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frosse

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 23, 2007
843
165
Sweden
With my current contract my phone provider doesn't allow VoIP traffic, but how can they tell? How can they distinguish VoIP from regular internet traffic?
 
With my current contract my phone provider doesn't allow VoIP traffic, but how can they tell? How can they distinguish VoIP from regular internet traffic?

No sure, but have you tried Skype? Well now that I think about it the service probably uses a port that your provider blocks.
 
Certain ports used by common VoIP apps can be monitored/blocked. If they're really insidious, they can sniff packets to determine what kind of content is being carried.

Many times though, they don't really know, but make inferences and guesses based on how much bandwidth you use in a billing period.
 
There are tons of ways. The easiest is to block the ports that VOIP uses.

packet filtering or packet shaping would be another way to do it.

Drop your service provider. Vote with your dollar.
 
the easiest way to know is just opening and trying a VOIP app and see if it works... but on all seriousness, there are specific ports that are used by specific things like SSH in port 22, P2P in other ports, web goes through another, etc. Your provider can block them remotely, you can go to http://canyouseeme.org and put the port you want to check to see if the provider has it block, if it says success it means the provider is not blocking it and if it says failed it means that it is blocked.:cool:

You should just use skype since it will use other people internet (as supernodes w/out them realizing it (they would have those open ports so you can talk to another person in your conversation. (you see it in the technical info of the call in the part of relays in which 0 equals direct port connection to your other party, 1+ you are using another person's (1 or more) internet that has open ports). You can also have a direct port to port no relay skype session but you will have to open ports and block the supernode function too if you don't want the extra people using your internet... Skype is a P2P app just like any torrent app which work in the same way, I think the guy that invented skype was the one that created Kazaa back in the day...

Also sometimes wireless routers have all the ports closed even though the IP has them open in the line router...
 
My advice would be to read the small print of your contract to determine whether they allow VoIP traffic. I have read in some cases, they will terminate your contract if you use VoIP traffic. Or try certain voip applications like Skype or MO-Call ;) and see if it works.

I think it's unfair that certain network operators don't allow voip traffic on their networks.
 
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