Using Voip Buster in halls of residence

barginboyrob

Hi, i remember a few months ago, there were many threads about getting free phonecalls to landlines. I thought this was a good opportunity to set up a voip buster account, and it worked when i was at home.

I bought a new computer with winxp pro to take to uni, and i bought a voipvoice phone (from amazon for about £30). I use the voip phone as a microphone (as it is really made for skype i think..

Anyway, the problem is that when i try and make a call, there is such a delay, that it is impossible to talk( when i ring home, they thought i was a pranker!)

Does anyone know how to get around this problem? I only plug in the voipvoice phone when i need to use it. I study at Nottingham university if that helps

Thanks everybody :beer:

gizmoleeds

Unfortunately, the best person to ask would be the IT network manager at your Uni. However, it is probably not a good idea to alert him (or her, but I'll put money on it being a him ) to the fact you are using it, as pointlessly banning things is a passtime to these people.

Matt83UK_2

They may be throttling ports other than 80/443 (web and secure web), they may have a bad NAT system, or the contention is high for upload with other students using P2P.

---
Begin slightly OT rant:

University IT techs are crap, and they are power mad, they ban people for clicking on links in "spam email" as it is a security risk, but run servers with high-risk out of date software throughout the network, I pity them.

In one example, a spam email expolited some type of IE expolit. Two logical solutions:

1) Apply IE hotifx/upgrade - Very easy few-clicks for competent domain administrator.
2) Update definitions on mail server virus scanner

Clueless tech answer:

3) Send an email about telling people they will be disciplined if they click such clicks because its causes problems.

Darksun

I'm guessing it's because of the way the NAT is configured. Your lucky you can use Voipbuster atall, here at Lancs, pretty much all services are blocked except web, ftp, irc and various IMs

barginboyrob

can't you just change the port or something, like to a web port? not sure though,

aaazza

Hi,

I was in halls last year at Nottingham (Hugh Stewart) and anything involving voice (Ventrilo, Teamspeak) was pretty much unusable most of the time (either due to high latency or it just wouldn't connect). I'm afraid short of talking to someone on the student network team your only chance would be to try and ring early in the morning.

hth

aaazza

kokyu

Descartes wrote:

I am at warwick uni and there is delay when I ring at night or in the day time, but if I ring early in the morning it is fine.

I'm at Warwick too and haven't found the quality of VoiPBuster to be anywhere near acceptable, what times and days are you ringing and what's the quality like?

Thanks.

Rootes L Block resident

ms2005

as far as i am aware certain ports need to be forwarded to your Ip address on the network in order to improve quality.

Uni's have huge amounts of users and you need a near perfect line to stand any chance of a decent quality call on VOIP.

I personally use Sipgate here in Germany, it is a little tempramental but does work well when it wanst to, suggest give them a go but again sipgate need certain ports forwarding.

In my opinion VOIP is an awful lot of work for what you get

Jaynne

I think the problem is likely throttling of ports other than the standard web, email, IM etc. As said before you're lucky you're allowed to use these ports at all Unis are notorious for not letting students in halls who pay for their service do not very much at all. Here in Edinburgh the students get a very rough deal, rent as high as £480/pm for a self cattering flat and poor service all round.

Try another VOIP client perhaps, Skype has a very good reputation.

Victor_Delta

Might be worth trying Voip Buster's sister company Voip Stunt (no, i can't think why they should choose such a name either!).

Their (very similar) client works pretty well and a BIG advantage is that you don't have to buy any credit before you can make long calls to their Free destinations (which include UK 01 and 02 numbers of course). Most other cheap Voip suppliers seem to limit you to one minute calls until you have bought some credit.

Of course, the university network problems may still remain, but at least it hasn't cost you anything to try it! Good luck!

Victor Delta
(former Nottingham student [Cripps Hall] - but a very long time ago...!)

PS Dialled numbers need to be prefixed by +44... as usual.

XXXXX Update 19 Jan 06 - Sorry, its now been pointed out to me that actually €5 credit is required for calls > 1 minute. This must have changed in the last day or two. However, worth pointing out that €5 is less than many of the other VOIP providers and with this you can make free landline calls to the following counties - so it's still not a bad deal!

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
China
Croatia
Cyprus
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States