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How to: Test Deployed Applications with a Softphone

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

A softphone is a software-only SIP peer that is installed on a computer and can be used to make SIP-based telephone calls. For more information, see SIP Peers. A softphone can be a helpful tool in making test calls to voice response applications using actual SIP and Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) traffic between the endpoints. You can use a softphone to call an inbound application or to receive a call from an outbound-calling application.

Note

Speech Server only accepts Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) connections from SIP peers. The softphone that you use to test your application must support connections over these protocols. Speech Server does not connect to softphones using User Datagram Protocol (UDP) connections. If you use a UDP-enabled softphone, you need to use a SIP proxy that can convert UDP connections to the TCP or TLS connections required by Speech Server.

To call an application using a softphone

  1. Install and configure the softphone.

    Make sure TCP connections are activated for the softphone. If Speech Server and the softphone are installed on the same computer, configure the softphone listening port with a value that is different than the Speech Server listening port (by default 5060).

  2. Deploy the application to the computer running Speech Server.

    You should specify a unique called party address for the application or ensure that the application has the highest precedence of all the deployed applications on the computer. For more information, see Speech Application Deployment.

    Note

    You must deploy the application to Speech Server to call it with a softphone. You cannot use a softphone to call an application that has only been built using Speech Server Developer Tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

  3. Add the softphone as a SIP peer and then as a trusted SIP peer for the computer running Speech Server.

    For more information, see SIP Peer Administration.

    If you are using a SIP proxy to allow calls from a UDP-enabled softphone, it is not necessary to add the softphone as a trusted SIP peer. Instead, the SIP proxy computer must be added as a trusted SIP peer.

  4. Call the application with the softphone.

    To successfully call a deployed application on Speech Server, you must dial the softphone in a way that uses the called party address of the application and the IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the computer running Speech Server. In other words, the softphone needs to send an INVITE to an address similar to sip:myAddress@mySpeechServer, where myAddress is a string equal to (or resolves to) the application called party address and mySpeechServer is the IP address or FQDN of the computer running Speech Server. If Speech Server is configured to listen on a port other than 5060, you need to include the port number in the address. For example, if the Speech Server listening port is 5162, the address should be specified as sip:myAddress@mySpeechServer:5162.

See Also

Other Resources

How to: Configure the Listening Ports for SIP Peer Communication
Lab: Deploying the Survey Tutorial Application