UKVoIPTalk.com

My daughter has just started her course at a UK university and has a good
internet network connection in her study bedroom on the campus (alongside
her 0870 number telephone!).

However, although MSN Messenger (sorry, Windows Live Messenger) works ok in
basic text mode, we are having some difficulty getting the talk/video
connection to work between home and campus (although we have tried it before
in other settings and it worked fine).

A friend tells me that he thinks the universities do something to their
networks to prevent students downloading huge video files and this also
affects VOIP usage.

Can anyone please confirm if this is the case and, if so, if there is anyway
to get round the VOIP issue?

Thanks,

V

University networks are often tightly controlled... you need to find
out if they are blocking ports which may prevent your voip from
working correctly...

Matt
---
External Post from [url]http://ukvoiptalk.com[/url]

Victor Delta wrote:[color=blue]
> A friend tells me that he thinks the universities do something to their
> networks to prevent students downloading huge video files and this also
> affects VOIP usage.
>
> Can anyone please confirm if this is the case and, if so, if there is anyway
> to get round the VOIP issue?[/color]

Yes, universities may well limit use of p2p on their network and also VoIP.

Best check the terms of use for the internet connection to see what it
does/does not allow.

Maybe try Skype to see if it can get a connection rather than an
SIP-based system.

"Victor Delta" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:45226d9f@news.greennet.net...[color=blue]
> My daughter has just started her course at a UK university and has a good
> internet network connection in her study bedroom on the campus (alongside
> her 0870 number telephone!).
>
> However, although MSN Messenger (sorry, Windows Live Messenger) works ok
> in basic text mode, we are having some difficulty getting the talk/video
> connection to work between home and campus (although we have tried it
> before in other settings and it worked fine).
>
> A friend tells me that he thinks the universities do something to their
> networks to prevent students downloading huge video files and this also
> affects VOIP usage.
>
> Can anyone please confirm if this is the case and, if so, if there is
> anyway to get round the VOIP issue?
>
> Thanks,
>
> V[/color]

The problem with most VOIP services is that they are p2p and as soon as a
major bandwidth provider comes online will route through it as a 'hub'. A
university network is such a hub. It means the university's servers become
overloaded with p2p and stops or slows down everything else. Skype for
example is a real bandwidth hog. So, universities will either strangle the
bandwidth in student residences or politely tell staff to not use it.

There are plenty of services that universities are happy for you to use as
these don't work the same way as skype-type p2p. I am aware of a few, but
your daughters university will have a list somewhere on their computing help
website that they will allow. Trawl the computer services website, or get
your daughter to ask.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from [url]http://www.teranews.com[/url]

[email]admin@ukvoiptalk-dot-com.no-spam.inva[/email]lid (mattpark) wrote in
news:1159808411.391348@ntop.griffin.com:
[color=blue]
> University networks are often tightly controlled... you need to find
> out if they are blocking ports which may prevent your voip from
> working correctly...
>
> Matt
> ---
> External Post from [url]http://ukvoiptalk.com[/url][/color]

My daughter has working IAX and a link to my Asterisk server (and free
external calls via VoipCheap from there).

"F9" <Me@freeinternet.com> wrote in message
news:45215dd8$0$19617$88260bb3@free.teranews.com...[color=blue]
> The problem with most VOIP services is that they are p2p and as soon as a
> major bandwidth provider comes online will route through it as a 'hub'. A
> university network is such a hub. It means the university's servers become
> overloaded with p2p and stops or slows down everything else. Skype for
> example is a real bandwidth hog. So, universities will either strangle the
> bandwidth in student residences or politely tell staff to not use it.
>
> There are plenty of services that universities are happy for you to use as
> these don't work the same way as skype-type p2p. I am aware of a few, but
> your daughters university will have a list somewhere on their computing
> help website that they will allow. Trawl the computer services website, or
> get your daughter to ask.[/color]

Oh dear! Thanks for all the advice.

V

On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 20:15 +0100, F9 wrote:[color=blue]
> "Victor Delta" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
> I am aware of a few, but
> your daughters university will have a list somewhere on their computing help
> website that they will allow. Trawl the computer services website, or get
> your daughter to ask.
>
>[/color]

I seem to remember otherwise. Trying to find out the university's
firewall policy was impossible! I tried asking the relevant departments
but was told they were not allowed to say (I think they did not know).

