Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC, Etc.

[Alex77]

Just want to let everyone know, if you like to watch AmberCutie, or any of the other super models on MFC, you might want to avoid Charter Communications High Speed Internet. The motel where I'm staying recently switched from AT&T Broadband to Charter. Now I can't receive webcam video or audio on MyFreeCams, AnyWebCam, or Skin Video. They all came in fine on AT&T. I know it's Charter, because I momentarily switched to a neighbor's AT&T and received all of the above sites in all their glory, as usual. After switching immediately back to Charter, no video or audio was to be found. I can't even chat on AWC. Apparently Charter is blocking ports to conserve bandwith, so there's no solution except to go elsewhere, unless you think Charter can somehow be convinced to open up the appropriate ports. I hope you'll reply to this if you have some knowledge to share, or have had a similar experience.

Love ya, Amber!

Alex

 

[Keithy]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

it probably has nothing to do with the fact it's charter, it probably has everything to do with that you're at a motel sharing the internet with god knows how many people on probably the cheapest internet connection they can get and still legally call it high speed.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Thanks for your input, Keithy. Let's wait and see if more peeps will post. Maybe we can get a better grasp of what's really going on. I did do an online ports test which Charter failed abysmally. I also pretty much have the internet connection to myself on weekends, since the motel's customers are 95% business types who go home on weekends. The connection doesn't improve on Sat. or Sun. either.

 

[Jebbaz]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-18-w ... cations-18

thought you'd find this enjoyable.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Thank-you, Jebbaz. Outstanding link. Totally backs up my topic.

 

[AlexLady]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Yeah, it is that you have a hotel. Here are a few wave groups on Speedtest with Charter ISP's that work fine;

http://www.speedtest.net/wave/40757141f ... sc&sb=user

Most people I'm finding though have about a 15Mbs download though, I'm guessing they just have the cheap service however since someone had over 100Mbs.

 

[Keithy]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Yeah, it is that you have a hotel. Here are a few wave groups on Speedtest with Charter ISP's that work fine;

http://www.speedtest.net/wave/40757141f ... sc&sb=user

Most people I'm finding though have about a 15Mbs download though, I'm guessing they just have the cheap service however since someone had over 100Mbs.

Also has a lot to do with where in the country you are. Near big cities you'll be getting a lot more investment into good equipment. Out where I am, despite it being a fairly rich area isn't that populated and so there isn't that great of speed offered.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Thanks for your replies AlexLady and Keithy. Equipment quality could be an issue in my less populous area, as could the fact that I'm often sharing bandwidth with others. My speed tests have generally checked out fine, though, AlexLady. However, a poster on AWC told me that providers sometimes block ports to conserve their precious bandwidth. He also mentioned that ports 80 and 8080 are critical to MFC, etc. cam audio and video. That prompted me to run some port tests, the results of which have all been similar to the latest one run just prior to this post. Attached are images of the list of scanned ports and the results.




Love ya AlexLady!

 

[Mirra]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Port 80 is the last port an ISP would block if they were looking to save bandwidth... because it would basically cause their entire service to fail at HTTP which is what probably 80% of standard web traffic (non-P2P) consists of. 8080 would probably be 2nd to last since that's HTTPS which is what all your secure sites use... especially payment pages and online banking pages.

What's more likely based on your test results is you have a firewall running on your computer that is blocking these random requests because they're not coming from sources it's deemed as authorized. Windows has a built-in firewall and many security suites come with a software based firewall. It's also possible that if your connection is not your own i.e. you do not pay the ISP directly but instead pay someone else who manages it that there is a hardware firewall configured. Hell... even if you DO manage your own connection your router may have a hardware firewall by default that you simply have not changed the configuration on. Good chance your computer also does not respond to pings. Shocking, I know, but that's how it goes.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Thank-you, Mirra. Very thought provoking. I seem to be receiving all internet content except MFC, etc. live cam audio and video and AnyWebCam chat. I also couldn't even get past the welcome screen on WebcamNow. However, Camstreams live audio and video come through fine, as does YouTube. I've checked out my PC's Comodo firewall, but maybe I should look again. It could also be the motel router's firewall that's blocking ports or sites if Charter itself isn't the culprit. I'll be at this motel for another month or two. JiWire says there are 22 hotspots within about two miles of me, or maybe I should get a Verizon hotspot device. Fortunately, I'm not entirely without options.

 

[Keithy]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

try chat roulette and see if that software works maybe? If you're behind two firewalls, that can cause problems too.

 

[Mirra]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

Damn... I'd typed up a bunch of crap and accidentally deleted it because I shouldn't try to make long posts when I'm tired.

Last time I had a similar problem I had to switch browsers to fix it but that wouldn't make any sense given when you noticed the issue start.

Anyhow... based on the current status on the Net Neutrality debate, I doubt Charter is blocking specific services as they could get in a LOT of trouble for that. If you had to agree to some kind of use policy for the internet there, however, the hotel might be blocking stuff. I wonder if using a proxy server would bypass any blocks on specific domains.

Oh well... I'm going to wrap this up before I delete what I've typed again. More things to think on though! Yay!

 

[Keithy]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

IIRC MFC tries to block all the Proxies it can.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

I tried Chatroulette, Keithy. Couldn't get past the welcome page. Grrr. The Comodo firewall on my PC has never created any problems that I know of. It always asks what it should do when anything unusual happens. I'm starting to suspect the new Charter router's firewall.

Hey Mirra. You're right about switching browsers. That was one of the first things I tried. I opened MFC and AWC on Firefox, IE, Chrome and Iron on my PC, and Firefox and Safari on my Mac. Same result on all - blank cams and dead audio.

I already tried a proxy server with MFC, Keithy. It proved your point in advance. MFC apparently won't allow proxies since they can't ID members through them.

I didn't have to agree to anything to use the motel's hotspot, so no issue there.

Hmmm.... I think I'll just use a public hotspot for MFC. There's a bunch of 'em around. I guess I won't die if I don't always get my minimum daily requirement of MFC!

 

[Keithy]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

The issue might not be either firewall, but rather two firewalls tend to not play well. One last thing you might try is to turn it off and try loading MFC. Then you'll at least be able to rule that out.

 

[Alex77]

Re: Avoid Charter Internet if You Want to See and Hear MFC,

No change after turning off my firewall, Keithy. It was worth a try, though.