(OT) Need Some Expert Network Advice

[Lisa Kachold]

Hi Mark and Jordan,

On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Jordan Aberle <jordan.aberle at gmail.com>wrote:

> Have you tried this?
>
> http://tinyurl.com/luwroy
>

This is HOT!

Excerpt:

The one big thing Google Voice doesn't offer, besides automated telemarketer
taunting, is free voice-over-internet phone calling through your cellphone.
On an Android phone, however, you can use the Gizmo5
service<http://gizmo5.com/>,
Google Voice, and a free application to call anyone for free.

A free, open-source, and unofficial Android app,
Guava<http://gizmo5.com/guava.html?loc=guava>,
gives any Android phone the ability to make and take calls over Gizmo5's
VoIP service, connected through a Google Voice phone number. It works over
Wi-Fi, 3G, or, for the daring, EDGE. You probably won't want to use Guava as
your primary phone call manager, as the call quality varies with your
connection and really works best over Wi-Fi. That said, if you're running up
against your minute allotment, or find yourself in a basement-like spot with
decent Wi-Fi but really bad cell coverage, Guava is a great little tool to
have at your disposal.

It's also worth noting that, depending on who your carrier is, making a VoIP
call over an EDGE or 3G network may violate your contract's terms of
service. A little "hard" data use now and then likely won't be noticed, but
if you plan on using Guava heavily with your cellular data plan, you should
check and read into what's tolerated and what's not before embarking on your
bold data-only adventure.
Mark, will you let us know how it goes?

>
> On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Mark Phillips
> <mark at phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:
> > This is not totally off topic.....Android is based on Linux....;-)
> >
> > I need some advice from an expert in networks to give me some advice on
> > getting my phone to make WiFi calls....
> >
> > Anyway, I have a T-Mobile MyTouch 4g phone. It is supposed to be able to
> > make calls over WiFi, which do not use an plan minutes...ie "free" calls.
> I
> > depend on this phone for my business, and I have a wireless network at
> the
> > office, so I don't have to pay for gillions of minutes. This worked great
> > when I had my Blackberrys - I could talk all day in the office and not
> use
> > any minutes. All of this is above board with T-Mobile - I actually pay a
> low
> > monthly fee for unlimited WiFi calling.
> >
> > Anyway, much to my chagrin, I discovered yesterday that I had gone way
> over
> > my plan minutes. I checked with T-Mobile, and none of my calls had gone
> over
> > WiFi. The agent refunded all the charges for the over-plan minutes and
> gave
> > me extra minutes to get through the rest of the month. She sent me to
> > technical support, and we could not get my phone to make calls over my
> WiFi
> > network. Even though the phone says I am connected to WiFi. So, I went to
> > the T-Mobile corporate store in Fashion Square, and the manager (she has
> the
> > same phone) and I tried to connect to the mall WiFi, and we could connect
> to
> > the mall WiFi, but could not make WiFi calls. Same error - could not
> connect
> > to T-Mobile network.  I then tried to make a WiFi call at Starbucks, and
> it
> > worked! It also worked at Barnes and Noble after I agreed to the free
> > Internet terms and services (didn't work before then).
> >
> > I googled for issues with WiFi calls with this phone, and found a lot of
> > them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The error message that
> > pops up says the phone cannot connect to the T-Mobile network. T-Mobile
> is
> > aware of the issue, but does not have a fix or ETA for one.
> >
> > One posting had this to say about the WiFi calling.....
> >
> > The WiFi Calling app is Kineto's WiFi Calling app branded for T-Mobile.
>  The
> > WiFi Calling app is an implementation of 3GPP GAN, which allows something
> on
> > the Internet to get into a cellular network and do stuff (in this case,
> make
> > and receive calls).If you care to pull up the most recent version of the
> > spec, linked above, you'll find that "registering" (ie, logging into home
> > base) involves these steps (get a glass of warm milk and see 8.4.1.6) ...
> >
> > 1) Performing a DNS query to get the address of thing it's trying to
> connect
> > to (if necessary)
> >
> > 2) Setting up an IPSec tunnel to thing resolved in step 1 (called a SEGW)
> >
> >  3) Resolving and connecting to (using TCP over the tunnel setup in step
> 2)
> > yet another thing called a GANC
> >
> > 4) Sending the GANC a "register request", which includes your phone's
> IMSI,
> > information about the cell you're currently connected to, or last
> connected
> > to if no longer connected, and other stuff
>

This is a capacity and QoS issue on the other side.  Get another app.


>
> > 5) Getting back a response that the GANC is happy with you and all is
> well
> >
> > I started to think that perhaps I have a router issue on my network. I
> have
> > a Linksys WRT54G wireless access point going through a BEFSX-41 Linksys
> > router to my cable modem. I checked the routers, and IPsec is enabled for
> > both. The WRT54G uses MAC filter to allow only certain devices to
> connect,
> > and WPA Personal, AES algorithm, and a shared key of 64 characters in it.
> > The WRT54G says I am connected to the phone when I enable WiFi on the
> phone.
> >
> > This is a long way to get to my question...thanks for staying with me. is
> > there a way to look at what the phone is doing when I try to enable WiFi
> > calling to see where it fails? A wireless sniffer?? Does any of the above
> > give you network gurus an idea of what may be wrong and if it could be in
> > issue with my router?
> >
> > Thanks for any help you can provide....I would hate to go back to a
> > Blackberry as I really like Android now!
> >
> > Mark
>


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