The SIP B2BUA acts as refresher for the Session-Timer mechanism as defined in RFC 4028. If the endpoints indicate support for the UPDATE method during call-setup, then the SIP B2BUA will use an UPDATE message if enabled per peer, domain or subscriber via Provisioning to check if the endpoints are still alive and responsive. Both endpoints can renegotiate the timer within a configurable range. All values can be tuned using the Admin Panel or the APIs using Peer-, Domain- and Subscriber-Preferences.
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Keep in mind that the values being used in the signaling are always half the value being configured. So if you want to send a keep-alive every 300 seconds, you need to provision sst_expires to 600. |
If one of the endpoints doesn’t respond to the keep-alive messages or answers with 481 Call/Transaction Does Not Exist, then the call is torn down on both sides. This mechanism prevents excessive over-billing of calls if one of the endpoints is not reachable anymore or "forgets" about the call. The BYE message sent by the B2BUA triggers a stop-record for accounting and also closes the media ports on the Media Relay to stop the call.
Beside the Session-Timer mechanism to prevent calls from being lost or kept open, there is a maximum call length of 21600 seconds per default defined in the B2BUA. This is a security/anti-fraud mechanism to prevent overly long calls causing excessive costs.