How it works
Your carrier brings the line. Vocivo is the phone system.
You already pay a carrier for phone numbers and calls. Vocivo connects to that carrier over the internet and does everything a phone system does: ringing the right people, answering with the AI receptionist, recording, routing and texting.
How a call flows
Your carrier
Your numbers, your contract, your local rates.
your SIP trunk provider
Your Vocivo
Hosted in your region, or on your own server.
routing · AI · recording
Your people
On their mobiles, in the browser, on desk phones.
ext 1000 · 1001 · …
In plain words
Who does what
Your carrier is the phone company. It owns the connection to the public phone network, gives you your numbers and bills you for calls. You keep your contract with it, and it deals only with you.
Vocivo is the phone system. It decides where each call rings, lets the AI receptionist answer, records when you ask, and puts calls on your team’s phones. Vocivo owns no numbers and no carrier accounts on your behalf.
The SIP trunk is the link between the two: a phone line delivered over the internet. If you change phone systems later, your numbers and your trunk go with you.
Your team installs the app. Their business number rings on their mobile, and calls they make go out over your carrier with the company’s caller ID.
For your technical lead
The details your carrier will ask about.
IP authentication or registration
IP-authenticated
The carrier trusts signalling from an address it has authorised, and sends your calls to that address. No username or password, and no REGISTER. Vocivo marks such a trunk as not expected to register, instead of showing it as failing.
Typical: carrier signals on UDP 5060 to one authorised address
Registration
Vocivo signs in to the carrier with a username and password, and the carrier sends calls to wherever that registration came from. The password is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM.
Typical: a credentials trunk with username, password and registrar
Ports and transport
Most carriers signal on UDP 5060. Each Vocivo trunk has its own setting for the port the carrier sends to, and two trunks cannot share one on the same machine. Voice travels as RTP on a separate range of ports. An IP-authenticated carrier sends to exactly one address and port, so only one phone system can hold UDP 5060 on that address at a time.
Number formats
Each trunk has a format for the number dialled and for the caller ID, plus a carrier country. Your people dial as they would on a local phone; Vocivo rewrites the number for the carrier. Incoming callers are stored in E.164, so call history can always ring them back. Emergency numbers go out exactly as dialled.
| Format | Example | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| E.164 | +966130000000 | Vocivo’s own records and most US carriers |
| International, no plus | 966130000000 | Carriers that refuse the + sign |
| International with 00 | 00966130000000 | How some carriers send callers to you |
| National | 0130000000 | How a local phone dials; many local carriers expect it |
Caller ID
Caller ID is chosen per person and per number. Vocivo puts it in the From header and in P-Asserted-Identity, written in the trunk’s caller ID format. Your carrier decides which numbers you may present; ask it before you set a number you do not hold on that trunk.
Codecs
Vocivo offers the carrier exactly the trunk’s codecs, PCMA and PCMU when none are set, plus telephone-event for keypad tones. When a browser or app speaks Opus, Vocivo converts it to what the carrier needs.
What to ask your carrier
- Is the trunk IP-authenticated or registration-based? For registration: username, password and registrar domain.
- The carrier’s signalling address, port and transport (UDP, TCP or TLS).
- The address they must authorise for you. Vocivo gives you this, or it is your own server’s static IP.
- How they write the number dialled, the caller ID, and the numbers they send to you.
- Codecs they accept, usually PCMA and PCMU, and whether they support telephone-event for keypad tones.
- Your numbers (DIDs), and which of them you may present as caller ID.
- How emergency calls are routed, and whether each number needs a registered address.
Then test each number on its own: outbound call and audio, inbound call to that number, inbound audio and keypad tones. The full walkthrough is in Bring your own SIP trunk.
Send us your carrier’s details and we will tell you what to ask for.
Sales can check your trunk type, number formats and ports before you start a trial.