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Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

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Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0]. My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botn…

I still get emails from Comcrap because once I had a business internet plan with them in a residential area -- an apartment no less. When it comes to internet service, "giving a crap about the customer" is a premium add-on from Comcast, but once you commit to opening your wallet for that, they do deliver.

What Comcast did you do business with?

Comcast doesn’t give a crap about customers, full stop. Oh yes, they’ll send “technicians” out 3 to 4 times a month to tell you everything tested perfectly. But get them to put a line monitor on your connection, provide them logs that you have over 5% packet loss that doesn’t start until after the CMTS, and they’ll get an “engineer” involved who will come out and leave some testing equipment which will confirm the issue. Over a year later, the issue will remain unresolved.

My aunt bought a house where, at the best of times, her kids can finish a game with only a handful of disconnects. The other 20% of the time they can’t even watch Netflix or streaming sports.

They tried the “business connection” trick already, at a cost of $300 a month for 150mbps. That didn’t improve anything.

The “investigation” remains open, and the “engineer” just doesn’t bother updating them anymore.

My cousin went door-to-door only to discover the whole neighborhood is having the same types of issues. It’s just the new normal.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the wikipedia net neutrality page it looks like the FCC's stance has historically depended on the administration in power. There was the much celebrated 2015 change to title II, which was undone in 2017 i.e. the start of the ajit pai era. Now he is finally gone, but not before casting his vote in a 3-2 decision in 2020 to keep net neutrality dismantled. The new chair is pro-nn and working to undo the damage but…

Lol... I laugh everytime I see Republicans undo things in a matter of weeks and then 3 years later Democrats are like.. we wish we could do something but it takes time.

Republicans don't undo things in a matter of weeks. Obamacare is one example. Roe v. Wade is another.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0]. My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botn…

> The opt-out is buy business-class service.

Yes, punish the undesirable behavior with more money. That will teach them a valuable lesson.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#44
post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Glad this is at the top. The linked Reddit thread demonstrates a common but fundamental misunderstanding of SIP. Port 5060 is used for call control and is very low traffic. At most you may have timed OPTIONS messages but a “standard” SIP deployment is at most a handful of (small) packets per second per call setup and tear down with occasional REGISTER messages on an interval measured in seconds. Very low traffic and…

Perfect example of one of the many SIP abuses I have personally seen here in Australia.

Don't get me started on the bajillion 3G+ modems here with default passwords.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

> Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [Xs4all] I remember Xs4all, sorry to hear they went under. I also miss the brief moment when we had line sharing on copper telco networks in the United States. Most people were perfectly happy with the standard offerings from their local telco, but those of us who wanted more could connect with an ISP who offered service via a dry pair DSL connection. I loved my…

We had a similar type of “tech” ISP in the USA with a lot of similar features called Speakeasy back in the early 2000s. You could get static ips easily, delegated control of your reverse dns upon request, they encouraged connection sharing by offering an additional email account and IP address for $6/mo and even had guides how to setup different SNAT and masquerading scenarios on Linux.

They were so cool compared to the options from AT&T and Roadrunner. It was like an ISP run by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. They ended up getting bought by Mindspring IIRC.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol... I laugh everytime I see Republicans undo things in a matter of weeks and then 3 years later Democrats are like.. we wish we could do something but it takes time.

Republicans don't undo things in a matter of weeks. Obamacare is one example. Roe v. Wade is another.

It takes longer than weeks to plan, but when they enact their plans it doesn't take long. Democrats always play the game of... had we only known they could do that, now our hands our tied. Case in point is when they authorized the COVID-19 pandemic relief and then Trump fired the single person responsible for preventing fraud, and Democrats were like... hmm, we did nazi that coming.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#47
post #24
post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Yeah, running SIP on a standard port without some serious firewall based rate limiting for unknown traffic is almost impossible. I tried running a PBX on UDP 5060 and got >4GiB of logged register attempts in a few hours after opening the port, while asterisk was running at 100% CPU just rejecting the registration attempts the whole time. It's insane compared to any other public service I run.

I'm not running my own service. I'm using www.iptel.org, they offer a free sip account. Under the hood they use the Kamailio sip server. It is pretty darn reliable for a free service.

Every few months iptel.org goes down for a few hours and I get 408 request timeouts. When Spectrum blocked 5060 UDP, I got 408 request timeouts for a week. It finally dawned on me to try my iptel account on my VPS and my SIP register succeeded. That's when I knew Spectrum had shut 5060 UDP. I tried 5060 TCP and that didn't work either.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#48
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0]. My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botn…

> The opt-out is buy business-class service. Yes, punish the undesirable behavior with more money. That will teach them a valuable lesson.

Well, the charitable interpretation would be that you're paying for their extra support costs.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#49
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

It's worth noting that there's a spiritual successor to XS4ALL called Freedom[0]. [0]: https://www.freedom.nl/

And... they're still just as expensive as XS4ALL was. It's nice the option exists for people willing to pay the premium, though.
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