Using router as CUBE without CUBE application enabled

[Jesse3620]

Hi Everyone, 

We have two 2921 routers that we thought we were using as CUBEs for SIP trunk connectivity to our respective ITSPs. These have been in production with inbound and outbound SIP calls working (mostly) seamlessly. Today, when reviewing the configs, I ran 'show cube status' and realized the CUBE application is not enabled on either one. I believe we're missing the license command. 

My questions:

How is this operating as a SBC and facilitating SIP calls without the CUBE application actually enabled?

Could this cause any issues without it being enabled? 

Thanks! 

[Elliot Dierksen]

Enabling CUBE is adding the "mode border-element" in the "voice service voip" section. Turning on CUBE gives you some more features, but it sound like enabling SIP dial peers to talk to one another with the "voice service voip" command of "allow-connections sip to sip" is what you did. If it meets your needs, why fret about it? That was the only option way way way back.

[Jesse3620]

The current configuration meets our needs to an extent. However, I think we could also benefit from having CUBE turned on. Thanks for your input! 

[Nithin Eluvathingal · Accepted solution]

As @Elliot Dierksen  mentioned you need "mode border-element license" under "voice service voip"  to enable the cube. 

Using SIP dial-peer you can send and receive calls through your ISP sip trunk. But when Using Cube you get the below extra features too..

The CUBE provides a network-to-network interface point for:

• Signaling interworking—H.323 and SIP.
• Media interworking—dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF), fax, modem, and codec transcoding.
• Address and port translations—privacy and topology hiding.
• Billing and call detail record (CDR) normalization.
• Quality-of-service (QoS) and bandwidth management—QoS marking using differentiated services code point (DSCP) or type of service (ToS), bandwidth enforcement using Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), and codec filtering.

GO through the below Guide.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/voice/cube_fund/configuration/15-mt/cube-fund-15-mt-book/voi-cube-overview.html