No Dialtone in China

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 14, 2006 Posts: 18

Disclaimer: I don't know whether theses sources are reliable.

http://www.voip-news-net.com/2005/09/china_telecom_p.html
http://www.betadot.com/news/2006/146/narus-blocks.html
http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/04/05/1541853.htm

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 03, 2006 Posts: 13

Rick,

I just returned form Shanghai/Changzhou. In September 2005 I first brought my Vonage PAP2 and gear to China. It worked great in hotels throughout China. It also worked in offices. I read that shortly after that, VOIP was going to be blocked by the govt. to protect telecom revenues.

When I returned in April of 2006 Voanage didn't work at all
In Novemeber of 2006 I returned to China again, this time with a Motorola router/phone adapter. I wasn't sure about the blocking, so tried EVERYTHING to get it to work. I got good internet access through the phone adapter/router. I was actually able to receive calls also, but the sound quality was HORRIBLE-practically unusable. Dialing out gave me the fast busy signal that nothing would solve. I also had a Vonage V-phone, which I bought just in case I had a problem. I though that using it through the computer might mask it as being VOIP. It did not work for incoming or outgoing calls.

In light of this and what I have since read, I am sure VOIP is currently blocked by China govt. Maybe only China Telecom?

Let's keep this discussion alive as I very much want to be able to use Vonage in China., as I am sure you do.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 20, 2006 Posts: 7

Well it all really depends if their blocking the ports and most of China republic will be doing so - 5061, 10000-20000 will all be blocked soon becuz they'd prolly want to capitalize on the business. It's not that the ISP's are - it's most likely the Governent is regulating it so that they can make $ from it. It's nothing personal...just bizness.... it's unfortunate but that's out of the scope of the techs in the US. Sorry bud.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 03, 2006 Posts: 13

At least the Vonage techs shold have some indication that their service is blocked in China. It would have saved me a lot of headaches. Many people travel there from here and try to use the service. I really only signed up with Vonage to use it when travelling in China. Now that it is blocked, Vonage may not be worth keeping. Vonage adveretises that its service is great to take with you when you travel. Unfortunately it doesn't work in one of the main overseas destinations.

However, this has to change. Even the Chinese govt can not keep this service under wraps for too much longer.

Let's keep the updates coming

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 14, 2006 Posts: 18

ChinaMike, I think you mentioned that you knew several other people using Vonage in Shanghai. Is their service working now?

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 18, 2006 Posts: 10

Confusing, but I grabbed my neighbors hardware, Linksys RT31P2, that was NOT working at his house and plugged in at mine. IT WORKED!! That was 2 weeks ago.

My Motorola VT1005 was NOT working at my place, but the RT31P2 did.

I brought the VT1005 back to the US, plugged it in and it WORKED FINE.

Heading back tomorrow. Will try my VT1005 at the neighbors, plus plug at laptop into his RT31P2 to see what his issues are.

Another neighbor has had PAP2 since March. Still running fine.

I'm taking back my own PAP2 as back up.

Wondering if the Telecom has been "smelling out" the VOIP MAC address and linking to a specific port. Maybe that's why I can swap locations and things work. Just a THEORY!!!

Know a few others I can poll as well.

Posts: 327 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 327

This sounds like your problem is getting to the Vonage ocnfiguration server. Once the adapter is configured, it is happy. Until it is configured, it has no idea where to link. The service is not blocked - it is just that the device does not know where to link so it doesn't link. This would also explain why other VoIP services (that give you the SIP credentials) work fine.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 14, 2006 Posts: 18

howiewifi: thanks for the post. What do you mean by "link"?

If a device responds to phone port selection on the Vonage website (when phone port 1 is selected on the Vonage site, phone port 2 plays the "incorrect port" message, and vice-versa), does that mean it has linked?

Posts: 327 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 327

Vonage devices get their SIP configuration (port numbers, phone numbers, passwords, ...) from the Vonage configuration servers based on their MAC and some passwords that Vonage associates with the MAC. After the SIP information is retrieved from the Vonage configuration server, a Vonage device is no different from anyone else's "unlocked" device.

That says if you change from Port 1 to Port 2 - the Vonage configuration server would need to "Feed" that information to your adapter. If the feed is blocked or lost, your device stays as it was.

An anternative would be to get an unlocked device locally and use a Vonage soft phone account. In that case, Vonage gives you what you need to administer the unit and it does not need to contact the Vonage configuration servers - you can put all the details in yourself manually. Then the device would use the SIP and RTP ports (which do not seem to be blocked) to access the Vonage service.

More simply - there are two connections that are needed to get a Vonage device to work:

1) Connect to the Vonage configuration server to get SIP details
2) Use the SIP details to register, make, and receive calls

If you can't get past 1, the device has no idea what to do with 2.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 18, 2006 Posts: 10

Device was working fine over here. Then it was intermittent. Finally, NOTHING.

worked back in USA.

now, nothing again