I’m glad that you got it working, though I’d really like to know what the SIP issue was.
IMHO it’s unlikely they would be actively blocking. I hope that a member with a phone on Cricket or AT&T can take a look at what goes wrong.
AT&T doesn’t block VoIP in general; Skype, FaceTime, Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, Hangouts, SideLine, Line2, … all work fine.
I just did two tests with CSipSimple <-> FreePBX; both had good bidirectional audio. I admit that they weren’t definitive, limited by my present resources. The first used a Samsung tablet with an AirVoice Wireless SIM (AT&T MVNO). The other used a Motorola phone with an SFR SIM, roaming on AT&T.
I don’t know whether it mattered in this case, but my PBX listens on a non-standard port rather than 5060.
Some reasons why IAX2 is IMO not a good general workaround:
- Won’t work with the native VoIP function built into most Android dialers.
- Won’t work with other fine softphones (CSipSimple, Bria, Grandstream).
- Won’t work with other PBXes (FreeSWITCH, 3CX, Vodia), though some offer an alternative tunnel mechanism.
- For those who don’t need a PBX or are satisfied with the PBX features of their provider, many don’t support IAX (even some that are Asterisk based).
Your observed symptoms seem strange for blocking. The signaling was apparently normal – did they tweak the SDP so RTP went to the wrong address or port? It certainly would be easier to just block the SIP ports.
Since it’s easy to capture a SIP trace with both FreePBX and CSipSimple, it should be easy to see what is going wrong.