My daughter is studying abroad in France for a semester and the school blocks access to Skype and Google video in her dorm. We can chat via facebook or google chat but no video or audio. If I had a iphone and she had a new touch, would that possibly work? Right now we can Skype from a McD that is about an hour's walk from the dorm. Any other suggestions. Thanks.
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If Skype is blocked at dorm is Facetime a work around?
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If your residence hall's IT department is at all up to date, theyll will certainly make sure you can't do anything like that.
Bandwidth issues. Video chat uses a lot. Couple of things you can try are a proxy, vpn or sometimes even using the site's IP address instead of domain name can trick the firewall.
I would try this.
Also, I'm not sure what you are going to do for a phone situation over there, but you can always purchase an iPhone from the States and jailbreak and unlock it and run My3G to facetime over that. (I got a PAYGO sim card and did this when I was in London all summer. Worked swimmingly)
You might want to check out an application called Fring, but as an above poster mentioned, if the school is any sort of modern, I'm sure that will be blocked as well.
I agree with this, except PPTP may not cut it - it's very commonly blocked by firewalls. Try to find an HTTPS VPN solution and you should be able to make it work.
chances are the answer is no. I am willing to bet that the ports need for face time are also block since Skypped and good video chat us some pretty common ports.
it sounds like they locked down all but a very limited number of ports. Best option would be try to get a VPN set up and route it around it.
it sounds like they locked down all but a very limited number of ports. Best option would be try to get a VPN set up and route it around it.
Thanks for the responses so far. I will pass everything along to her. I'm sure all the kids in her dorm are trying to figure out if this can be done.
She has a 2 year old macbook, an unlocked Samsung phone with ATT sim which is a buck a min., also has a local Orange sim but can't call outside France. Trying to come up with a cheap way to video chat or worse case audio chat from her room.
She has a 2 year old macbook, an unlocked Samsung phone with ATT sim which is a buck a min., also has a local Orange sim but can't call outside France. Trying to come up with a cheap way to video chat or worse case audio chat from her room.
she could get a MiFi device from a French carrier and have her own wireless network to use with her various devices wherever she goes...
http://www.mificlub.com/2010/05/france-mifi/
http://www.mificlub.com/2010/05/france-mifi/
Jailbreak and use the app that lets you use Facetime/Skype over 3G. I bought it and it works fine.
If you want voice calls you could get her to get a SIM with unlimited incoming minutes and then you use skype to call that number.
It should be free to receive a call with any French SIM (it's illegal within the EU to charge someone to receive a call unless they are out of their "home" country).
Skype charges 24¢ (per minute) to call France
As for FaceTime, the only way I think it would work is if they are very specific about the things they block (i.e. that Skype is specifically blocked).
Most shared networks block everything to begin with and then work out what they actually want to allow (like basic web pages).
Why would a dorm block Skype? I don't see why FaceTime wouldn't work, though. If it doesn't work tell your daughter to get a proxy
some times for security of the network schools will really lock down on the open ports in their firewall. Chances are pretty good that ports skypt needs is lock down.
I would not be surpised if only things like port 80 and the comon email ports are open.
Oh as for another option for free voice chatting is look at teamspeak.
It really easy to have your computer be a server that you can run for a little while so you 2 can talk. Worse you will have to do is play around looking for some open ports.
Teamspeak is something some gamers will use in games but games does not prevent using it for other things.
iChat AV over AIM or an other supported Service? What about Google Chat ? ((Nevermind on google just re-read your frist post)).
Did you people even read the OP?
It clearly states that the op's daughter would be getting a 4G touch, not an iPhone. Which, as you may know, does not have 3G data.
Th dumbest idea in this thread. Of course it'll work, but you're ****ing buying a whole Internet service just for Skype. It's better to be SMART and find a workaround, which there is.