Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

Karin

Feb 20, 2004, 3:06 PM

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VOI - Vonage system

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I am using the Vonage phone system successfully for almost one year.

Recently the phone started to be unreliable: At times, outgoing as well as incoming calls did not go through. My feeling is, the Cisco ATA186 is not working properly.

The technical service of Vonage requires port 69 at the IP to be open for troubleshooting and for upgrading the device. With port 69 blocked no service is possible.

My cable IP blocked port 69 and I was told that in Mexico all ports 69 are blocked.

The result is that Vonage can not help and I am on my own. Obviously the blocked port is the reason for Vonage not to offer service outside the US.

Has anybody experienced similar problems?

johanson / Moderator

Feb 20, 2004, 7:00 PM

Post #2 of 4 (571 views)

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Re: [Karin] VOI - Vonage system

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Karin. I hope someone with more experience than I with Vonage can answer this. But no it is not true that all ISPs in Mexico block port 69

normacrosby

Feb 22, 2004, 6:19 PM

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Re: [Karin] VOI - Vonage system

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Karin,

I am currently using Vonage with Prodigy Infinitum. I have only been using it for a few days, but so far so good. I don't know what to suggest to you. This post is only intended to let you know that some ISPs are working with Vonage.
Norma Crosby

Feb 22, 2004, 8:25 PM

Post #4 of 4 (527 views)

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Re: [Karin] VOI - Vonage system

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Quote

karin writes:
....The technical service of Vonage requires port 69 at the IP to be open for troubleshooting and for upgrading the device. With port 69 blocked no service is possible.

My cable IP blocked port 69 and I was told that in Mexico all ports 69 are blocked.

The result is that Vonage can not help and I am on my own. Obviously the blocked port is the reason for Vonage not to offer service outside the US....

In corporate and institutional settings, any reasonably competent network administrator would normally block port 69 at the LAN/WAN boundaries from at least incoming traffic, as it's the standard port used for tftp, a protocol which is vulnerable to abuse. At the same time, although some countries are striving mightily to control internet access, the idea of blocking a port nationally or along national boundaries is absurd; there's too many paths for data to travel and there's no national authority which could dictate or oversee the blocking.

Although Cisco most likely will not provide any kind of support or assistance with your telephone adapter (their now defunct OEM agreement for the TAs with Vonage put the responsibility on Vonage) you can still access the Cisco manuals for the unit, which have an excellent and extensive troubleshooting section. The first step would be to identify which firmware version your TA is loaded with; I believe (but can't guarantee it in any way, shape or form) that by connecting an analog touch-tone phone to Port 1, taking the phone off-hook, pressing the "function" button on the TA, and then keying in "123#" the unit should report what firmware version it's equipped with. The manual for units with firmware versions before 3.0 can be found here; for units with firmware version 3.0 and above the manual can be found here. Note that in the manuals there's instructions for switching on the web-interface for the TA (which should normally be switched off unless the TA is protected from off-LAN access on port 80) which allows the TA's settings to be examined.

From here you're on your own.

(This post was edited by ET on Feb 22, 2004, 11:06 PM)