SIP Trunking with Plivo

Connect a Plivo Zentrunk (Plivo's SIP trunking product) to DronaHQ so your voice agent can place outbound calls through it. Use this guide when you already have a SIP trunk on Plivo and want your agent to share it with the rest of your telephony stack.

Outbound calls flowing through a Plivo Zentrunk

When to Use This

Use this flow when:

• You already operate a Plivo Zentrunk (outbound SIP trunk)
• You want your voice agent to share an existing trunk with other systems
• You want to keep your existing Plivo rates / contract for these calls

If you only want a quick Plivo number with no trunk involvement, use the Plivo Phone Number flow instead.

Prerequisites

• An active Plivo account at cx.plivo.com
• At least one phone number purchased in Plivo
• Access to the Plivo Console (admin or operator role)

Configure the Plivo Side

Step 1: Create an outbound trunk in Plivo

1. Sign in to the Plivo Console.
2. Go to SIP Trunking → Outbound Trunks.
3. Click Create Trunk and give it a descriptive name (for example, dronahq-voice-trunk).
4. Under Trunk Authentication → Credential, click Create new credential.
5. Enter a credential name, a username, and a strong password. Save the credential.
6. Back on the trunk form, set Authentication to the credential you just created.
7. Enable Secure Trunking if you want TLS-encrypted signalling (recommended for production).
8. Click Create Trunk.
9. Copy the Termination SIP Domain — this is the SIP Gateway Host you'll paste into DronaHQ.

Creating an outbound trunk and credential in the Plivo Console

danger

The username and password you set here are what DronaHQ will use to authenticate outbound calls. Pick a strong password — anyone with these credentials can place calls on your Plivo account.

Step 2: Bind the phone number to the trunk

1. In the Plivo Console, go to Phone Numbers → Purchased Numbers.
2. Click the phone number you want to route through the trunk.
3. Set Application Type to SIP Trunk.
4. Under Trunk, select the outbound trunk you created in Step 1.
5. Click Save changes.

Step 3: Decide on transport

Transport	Port	Recommended for
UDP	5060	Development, lab testing
TLS	5061	Production — required when Secure Trunking is enabled

tip

For production traffic, leave Secure Trunking enabled on the Plivo trunk and use TLS + port 5061 when adding the trunk to DronaHQ.

Configure the DronaHQ Side

Step 4: Add the SIP trunk in DronaHQ

1. Go to DronaHQ → Voice Agent → SIP Trunks.
2. Click Add SIP Trunk.
3. Fill in the form using the values you gathered from Plivo:

Label

• A friendly name for the trunk in DronaHQ.
• Examples: Production Plivo trunk, APAC Outbound Trunk.

SIP Gateway Host

• The Termination SIP Domain copied from the Plivo trunk.
• Required field.

Port

• 5060 for UDP/TCP, or 5061 for TLS (Secure Trunking).
• Automatically updates to 5061 when you pick TLS.

Transport

• UDP, TCP, or TLS.
• Pick TLS if Secure Trunking is enabled on the Plivo trunk.

SIP Auth Username

• The username of the Plivo credential you created in Step 1.
• Required field.

SIP Auth Password

• The password of the Plivo credential.
• Encrypted before it is saved and never displayed again.
• Required field.

Click Add SIP Trunk.

Filling in Plivo trunk details in DronaHQ

Step 5: Add a phone number that uses this trunk

1. Go to DronaHQ → Voice Agent → Phone Numbers.
2. Click Add Phone Number.
3. Select SIP Trunking from the provider list.
4. Enter the phone number in E.164 format (e.g., +14155551234) — this must already be bound to the Plivo trunk (Step 2).
5. Pick the trunk you added in Step 4 from the SIP Trunk dropdown.
6. Click Add BYO SIP Number.

The number now appears in the Phone Numbers list, routed through your Plivo trunk.

Step 6: Attach the number to a voice agent and place a test call

1. Open the voice agent you want this trunk number to call from.
2. In the right-side panel, expand Call Configuration → Outbound Settings.
3. From the Outbound Phone Number dropdown, select the trunk number you added in Step 5.
4. In the destination field next to it, enter your own mobile number in E.164 format (e.g., +14155551234).
5. Click Call and pick up — you should hear the agent speak.

The call should appear in the Plivo trunk's call logs.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
Plivo returns 401 Unauthorized	Wrong digest username or password	Re-check the credential in Plivo; re-enter the password in DronaHQ
Calls fail immediately with TLS	Secure Trunking off, or wrong port	Enable Secure Trunking in Plivo and set port 5061 in DronaHQ
Phone number rejected on Add Phone Number	The number's Application Type is not set to SIP Trunk, or it points to a different trunk	Open the number in the Plivo Console, set Application Type to SIP Trunk and pick the correct trunk
Calls connect but no audio	Codec mismatch / NAT traversal issue	Confirm your Plivo trunk allows G.711 codecs; check Logs → Zentrunk for SIP traces
Cannot debug from DronaHQ side	Need to see SIP message details	Use Plivo's logs at cx.plivo.com/logs/zentrunk for call-level diagnostics

Best Practices

• Use a separate Plivo trunk per environment (dev, staging, production).
• Rotate the trunk credential if a password is ever exposed — update it in both Plivo and DronaHQ.
• Keep Secure Trunking enabled for production traffic.
• Set call-rate alerts in Plivo to catch unusual traffic spikes early.
• Keep the Plivo trunk's Termination SIP Domain stable — changing it requires updating DronaHQ's SIP Gateway Host.

What's Next

• SIP Trunking with Twilio — same flow for Twilio Elastic SIP
• Plivo Phone Number — non-trunk Plivo import flow
• SIP Trunking — Introduction — back to the SIP overview