Qatar: SIP providers and connecting a number to your PBX

This page continues the general guide to connecting a provider's number to your PBX: that page covers everything that is the same in any country — the two trunk modes, what to ask the carrier, what to enter in the provider form, how to test the connection and what the network must allow. Here — only what is specific to Qatar.

The data was collected on 9–10 September 2026 from carrier websites, tariff notifications and documents of the regulator (CRA); links are in the "Sources" section.

In short#

• Qatar has exactly two licensed public telecom operators — Ooredoo and Vodafone Qatar. That is how the CRA register of licensees lists them. There are no local VoIP providers or number aggregators in the country: the third licensee, QNBN, builds fibre and does not sell telecom services.
• A dedicated PBX is currently not created for locations in Qatar. The CRA VoIP policy is explicit: any person or business in the country may use VoIP for their own needs, but nobody may sell voice services without a licence. This guide will be useful once a launch becomes possible — and already helps you pick a carrier and a number.
• Even then, a Qatari carrier's trunk cannot reach a cloud PBX. Both Ooredoo and Vodafone deliver SIP not over the internet but over their own access to your premises: fibre or Ethernet into the building, their CPE router or session border controller (ESBC) on site, and private IP addresses in the provisioning sheet. Neither publishes a public SIP host a cloud PBX could register to.
• The scheme that actually works in Qatar is an on-site gateway: a device terminates the carrier's trunk or PRI over the carrier's own cable and registers upstream to your PBX. That is how venues run when the switch is not in the building.
• Vodafone is the cheaper entry: QAR 850 installation, QAR 120 per channel per month, 100 numbers included, minimum term three months. Ooredoo starts at 10 channels: QAR 2,000 connection plus QAR 1,050/month (Standard) or QAR 1,470/month (Premium).
• The local number pitfall. A Qatari number is 8 digits, while the PBX matches a line by the last seven. The digit that gets cut off is exactly the one that tells a landline from a mobile: 4 412 3456 and 5 412 3456 share the same tail and collapse into one line.
• No international provider sells a Doha landline number — only toll-free +974 800 and national ones. Zadarma has no Qatari numbers at all.

Numbers in Qatar#

• Country code +974; there is no national trunk prefix (no leading zero) — the number is dialled as is, all 8 digits. Internationally it is +974 XXXX XXXX, and that is exactly how the number is entered on the "Lines" tab.
• There are no area codes inside the country: Qatar is a single zone, and a leading 4 means the fixed network, not a city. A "Doha landline number" is any 4XXXXXXX.
• Number ranges as notified by the CRA to the ITU (27 March 2023):

• A freephone number is shorter than an ordinary one: 800 plus 4 digits — seven characters in total. Some international resellers write Qatari toll-free numbers with nine characters (+974 800 XXXXXX), which contradicts the numbering plan; confirm the exact length with the seller.
• International dialling out uses the 00 prefix. On outbound calls the line number is presented in the form the carrier accepts: with Vodafone the known provisioning sheet uses E.164 with a plus (+974XXXXXXXX); Ooredoo does not publish its format.

Who provides a number with a SIP trunk#

Vodafone Qatar — Corporate Voice: SIP Trunking#

The second and last licensee in the country, and the only Qatari carrier whose trunk parameters have ever surfaced publicly. The service is positioned directly at third-party switches: "If you have an IP-enabled PBX, it helps you maximize your current investment".

Pricing per the EPP 1.3 tariff notification (approved by the CRA on 18 November 2018): QAR 850 installation, QAR 120 per channel per month below 30 channels and QAR 100 at 30 and above, 100 numbers included, the next 100 for QAR 500, minimum term three months. There is an ISDN interface option on top of the trunk for legacy switches (30 channels — QAR 100, 60 — QAR 200). The document dates from 2018 — take current prices from the carrier's tariff notifications section.

Who configures what. Per the tariff, Vodafone supplies, installs and configures the CPE router itself, provisions the link and runs the tests; the customer is responsible only for connecting their own switch to that CPE and for its configuration. The service is available only where the carrier has fixed coverage: the tariff explicitly states it cannot currently be provided in The Pearl development — which is precisely where restaurants and hotels are.

