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#1 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

VoIP in Lebanon

An email about blocking VoIP in Lebanon has been circulating it says:

As of  June/1/2010 The Ministry of Telecom is blocking all Voice Over IP ports, which means that any device uses VoIP as Linksys, Magic Jack, Cisco VoIP boxes will be blocked, and other SoftPhone services such as RingCentral as well as other VoIP web services like Yahoo voice, Net2phone, etc....

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#2 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

It seems that the idiots at the Telecom ministry and Ogero did block the VoIP ports, as my magic jack didn’t worked June/1/2010, but I have found a solution that works at times.
1- Go to http://www.whatismyip.com/
2- Make note of your IP address.
3- Unplug the power from the Ogero DSL router for over 10 minutes, then plug the power back (doing so should assign a new IP address).
4- Go to http://www.whatismyip.com/ – to check that you have been assigned a new IP address, once you have verified that a new IP address has been assigned then plug your magic jack and try to make calls.
P.S you might need to try all steps above several times in order to work.

Anyone with better ways please posts them here.

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#3 June 5 2010

samer
Admin

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Skype has been working out fine here. Furthermore, if they in fact are blocking VoIP ports how come obtaining a different IP bypasses filtering? It doesn't make sense. It's definitely not a per-IP basis (unless they are blocking "abusers" one by one, which does not make sense).

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#4 June 5 2010

Aj_BlaZ
Banned

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

i dont know about you guys but hotspot shield do the trick furthermore after i finish the ccna course im going to take the real thing voip course and then i could share my experience with you ....

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#5 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

I just got off the phone with Ogero DSL customer support, asked him about the VoIP issue and informed me that Telecom minister did indeed talk about stopping VoIP in Lebanon few days ago and that they at Ogero are getting many calls in that regard.
I have been using phonejack for 5 Month, but as of June 1 2010 it stopped working and as I changed my IP as stated it worked the 2nd and 3rd of June and hasn't worked since.

I also had informed the Ogero rep of the method on changing IP's, He then informed me that other cleints have told him that they are doing the same but the Ministry is stopping VoIP from their end at the gateways level (that kinda figurs why changing ips works at times and it doesn't at other times) see as I change IP's I get a gateway that is blocking VoIP and other allows it. and it seems that they are blocking few every day.

Any other solutions?

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#6 June 5 2010

Flakk
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Any idea on why are they stopping it ?  whats the point ?

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#7 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Seems that Call centers shops are using the magic jack and other VoIP devices for business purposes and making money, so the Government is losing tons of money!!! Hopping that they reconsider that decision.

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#8 June 5 2010

Kareem
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

VOIP is still working in our company in Lebanon and I am using SIP VOIP client on my mobile phone (EDGE )  and it's working fine, I mean it was working few weeks ago before my flight; still my colleagues confirmed it's still working. SIP has never been blocked in Lebanon. Actually Ogero is selling the service AFAIK.

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#9 June 5 2010

samer
Admin

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Any other solutions?

Tunnel your traffic through SSH or VPN.
You will either need to pay for a commercial VPN service or install it yourself on a remote machine. Another way is to setup an SSH tunnel on your remote machine (or just a machine you have a shell account on) and have it transmit the traffic for you.

ssh -ND 5111 youraccount@remotebox.tld

This will create a tunnel between you and your remotebox. All the traffic you forward to port 5111 will be sent there. You will need to point your VoIP application to use localhost at port 5111 as a SOCKS proxy.

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#10 June 5 2010

J4D
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Actually voice over internet protocol (voip) in Lebanon is forbidden by law !

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#11 June 5 2010

nuclearcat
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Socks wont work well for VoIP.
Better is tunnel. The best choice is VPS with openvpn and openvpn client in some *WRT device, tunnel must work over UDP, so latency will be kept on appropriate level with proper setup. This way setup will be transparent, reliable and enough fast.

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#12 June 5 2010

Kareem
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

abctel2000 wrote:

Seems that Call centers shops are using the magic jack and other VoIP devices for business purposes and making money, so the Government is losing tons of money!!! Hopping that they reconsider that decision.

