sip-CF3665.html

> 
> For my point of view, it makes Ekiga hardly usable...too bad, is such an 
>    oustanding piece of software otherwise !!

Of course it's up to you, but I don't see why this would have a impact
on usability. Afterall you're either listening to silence (or ringing)
whilst the call is set up.... the other person will not answer any
quicker. 

You'll just have to learn to be patient... ;-)

Simon.