What to enter in the admin panel (Telephony → "Trunks and connections" → "Add provider"):

The carrier has no public page with parameters: the values above are the shape of the sheet, taken from an account a customer published in the Asterisk community around 2016. Before connecting, take them from your own sheet rather than from here.

What to arrange with the carrier: order the number of channels and the number range → receive the provisioning sheet (host, username, password, domain) → agree in which form the number arrives on inbound calls (E.164 or national) — that determines whether routing can tell your numbers apart → make sure G.711 a-law is enabled on the trunk.

Pitfalls ⚠️

• The handoff is private. The trunk host is an address inside Vodafone's network, and a separate WAN subnet runs to the premises on the second network interface of the PBX server. A cloud virtual machine has no such interface — the scheme requires a switch or a gateway on site.
• The From domain. In the known sheet the carrier expects the domain vodafone.qa, while our PBX puts the trunk host into From — that is, a private address. Agree this with the carrier before enabling outbound calls.
• A username with a plus. +974XXXXXXXX in the "Username" field is unusual for most providers; check the registration right after saving the trunk.
• A single codec. The known sheet allows alaw only. G.722 may not be negotiated — ask for it explicitly if you want wideband audio.

Source: Vodafone — SIP Trunking Service · Corporate Voice: SIP Trunking tariff notification (PDF) — 09.09.2026.

Ooredoo — SIP-T Business Telephony#

The incumbent (formerly Qatar Telecom) and the first CRA licensee. Its SIP-T product replaces ISDN PRI: "carry all voice and data services over a single fibre", with channels scaled "instantly".

How to get it. You need a business account: Company Registration (CR), Establishment ID and the QID or passport of the authorised signatory. Requests go through My Ooredoo, Business Care 800 8000 or a showroom with a Business Desk; complex services are handled by a Customer Delivery Manager. Under tariff B01-01 the service comes as Standard (one path to the premises) or Premium (two resilient paths); the minimum package is 10 channels: QAR 2,000 connection, QAR 1,050/month (Standard) or QAR 1,470/month (Premium), with the scale running up to 300 channels.

What to enter in the admin panel

The carrier publishes no SIP parameters at all — no host, no port, no codecs. Everything known comes from engineers who connected SIP-T in Doha: the carrier hands over a sheet of private addresses (/30 WAN subnets to the voice gateway and to management, a /27 CPE management network) and an Ethernet cable that plugs into the second network interface of the PBX server; traffic reaches their ESBC over static routes.

What to arrange with the carrier: order SIP-T with the required number of channels → receive the sheet with addresses → agree which address the carrier sends inbound calls from (the PBX identifies trunks by it) → hand over the list of numbers and ask for them to be routed to the trunk.

Pitfalls ⚠️

• A minimum of 10 channels. For a single venue that is a multiple overpayment: "10 channels plus QAR 1,050 a month" is sized for an office, not for a café with one till.
• In the tariff, SIP-T is presented as lines "for use with the Hosted IP Centrex service above" — formally as access to the carrier's own hosted switch. By default the salesperson will offer you their hosting: say plainly, in writing and before signing, that you are bringing your own PBX.
• The trunk lives in the carrier's network, not on the internet. As with Vodafone, a cloud switch cannot connect to it — a device on the premises is required.

Source: Ooredoo — SIP-T Business Telephony · Tariff B01-01 "Business Landline" (PDF) — 09.09.2026.

An on-site gateway instead of a cloud trunk#

This is the scheme that actually works in Qatar and the one any local integrator will propose. The carrier's line — SIP-T over its own cable or a classic ISDN PRI/BRI — arrives at a gateway or a small PBX inside the venue, and that device registers upstream to your PBX like an ordinary extension. The carrier's private addressing stays inside the building and does not concern the cloud.

Ooredoo sells such lines as a separate product: PRI "for larger businesses who need multiple voice services for their PBX" and BRI with two lines for a small office, both supporting direct inward dialling; per the tariff, from QAR 120 per channel per month when ordering 10 channels or more.

What to enter in the admin panel

What to arrange with the carrier: nothing beyond ordering SIP-T or PRI/BRI and the list of numbers — the carrier delivers the line to the premises, the rest is the integrator's job.

⚠️ The price of this scheme is the hardware and its maintenance, plus a dependency on the venue's internet: if the local link goes down, your PBX will not see the calls, because they physically arrive there.

