Belize (BTL) Blocking Vonage & Others?

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Mar 22, 2006 Posts: 26

Hello All,

I did some searching around and I could not find any previous posts regarding the blocking/limiting of VoIP traffic by BTL (Belize Telecommunications). After reading about the success others had with lobbying Qatar's ISP/Telco, I thought I might give this a try.

BTL implements a series of NATs/filters for all broadband (DSL) customers. Most customers DO NOT have a static IP or even an IP that is routable to the internet (actually not RFP 1918s, but IPs they have "borrowed"). My neighbors all share a single public IP and NAT takes care of the rest.

I have been using Vonage in Belize for over 6mo with relatively little issue. I recently applied for and received a public/static IP. This change had nothing to do with VoIP but was to get around "the filters" because I was getting truly poor Bittorent performance.

Now I have a public IP on both WAN/LAN interface of my DSL router plus a public on the outside interface of my openbsd firewall (3.9 running pf). My PAP2 resides behind the firewall and receives DNS/DHCP from it.

I continued to use Vonage just fine for another two weeks. This weekend, I plugged in a friend's iconnect PAP2. Both services worked fine for a couple of days. All of the sudden calls started dropping, on both services, after a minute or so. Now NO VoIP calls will go out whatsoever. Fast busy on both Vonage and Iconnect, plus I am only getting inbound media stream with Skype (I can hear, but the other end cannot hear me).

Consequently, about 1 in 10 Vonage calls are completed and I can actually stay on a call for 30+ minutes with decent quality. I am not completely sure that iconnect "blew my cover", but it certainly seems that way.

I sincerely hope this is NOT my ISP. Others in Belize are having similar, albeit intermittent problems. Thusly, the evidence points to them. There are also many threads on various Belize forums regarding this issue.

Here are my questions:

1) Can Vonage change my SIP/RTP ports? Can they be random?

2) Has a viable solution using GRE/IPSEC tunnels been tested?

3) Can others in Belize and concerned netizens contribute to this thread so that we can generate enough momentum to hopefully change BTL's mind. In the case of Qatar, your fine forum members were quite clever in linking the "censorship" to political and economic loss.

Belize's economy is crucially dependent on tourism (probably 70% of the country's revenue). Bad international press would put a lot of pressure on the tourism board here...

Thanks for all replies in advance.

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Mar 22, 2006 Posts: 26

1. Belize, Central America
2. BTL, Belize Telecommunications
3. 512k down, 256k up (actual speed test ~460k down, ~205k up)
4. Zoom ADSL X5
5. PAP2
6. PAP2->Linksys L2 Switch->OpenBSD-FW-3.9-pf->Modem->Internet
7. Fast Busy on 9 out of 10 calls
8. Your computer couldn't call our location on the standard SIP port (5060), but did successfully communicate over a commonly available port (6000). This suggests that an application or firewall is blocking our SIP access.

So obviously I am being BLOCKED.

Posts: 6 · Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:53 am Post subject:

There are big differencee between Qatar and Belize.

1 There are more expats in Qatar then people in Belize

2 BTL is a private, unregulated monopoly.

3 When you signed up for their DSL you signed an agreement not to transmit voice or video over it.

The only way the GOB will get involved is if tourist stop coming to Belize because they can't use their VoIP. Personally, I don't see that happening.

BTL does not, has never and probably never will care what its customers want. If you must have VoIP in Belize, find another bandwidth provider. I use a satellite connection, its not great VoIP, but it is better then no VoIP.

J

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 23, 2006 Posts: 3

I just called BTL Internet department asking if I get a DSL line could I use it for VoIP. I was informed that BTL does not care what I use the connection for and I could go ahead get DSL and install any kind of VoiP services I want including Vonage.

I do not belive a word they say as I am having the same issues as posted above. I can make 1 call every coulpe of hours the rest of the time I get a busy signal, or the line sarts to get garbled.

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Mar 22, 2006 Posts: 26

I spent the entire morning on with Vonage Level 3 Support (the highest). The technician was excellent and spent about 2.5hrs with me.

Here is what we did:

- Changed the PAP2 port to 10XXX (I don't want my ISP reading this getting wise)
- Changed the proxy port (SIP server @ Vonage) to the same 10XXX port (this took about 2hrs of convincing)
- Ran debug/syslog to get detailed reports.

He was chatting with one of the senior engineers there here is what I could gather:

Proxy was receiving invite packets from PAP2
Proxy sent an authentication packet to the PAP2
PAP2 never responded with it's key

Forgive me if I have some of this wrong.

Thusly, at this time, I still have the same problem Sad

Mike suggested that I use a one-line phone to test this suspecting this had something to do with my 2-line phone. He also suggested the PAP2 could be bad. I really don't think either is the case, but just wanted to get the info out there in case others have had similar problems.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 3:14 pm Post subject:

What happens if you don't use the firewall at all?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 23, 2006 Posts: 3

It seems that everyone in Belize using BTL DSL is having the same issue with getting a busy signal and on and off service when using Vonage.

Since BTL is saying that we can use our DSL for VoIP I was woundring if we could prove that they are degrading our service....

I do not think any of these issues are due to hardware or settings as everyone is having the same kind of issues and the service does work well periodically.

Please let us know if others are having similar problems....

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Mar 22, 2006 Posts: 26

Tried the ATA outside of my firewall. Doesn't work.

Interestingly, I tried to make an international call (to a Belize # actually) and I got a busy. Difference was it takes 3-4 seconds for the busy signal whereas USA #s are instant. For USA #s, the moment I am done keying the last digit in a #, I get a busy signal.

Posts: 6 · Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:55 pm Post subject:

Vonage over BTL's network not working or working badly.
Vonage over Direcway, about a good as expected.

2 other VoIP services over BTL are working fine. BTL tech swears they are not blocking VoIP. Claims if they were blocking, it would not work sporadically, rather it would not work at all. Perhaps this is a Vonage problem.

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Mar 22, 2006 Posts: 26

Here are tcpdumps from the ATA to the Vonage proxy. I'm not sure if this is going to spell out my issues, but I suppose more information is better. This is the traffic pattern going from steady to making a call and back to steady:

I noticed which proxy was being used currently and used this command:

sudo tcpdump -i {ext_interface} host 69.59.252.35

First, this is the "heartbeat" traffic that exists all the time at steady state (no calls)

XXXs being used to attempt to try and mask my IP/ports.

16:16:19.480536 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 719 [tos 0x68]
16:16:19.647101 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 389 (DF)
16:16:37.650337 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 719 [tos 0x68]
16:16:37.800363 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 389 (DF)
16:16:55.810138 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 719 [tos 0x68]
16:16:55.950443 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 389 (DF)
16:17:13.960180 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 719 [tos 0x68]
16:17:14.200362 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 389 (DF)

These next ones occur when I pick up the phone, dial a #, get a fast busy and hang up:

16:17:20.911179 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 889 [tos 0x68]
16:17:20.990460 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 351
16:17:21.011253 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 439 [tos 0x68]
16:17:21.080368 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 458 (DF)
16:17:21.080817 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 312 (DF)
16:17:21.091821 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 439 [tos 0x68]
16:17:21.101900 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 439 [tos 0x68]

And back to normal:

16:17:32.200583 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX > 69.59.252.35.10XXX: udp 719 [tos 0x68]
16:17:32.350971 69.59.252.35.10XXX > 192.168.2XX.XX.10XXX: udp 389 (DF)