How to Add a New Carrier Trunk in VICIdial

Adding a carrier trunk in VICIdial is a short form with a few fields that have to be exactly right. Get them right and your dialer can place and receive calls within a minute. Get one wrong and you stare at a silent campaign wondering why nothing connects. This post is the practical walkthrough.

If you are unsure what a trunk even is, read what a carrier trunk is first. This works for any SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) or IAX2 provider. It does not work for physical T1, E1, or analog lines, which need extra hardware and manual config.

Find the Carriers screen

In the VICIdial admin, open the ADMIN section, click CARRIERS, then click ADD NEW CARRIER. That form is where a Carrier becomes a configured Trunk on your server. Keep your provider's setup sheet next to you; you will paste several values straight from it.

Fill the fields

Here is a working example. Replace the host, credentials, and IP with your own values:

1. Carrier ID — a short label, 2 to 15 characters, no spaces. Example: NEWSIP.
2. Carrier Name — a human-readable description, like "My SIP carrier".
3. Registration String — for example: register => newsip:test@10.10.10.15:5060
4. Account Entry — the peer block: type=friend, the carrier host, your username and secret, allowed codecs, and a context.
5. Protocol — SIP, PJSIP, or IAX, matching your provider.
6. Dialplan Entry — the pattern that matches outbound numbers and dials them out this trunk.
7. Server IP — your dialer server's IP. Use 0.0.0.0 to apply the record to all active servers.

The Account Entry is the heart of the record — it builds the SIP peer relationship with the carrier. The Registration String tells the carrier where you live; some providers skip it and use IP authentication instead, identifying you by your server's IP address rather than a login. The Dialplan decides which numbers leave through this trunk. Each of these gets a dedicated post, including the Account Entry block explained.

Set it Active and confirm it registered

Click submit, then wait about a minute for VICIdial to regenerate its config files. The single most common mistake is forgetting the last step: set Active=Y. If Active is N, the entry is excluded from the generated config and the trunk does nothing.

To verify, log into the Asterisk CLI and run "sip show peers" (or "iax2 show peers"). You want to see your carrier listed and, if you registered, marked as registered. The flow below shows the order of operations.

flowchart TD
  A[Add New Carrier form] --> B[Fill the fields]
  B --> C[Submit record]
  C --> D{Active = Y?}
  D -->|No| E[Trunk excluded from config]
  D -->|Yes| F[Config regenerated]
  F --> G[sip show peers]
  G --> H{Registered?}
  H -->|Yes| I[Place test call]
  H -->|No| J[Check string and credentials]

If the peer never registers, the usual suspects are a typo in the host, a wrong secret, or a firewall blocking the SIP port. We cover that path in the carrier not registering troubleshooter. Choosing the right provider up front avoids a lot of pain; see choosing a SIP carrier.

Wrap up

Adding a trunk is five minutes of careful copy-paste, one Active toggle, and one CLI check. The full context lives in the carrier integration guide. If you do not have a dialer to add it to yet, VICIfast hands you a secured VICIdial server in under 40 seconds. Check pricing and start dialing today.