Carrier-hosted PBX products#

Both licensees sell their own cloud telephony, and it is not a source of a number for your switch but a replacement for it:

• Ooredoo — Hosted IP Centrex (marked in the tariff as closed to new sales), Business Collaboration Service on a Cisco platform in the carrier's Qatari data centres, and the consumer-grade Ooredoo Office with a mobile app attached to a landline number.
• Vodafone Qatar — Business Talk and Vodafone Calling: a cloud PBX on Microsoft Teams with queues, groups and an auto attendant, "end-to-end managed voice service from Vodafone with no complex infrastructure components".

None of these products offers a trunk to a third-party switch. If the venue is already on such a platform, the only route to your PBX is to order a separate service alongside it: "Corporate Voice: SIP Trunking" from Vodafone, or SIP-T or PRI from Ooredoo.

Local integrators in Doha#

Companies such as VDS, HTS Qatar and TechSpine install 3CX, Yeastar and Grandstream and provision the carrier's trunk. They are the ones migrating customers from PRI to SIP: by their account, Qatari carriers are moving away from PRI, the gateways come out, and the trunk is defined as a plain SIP connection pointing at the carrier's device.

The integrators have no trunk of their own — they resell Ooredoo or Vodafone and charge for the work. For us this is the only practical channel: order the trunk, receive the sheet of private addresses, configure the routes and install the gateway — hands-on work in Doha.

⚠️ By default an integrator will offer their own switch on the premises. Insist explicitly on one of two things: either a trunk that reaches outside, or a gateway that registers to your PBX.

International providers with Qatari numbers#

Cards for the popular international providers are already in the catalogue when you add a provider — the server address and mode are filled in automatically. What is specific to Qatar:

• Telnyx — Qatar is in its published coverage: inbound yes, outbound domestic only, international outbound no, porting no, emergency calling not available. Number types are national and toll-free; geographic 4XXXXXXX numbers are not offered.
• Twilio — its regulatory guidelines for Qatar list toll-free +974 800 only. A signed LOA is required, and the address — personal or company — "may be anywhere in the world": no address documents are needed, but an identity or registration document is.
• DIDWW, CommPeak, AVOXI — all three have a "SIP trunking in Qatar" country page, but that is marketing boilerplate: check for live Qatari numbers in the portal before paying.
• Global Call Forwarding / United World Telecom — advertises toll-free and mobile +974 from $78.95 a month, activation in one business day for toll-free and 15–20 days for mobile, with mandatory KYC. This is forwarding, not a trunk: outbound calls from such a number either do not work or are sold separately, and calls arrive from the reseller's address — that address is what you enter as the provider in the admin panel.
• Zadarma — no Qatari numbers.
• A caveat for the whole section. Only a CRA licensee may provide telecom services inside Qatar, and international providers hold no licence. A +974 bought abroad has no emergency calling, presents someone else's caller ID on outbound calls, and will never be a Doha landline number.

Number porting#

• Fixed number portability (FNP) has been mandatory since 30 July 2017 by CRA decision; mobile porting has worked for much longer, and the regulator maintains the ported-number database.
• The application is filed with the gaining carrier: a retail store for small businesses, an account manager for corporate customers, with a form and a set of documents. The CRA's public documents do not state the duration of the procedure — ask when you file.
• A Qatari number cannot be taken out of the country. There are two licensees, both Qatari, and international porting does not exist. If a venue already sits on an Ooredoo number, the only way to change telephony is to leave the number where it is and replace the switch.
• The number is held by the company under its CR. When the venue changes hands, the transfer goes through the carrier as a separate application: Vodafone charges QAR 500 for it under its tariff.
• ⚠️ Changing carrier means changing the physical delivery too. Both a SIP trunk and a PRI arrive over the donor's cable: porting the number drags the link along with it and most likely a replacement of the on-site equipment. Plan for the window when the number has already been ported and the new carrier's link is not yet installed.