I found it necessary to survey their firewall manually but trying to
make connections on each port. From what it seems, they DENY all
connection and only allow those they think are necessary. Ie 80, 443,
21,22.

If you host your own Asterisk server you could easily make port:443 your
IAX port, as the university will NOT block that port. It really isn't
very hard to do this, if you need help - there are many knowledgeable
asterisk'ers here to help.

"Daviey" <daviey.walker@virginSPAM.network> wrote in message
news:1159822456.6561.5.camel@localhost...[color=blue]
> On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 20:15 +0100, F9 wrote:[color=green]
>> "Victor Delta" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
>> I am aware of a few, but
>> your daughters university will have a list somewhere on their computing
>> help
>> website that they will allow. Trawl the computer services website, or get
>> your daughter to ask.
>>
>>[/color]
>
> I seem to remember otherwise. Trying to find out the university's
> firewall policy was impossible! I tried asking the relevant departments
> but was told they were not allowed to say (I think they did not know).
>
> I found it necessary to survey their firewall manually but trying to
> make connections on each port. From what it seems, they DENY all
> connection and only allow those they think are necessary. Ie 80, 443,
> 21,22.
>
> If you host your own Asterisk server you could easily make port:443 your
> IAX port, as the university will NOT block that port. It really isn't
> very hard to do this, if you need help - there are many knowledgeable
> asterisk'ers here to help.[/color]

Most universities now monitor all bandwidth usage and anything unusual or
significant - and VOIP is - will get noticed. It's not that they ban VOIP,
just those that use the university network as a super node.

For example, these are usually allowed as they don't hog bandwidth:

aql, FWD, Gizmo, Glootix, Google Talk, gossiptel, nplusone, SIP Discount,
Sipgate, Speak2world.com, StudentCalls, VoIP.co.uk, Voip Buster, VoIP Cheap,
Voipfone, VoIPtalk, VoIP USER, Vonage, Wengo

Many of the services listed above also allow credit to be purchased for
Internet uses to call PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines at
competitive rates, some even allow free calls to landlines in some
countries.

your daughter may be better off with one of these.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from [url]http://www.teranews.com[/url]

"Daviey" <daviey.walker@virginSPAM.network> wrote in message
news:1159822456.6561.5.camel@localhost...[color=blue]
> On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 20:15 +0100, F9 wrote:[color=green]
>> "Victor Delta" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
>> I am aware of a few, but
>> your daughters university will have a list somewhere on their computing
>> help
>> website that they will allow. Trawl the computer services website, or get
>> your daughter to ask.
>>
>>[/color]
>
> I seem to remember otherwise. Trying to find out the university's
> firewall policy was impossible! I tried asking the relevant departments
> but was told they were not allowed to say (I think they did not know).
>
> I found it necessary to survey their firewall manually but trying to
> make connections on each port. From what it seems, they DENY all
> connection and only allow those they think are necessary. Ie 80, 443,
> 21,22.
>
> If you host your own Asterisk server you could easily make port:443 your
> IAX port, as the university will NOT block that port. It really isn't
> very hard to do this, if you need help - there are many knowledgeable
> asterisk'ers here to help.[/color]

Most universities now monitor all bandwidth usage and anything unusual or
significant - and VOIP is - will get noticed. It's not that they ban VOIP,
just those that use the university network as a super node.

Ports 80, 443 are usually forced through a proxy and can be easily
monitored.

For example, these are usually allowed as they don't hog bandwidth:

aql, FWD, Gizmo, Glootix, Google Talk, gossiptel, nplusone, SIP Discount,
Sipgate, Speak2world.com, StudentCalls, VoIP.co.uk, Voip Buster, VoIP Cheap,
Voipfone, VoIPtalk, VoIP USER, Vonage, Wengo

Many of the services listed above also allow credit to be purchased for
Internet uses to call PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines at
competitive rates, some even allow free calls to landlines in some
countries.

Your daughter may be better off with one of these.




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from [url]http://www.teranews.com[/url]