VOIP is allowed in most countries, I wonder if they should really think twice before activating the service; it's time to realize that IP connectivity is the future, SS7 signaling protocol is getting replaced soon with IP, soon you will be connected to the Internet from home/office/undergroud/car... WiMax/ 4G will rule hopefully soon and everything will relay on IP connectivity; we are lagging ages behind any Arabic country, yet we are still convinced gov.  should make max profit from old school retarded network connectivity. I've been in such a discussion with the our head of solution department few days in Europe, I was shocked when he told me he has dropped his land line a year ago because he realized it's not mandatory anymore, he's simply using skype client to make most of his phone calls, at a cheaper rate.
Of course that is applicable in Europe but not in Lebanon ( high latency, quota, random disconnections etc.) but once we open the doors, everything becomes easier. Just my 2c.

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#13 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

samer wrote:

Any other solutions?

Tunnel your traffic through SSH or VPN.
You will either need to pay for a commercial VPN service or install it yourself on a remote machine. Another way is to setup an SSH tunnel on your remote machine (or just a machine you have a shell account on) and have it transmit the traffic for you.

ssh -ND 5111 youraccount@remotebox.tld

This will create a tunnel between you and your remotebox. All the traffic you forward to port 5111 will be sent there. You will need to point your VoIP application to use localhost at port 5111 as a SOCKS proxy.

Samer,
I am using magicjack! How can I ?

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#14 June 5 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Aj_BlaZ wrote:

i dont know about you guys but hotspot shield do the trick furthermore after i finish the ccna course im going to take the real thing voip course and then i could share my experience with you ....

hotspot shield didn't work, I just treid it.

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#15 June 6 2010

beezer
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Buy a real IP phone and use the ports that you want to use.

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#16 June 6 2010

samer
Admin

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

abctel2000 wrote:
samer wrote:

Any other solutions?

Tunnel your traffic through SSH or VPN.
You will either need to pay for a commercial VPN service or install it yourself on a remote machine. Another way is to setup an SSH tunnel on your remote machine (or just a machine you have a shell account on) and have it transmit the traffic for you.

ssh -ND 5111 youraccount@remotebox.tld

This will create a tunnel between you and your remotebox. All the traffic you forward to port 5111 will be sent there. You will need to point your VoIP application to use localhost at port 5111 as a SOCKS proxy.

Samer,
I am using magicjack! How can I ?

Get a VPN account.

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#17 June 7 2010

chaosn
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Search for any SIP Outbound Proxy.

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#18 June 7 2010

chosen2k
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

abctel2000 wrote:

Seems that Call centers shops are using the magic jack and other VoIP devices for business purposes and making money, so the Government is losing tons of money!!! Hopping that they reconsider that decision.

I have a question here, since Ogero has in its grips the telephony and internet. How come its losing money ?

Call centers need the ogero connection for Voip.

Probably some big shot who needs to launch a new service in the near future is asking Ogero to block Voip.

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#19 June 7 2010

J4D
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

chosen2k wrote:

How come its losing money ?

if you don't use IP telephony , you would be using the normal land line for international calls . See where im going ? ;)

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#20 June 7 2010

samer
Admin

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

jadberro wrote:
chosen2k wrote:

How come its losing money ?

if you don't use IP telephony , you would be using the normal land line for international calls . See where im going ? ;)

They're still making profit by controlling all connectivity. But yeah, they make less money, but it's the price to pay  to go forward. Furthermore, they could actually get into the VoIP business and make money there (you know, by controlling all the units sold). I guess at some point that's what will happen. They will get you better internet and make money by selling you the VoIP equipement. Even funnier, they will sell licenses to call centers that "allow them" to use VoIP, a free license comes if they buy the equipment from them :)

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#21 June 7 2010

Kassem
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Doesn't skype use VoIP? (am not really sure, I suck at all this networking stuff) I had a 30 min video call on skype today, everything was fine.

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#22 June 7 2010

Dellitta
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Here's what's happening:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp … _id=115693
"No one has noticed, but the Lebanese government is writing yet another chapter in the endless mockery of our rights as private citizens and social entrepreneurial agents of progress and change. The state is extending censorship over the remainder of our liberties into the last frontier of freedom – the internet and its supposed neutrality."

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp … z0qDLG0dkv
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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#23 June 9 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Kassem wrote:

Doesn't skype use VoIP? (am not really sure, I suck at all this networking stuff) I had a 30 min video call on skype today, everything was fine.

I think only SIP is being blocked, (working on getting it to work again)  as I am still able to use yahoo voice.

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#24 June 10 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Here is some help, -  http://www.speed-voip.com/

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#25 June 10 2010

abctel2000
Member

Re: VoIP in Lebanon

Any one please help, How do I change the outbound proxy settings in magicjack?

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