Rules and paperwork#

If it does not work#

General symptoms and their diagnosis are in the overview table. What is specific to Qatar:

1. The carrier's sheet shows an address like 192.168.x.x, 172.19.x.x or 10.x.x.x. That is not a carrier mistake: both licensees use a private handoff. There is neither a route nor name resolution to it from the cloud — you need an on-site gateway.
2. The carrier asks you to plug a cable into the second network interface of the PBX server. A cloud virtual machine has no such interface. This is the architecture of the service, not a configuration detail: arguing with the account manager will not help.
3. The call connects but there is silence (Vodafone). The known sheet allows a single codec, alaw. Ask the carrier to keep G.711 a-law/u-law on the trunk: our PBX does not understand G.729.
4. Registration stays red with Vodafone. The username here is the line number in E.164 with a leading plus, not the usual alphanumeric string. While you are at it, check the From domain with the carrier: the PBX takes it from the trunk host, while the carrier expects vodafone.qa.
5. Two numbers ended up on one line. A Qatari number has eight digits while the last seven are matched — a landline 4XXXXXXX and a mobile 5XXXXXXX with the same tail are indistinguishable. Put such numbers on separate trunks.
6. You are being sold a hosted PBX instead of a trunk. Both in Ooredoo's tariff and in a sales conversation, SIP-T easily turns into Hosted IP Centrex and Corporate Voice into Business Talk. State it in writing in your request: "a SIP trunk to our own IP PBX".

Frequently asked questions#

Can I connect a Qatari number to our PBX today?#

No. A dedicated PBX is not created for locations in Qatar: selling voice services without a CRA licence is prohibited there, and exactly two companies are licensed. You can still choose a carrier and a number now — the Vodafone parameters on this page are exactly what goes into the provider form once a launch becomes possible.

Which carrier should I start with once a launch becomes possible?#

Vodafone Qatar: it has the cheaper entry (QAR 850 installation and QAR 120 per channel, against Ooredoo's mandatory 10 channels), and its service is described directly for a third-party IP PBX. Ooredoo is the second candidate: it publishes no parameters at all, and its minimum package is excessive for a single venue.

Does the venue need a telephony licence?#

No. The CRA policy separates "using VoIP for your own needs", which everyone may do, from "selling voice services", which only licensees may do. Your own PBX with a number bought from Ooredoo or Vodafone falls into the first category.

Can I buy a Doha landline number from an international provider?#

No. International providers offer only toll-free +974 800, national or mobile numbers for Qatar; geographic 4XXXXXXX numbers are not in their catalogues. And even such a number stays outside the licensed channel: emergency calling does not work from it.

The carrier will not give me a trunk that reaches outside — what now?#

Install an on-site gateway: the carrier's line arrives at a device in the building, and that device registers upstream to your PBX as an ordinary extension. It is the only scheme in Qatar that works without a switch inside the venue itself.

May I record calls with guests?#

Yes, provided you give notice: recordings fall under Qatar's 2016 personal data protection law. Put a recording announcement into the greeting, exactly as is done in Europe.

Sources#

Links verified on 09.09.2026.

• CRA — Qatar Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Policy (PDF) — who may use VoIP and who may not sell it.
• CRA — Licensees — the register of telecom licensees.
• ITU-T — Qatar numbering plan notification of 27.03.2023 (PDF) — number ranges.
• CRA — Qatar National Numbering Plan, Version 7 (PDF) — presentation formats and emergency numbers.
• CRA — Fixed Number Portability and the Amended Order — number porting.
• Law No. (13) of 2016 on Protecting Personal Data Privacy (PDF) — call recording and personal data.
• Vodafone — SIP Trunking Service (SIP-T) — service description.
• Vodafone — Corporate Voice: SIP Trunking tariff notification (PDF) — prices, contract term, CPE and coverage.
• Vodafone — Business Talk — the carrier's cloud PBX.
• Ooredoo — SIP-T Business Telephony — service description.
• Ooredoo — Tariff B01-01 "Business Landline" (PDF) — SIP-T, PRI, Hosted IP Centrex, prices.
• Ooredoo — ISDN, PRI and BRI — lines for an on-site gateway.
• Ooredoo Business — General FAQ — documents for a business account.
• Telnyx — Global coverage — what is available for Qatar.
• Twilio — Regulatory Guidelines, Qatar — toll-free only and document requirements.
• DIDWW — SIP Trunking in Qatar and CommPeak — SIP Trunking Qatar — country offers from aggregators.
• Global Call Forwarding — Qatar virtual phone numbers — prices, activation times, KYC.

Related pages#

• Connecting a provider's number to your PBX — trunk modes, the provider form, network, connection test.
• Setting up SIP phones — how to connect desk phones and DECT to your PBX.