VoIP IS Blocked
After contacting customer service today, I found out that Qatar is indeed blocking VoIP (including voice chat servers like MSN). This has been corroborated by several other sources at my place of employment and members of the Vonage forum. This is contrary to what customer service was telling us over the weekend: that the service outage was due to a loss of bandwidth. A QTel representativestold me that this is what they were told that they were as shocked as customers were. A Vonage forum member said a rep told him he was told to lie when questioned about the outage.
As an American citizen I intend to contact the U.S. Embassy about this as have several members of the Vonage forum. I hope other VoIP users will do the same and inform QTel of intentions to downgrade or cancel their internet subscriptions should the blockage not cease immediately. I know that, for myself, QTel is getting far more money from my internet subscription than from my trans-continental calls prior to activation of my Vonage line.
As a Muslim, if QTel fails to act, I intend to file suit against QTel in the Shari'a courts as the alteration of services without notification and the opportunity to cancel is a violation of divine injuctions regarding sale and contract in the Islamic Shari'ah (Religious Law).
We remain patient. "And God is with the patient."
Blocking VOIP (or any communication service that the public pays for, for utilities) should be declared illegal.
It is the government's responsibility to make available the services required by its citizens, the telecommunication infrastructure exists to serve the public and not the other way around.
Qtel (and many other telecom companies in the region) are making fat money mostly by blocking competition and charging exorbitant rates for local and international calls.. It is high time they revise the rate structure and introduce competition in the market
The following was an e-mail received by one of the Vonage-forum's members from the U.S. Embasssy. Again, it would be great if other nationalities could submit similar petitions to their embassies.
To Vonage Customers in Qatar,
In recent days, the Embassy has heard from a number of Americans in Qatar who have lost access to the internet telephone service. The Vonage company in the U.S. has confirmed that the cutoff was initiated hear in Qatar.
Earlier today, I spoke with the minister for Economy and Commerce, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Ahmad Al Thani, to express concern about the loss of this service. I noted that many Americans private citizens as well as military personnel rely on this service to keep in touch with families and conduct personal business back in the United States.
The Minister assured me that he would look into the mater right away. The Embassy will follow up in hopes that this service is restored as soon as possible.
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Sincerely,
Chase Untermeyer
US Ambassador to Qatar
im sorry, im not an expert on this but heres what i have experienced in the past when i was in the UAE... i never tried it here because i gave up applying for personal ADSL because of QTELs wonderful customer service.
In the UAE port 8000 is open but i dont know what it is here. Anyway, the best site i found was https://antiproxy.com , the unsecure server will be blocked so you have to remember the https. excellent list of servers searchable by port number plus loads of other info.
good luck
GIASI
Dear Suntzu,
This site is blocked by Q-Tel
Apparently VoIP units, like my Vonage router and other systems like Packet8, that run through IP have their ports of operation blocked. The worm QTel is using to block these systems also seems to be attacking SIP services on a case by case basis. I have not been able to use Yahoo chat. Some gaming sites are even blocked because of the chat forums associated with them.
This is an article for the more technical and those into keeping ahead of what Qtel does:
http://www.totse.com/en/hack/understanding_the_internet/howtobypasscen170386.html
rr.
Here is a list of public proxies:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Proxying_and_Filtering/Hosted_Proxy_Services/Free/Proxy_Lists/
It is updated regularily.
rr.
Here is one more and this is sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://tor.eff.org/
I found this open proxy agent:
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html
Give it a try...
rr.
How are they "blocking" VOIP is the question?
- Is it by IP or URL?
- Does a DSL MODEM/Router that handles VOIP linked to an VOIP provider via IP work?
- What about SIP? (session initiation protocol) works to enable pc to pc communications - is it blocked?
- Can their proxy be bypassed? Do you use the DNS server provided by them in your account configuration? If yes, try alternate DNS servers.
- If you trace route from your pc to a blocked site does the packets always stop at the same proxy address? If yes, can you have someone outside Qatar host a proxy so that it bypasses the Qatar proxy by tricking it into thinking that you are merely spending loads of time on your friends server. (this of course only will work if they are not completely blocking the protocol altogether - which is doubtful)
I do applaud you for taking this fight up!!! Communications should be encouraged to bring the world closer and to block it out in any way shape or form is counter productive - as the curious always find a way around it.
rrbilly