Video Conference without a Unique External IP?

[Chris]

Hello,

I am in a rural area and while I have a broadband speed ISP, we all
aggregate to a single IP before reaching the Internet. This has caused
issues with a number of tools such as remote assistance (sorry Mom,
can't remote control your PC) and Windows Messenger.

In Messenger, I do see that the other person is on-line and can even
send a request to them to initiate a video conference. Unfortunately,
all Messenger does after the conference is accepted is note that it is
trying to connect to the remote computer before eventually timing out
and disconnecting. If I perform a similar video conference within my
local network, everything works like a champ, so I am fairly certain
that everything is setup correctly. The external person can also
connect other than to our setup, so I am 90% sure the lack of a Unique
external IP to our home is the issue.

Since I don't have any control over the setup of the ISP equipment, I
can not handle any port redirections or other Internet point of contact
solutions. I was hoping someone would have some thoughts to work
around this so we can start using this exceptional feature to do
something more than conference with computers 10 feet apart.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Chris,

Yes, Windows Messenger requires either a "real" IP or exist in an environment with Universal
Plug and Play (UPnP) support in other to automatically open and forward the necessary ports
through a NAT situation.

However, there is a solution -- dump Windows Messenger and use MSN Messenger instead:
http://messenger.msn.com/download

MSN Messenger will attempt a variety of methods to connect, including a video relay, which
will work in your networking situation. Depending on how it ends up being able to connect,
the performance might not be too great, but it will work. Note that your contacts must also
be using MSN Messenger for it to work properly.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.

 

[Chris]

Thanks for the info Joe - I never thought about such a difference
between MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger. I will see if I can get
uPnP enabled on the other side (enabled on my side) and run with it
from there.

Thanks again,

Chris