Voice over IP

[zenpill]

I have met with a company dedicated to telephony solutions mainly VoIP who is opening offices in San Jose.

Their offer seems to be better than anything I´ve seen out there, it most def. beats satellite and other companies offering VoIP services in town.

They work with some big companies, they mentioned sportingbet usa as one of them. I know they´ve installed a few testing environments in town and i´ve heard that the quality is real good.

Their services does not fit us as for we have a different setup other than call centers so I´m just spreading the word, it´s a good idea to listen to what´s out there these days.

I´ve got their contact info if anyone is interested. I know I haven´t been seen around here that much, I would not reffer a service if it´s not legit, you will all see that from me.

You can email me if you´d like for me to help you get in touch with them.

 

[HateTheRiverCard]

The only problem I see with VOIP's is that with the increase in DOS attacks this year a book could get crippled on a busy weekend if they get DOS'd basically having internet and phone lines disabled.


HTRC

 

[zenpill]

That would be a good question to ask them HateTheRiver. I touched the topic when we met, they mentioned that it would be virtually impossible for someone to be able to access the callcenters phone network, and that if something would hapen they would switch to PSTN automatically. That´s another thing they mentioned that I´ve seen can´t be done with other providers, they can switch to PSTN from VoIP automatically instead of us having to wait for someone to call them and have them do it for us. No calls are lost.

It would be a good idea for you to mention that to them though, I´m not that technical on the matter.

 

[AdamSelene]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HateTheRiverCard:
The only problem I see with VOIP's is that with the increase in DOS attacks this year a book could get crippled on a busy weekend if they get DOS'd basically having internet and phone lines disabled.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, any good network setup can reserve bandwidth for VOIP separate from Internet traffic; if the traffic is even comingled at all.

 

[HateTheRiverCard]

Thanks... I am not up on the technical stuff, just curious as I was recently visited a book that was being hit with a DOS attack and it shut down there voice lines (VOIP) at the same time.

HTRC

 

[wolfie_cr]

Its very possible that they only had an ISP meaning that the same company that provides internet connectivity also provides the internet connectivity required for the phone lines.

For example, a small sportsbook could have a satellite link to provide connectivity such as webpages, email, etc.

However they could have a normal Costa Rica provider to give them internet connectivity for the phone lines over IP.

In this scenario they could get DDoS'ed at the satellite link but this won't affect at all the phones.

Also the only company that really knows what the IP's of the devices for the phone lines are is the voice over IP provider so it's not like the attackers can easily find what IP's they have to attack, that is very different from email servers for example where the IP's of those servers are known to everybody (because you need to be able to connect to them to send/retrieve email)

Another scenario would be if they know what the provider is and in this case try to attack the VoIP provider directly but like someone else said they can switch immediately to normal lines or take different actions to ensure normal operations.

 

[jimbutorac]

Wolfie,

But if the phones and data were coming off the same router on one ISP link, couldn't a DOS attack bring both down? Simply by overwhelming the router?

 

[wolfie_cr]

perhaps but on voice over IP you only need to accept packets from ONE source, which is the voice over IP provider

so blocking everything else but that is trivial, part of the problem with these DDoS is that the packets (might be, I have never seen a dump of the streams) can be crafted to look like legitimate requests from a person using a browser to look at the lines for example

Anyway to be efficient I would simply ask whoever ISP to give me an extra link on a separate "link", any book here in CR can call an domestic ISP such as one that does cablemodems and use that as a backup and presto

Besides if you are smart would you just have ONE isp? that means that you could be out of internet/email/phone at peak times and thats obviously not good

having the website up during a DDoS is a completely different story though....

 

[jimbutorac]

Hey Wolfie,

Thanks much for the explanation.

 

[drewzie]

Hey Zenpill:
Could you please email me contact info.
Thanks
drewzierick@yahoo.com

 

[AdamSelene]

I was assuming that any professional VOIP installation would just be on the provider/customer loop -- the T1 line, fiber line, sattelite channels, etc. The provider-side of that connection would then have the VOIP traffic patched into the telephone system.

Given the provider and customer have end-to-end control over that loop, they can allocate separate channels for VOIP traffic, or use protocols such as RSVP to make sure VOIP gets priority bandwidth.

Running VOIP over the Internet -- I can't imagine any company doing this for business critical usage -- but there are things that can be done as Wolfie mentioned such as having as backup provider.

 

[zenpill]

you got mail drewzie.

 

[Tatiamor]

CAn you give me the CR company contact info? Thanks.

 

[WildBill]

I heard from a few people that ICE has some method with which after a few calls they stop connecting VoIP calls after determining it isn't coming over the old-fashioned way. Anyone else hear of this or know it happens first-hand?

 

[wolfie_cr]

if they are bypassing ICE say

USA>Internet>Local line in possesion of VoIP guy>local line in CR

then yes

but that is clearly completely illegal as you are in esence using ICE infrastructure to route the call

Anyway that is the problem of the ones that own the lines in CR

If I have a VoIP box in 95% of the cases what I want to do is to go

me>>>>internet>>>>>>USA VoIP provider>>>>>destination either in US or UK etc

So in that event ICE has NO WAY of finding out because in essence they never "See" my call

Sure, they can monitor all the packets that cross the internet in search of packets that can be voice conversations (but that is a HUGE task, its even worse than trying to block internet users in the States from reaching gaming sites)

So it depends I guess, the way I see the system its not so much for users to directly call numbers that are managed by the ICE...instead the advantage is for the ones that are calling the "box" which can be connected to the internet anywhere in the world

it was a pain in the neck to find a decent provider with the right features that would authorize resell of their services BUT FINALLY

I GOT THE THING GOING !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[AdamSelene]

I heard some time ago that Panama was going to block all common VoIP ports. Don't know whether they followed thru or how successful they were in stopping VoIP traffic.

I'm not aware that common commercial VoIP over Internet services such as Vonage are very good at dealing with port blockage.

 

[WildBill]

Thank the protestors that love ICE and their rip off deals. Then again I suppose most of the people protesting couldn't afford much phone service anyways. I just can't understand how Latin American governments of all stripes continue to screw their people over in this way. Here they want to connect to the world, but put up big fat roadblocks in every way they can to keep you from really competing with the world...

 

[jimbutorac]

Adam,

Regarding Panama, about two years back, Cable & Wireless, monopoly provider of telecom in Panama asked to block certain ports to prevent Voice over IP, but Panamanian courts issued an injunction that prohibited them from doing that.

In the meantime, they have allowed competition into Panama including licensed Voice over IP providers.

WB, ICE does not block Voice over IP - in fact, although they have nopt declared it legal nor illegal some of their spokespeople have been quoted in the Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion that they don't ever see trying to make it illegal.

ICE does block callback service which is too long to explain here but which basically uses their own lines to bypass charges by reoriginating calls in the United States and they do actively block this.

Mud

 

[WildBill]

Just something I had heard from a number of sources that use VoIP to make outbound calls, but said it is impossible to take them the other way because of ICE methods, or so they thought. I am well aware of the callback method, that is old technology that was far more useful in the past when the differentials between calling prices was much higher.

 

[Tatiamor]

Can anyone confirm whether ICE is blocking VoIP calls from US to CR? Also, have any sportbooks tried implementing VoIP to save on LD? Just wondering whether it is viable.