[TriLUG] DirecPC and VoIP (Kinda OT)

[Jon Carnes]

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 11:04, Aaron Caudle wrote:

> So here are my questions:
> Is there something really obvious that I am missing?

Yes. The politics of Monopolies. Unless you are using a vpn of some sort
to mask the VoIP traffic you are probably hosed by the filtering in
Haiti.

I haven't experienced it myself, but a college of mine used to rep for
Net2Phone (internet phones for use around the world).  Well the use of
these phones in places like Haiti and other Third World nations has been
explosive. It lets them talk to the USA for pennies *AND* it lets them
bypass the monolithic government owned phone monopoly that was charging
folks out the WaZoo for calling outside of Haiti (and other respective
locations).

The fat daddies in charge of those phone companies have put filtering in
place to stop "unauthorized" VoIP use. Right now they are working out
deals to sell the service themselves.


> Could DirecPC somehow decide to block VoIP traffic? (i noticed they sale 
> this service now)

I don't think they would block it, after all TWTC doesn't block my VoIP
access to my systems (they just fragment my packets).

> Are 1000ms latency times just too much for VoIP? (when the phone was 
> working you had to get used to several second delay before responding).

Actually this will work - as long as the latency stays consistent and
your phone is liberal in what it accepts as "timely".

If you didn't change the settings on your phones and gateways then it
would continue to work. Since you didn't change those then you must look
else where for the problem.
 - did latency go up?
 - did the phone simply die?
 - has your ISP changed anything (highly suspect).

> Could the direcpc satellite gateway prevent the phone from connecting?
> Does anyone have any experience using VoIP and DirecPC?

Your earlier problem (they could hear but you couldn't) sounds like UDP
was being blocked from leaving Haiti, but not from entering.

Have you talked to the local ISP in Haiti to find out if they are indeed
filtering your internet and blocking the VoIP?

Can you scan (very slowly) the other end of the pipe and see what is
being blocked (and where)?

Jon Carnes