Thread: 100 million reasons to use Skype
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Jerome is offline Jerome
2007-07-10 , 16:36
Posts: 477 | Thanked: 118 times | Joined on Dec 2005 @ Munich, Germany
#45
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
Basically, exactly what you're trying to sell as an advantage is Skypes main disadvantage: It is not a good internet citizen. It does not use well defined ports. Actually, it hijacks the existing infrastructure in a very impolite way.
That's right, and is one of the reason that skype is a network administrator nightmare. I know that.


Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
It is a good thing that the owner of a network has control over what's happening. He is legally responsible (in most countries) and he wants to provide a certain user experience for all of his users. Now if you build a hotspot for your customers to surf the web and read their mails, you need to calculate the amount of bandwidth you'll typically need for all of them to surf at a decent speed. Good. Now one of these customers tunnels his filesharing traffic over port 80, uses Skype and does a number of other things the network wasn't designed for...
As already pointed out, we are not talking about a privately run hotspot here, for which correct netiquette would be the least you can do.

Neither are we talking about GSM networks, who have the problem that a GSM voice call uses typically 12 Kb/s, whereas SIP uses at least 45 Kb/s because of network overhead. Not that I have great sympathy for cell phone operators, but still...

We are talking about the fine line between assigning network ressources correctly and plain anticompetitive practices.

May I tell you that I would be willing to pay extra for a hotspot where SIP would work? But there aren't any left in most places where tourist are likely to roam. The few times where I could find one (usually privately owned internet cafes) I used that (and tried not to abuse things, not calling hours and not leaving gizmo active to block the SIP ports).


Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
As long as it's one customer, it'll probably go unnoticed (except that there might be legal implications). But if everyone does it, you'll run into troubles.
Actually, because those hotspots use NAT, only one client can use SIP at a time. The first to come blocks the port.


Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
My experience is that many hotspots don't block SIP for the reason that they don't want VoIP. They simply block everything thats not needed for surfing and mailing. I usually can't chat (IRC), can't do filesharing, can't use instant messaging .... So I don't believe you can't do SIP because they want to block VoIP.
No, they explicitly block SIP. I could chat and use instant messages. I never use file sharing, so I don't know about that, maybe they also block it.


But I think that you are missing the point. The point is about Nokia. With the 770 / N800, Nokia built a device to be used as a SIP phone. 2 years after, SIP won't work in many place. For them it makes perfect sense to team up with Skype.