Petition To Indefinitely Hold Porting Equipment Waiver
21 12 2009All..
This is a CSDVRS Petition to the FCC to indefinitely hold waiver of CPE (video phones in this case) not to be portable to another VRS providers citing infeasible and technical difficulties.
"..this porting requirement is unduly restrictive and burdensome to the VRS industry and cannot be readily accomplished".
Basically, CSDVRS and other VRS providers are saying that to port (change) phone number from original VRS provider to a new VRS provider by using the same video phone is not possible due to "infeasible" reasons. Several other VRS providers agree with CSDVRS on that: Viable, Sprint-Relay, SnapVRS and Purple.
If my addled memory serves me right, SorensonVRS said VP can be ported, but will eliminate all the features of Sorenson’s VP.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
Long Link:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020353228
I am absolutely against this. I do not use any device except for my laptop and porting should not be an issue.
Can’t the VRS providers simply notify their users that the features would be disabled should the users choose to change their providers? I have done that without a problem with my mobile phones.
Now that VRS has been scared straight by the FCC and FBI investigations, I suspect they’re trying to keep their users from defecting.
To be consumer driven, porting needs to happen. Porting is functional equivalent. Its outrageous for the petition to put words in our (consumers) mouth that its a win-win if the porting requirement is eliminated. I find it utterly ridiculous to see someone to have a Snap Ojo and a Z Ojo when that person could simply choose to either have Snap or Z on the same Ojo rather wasting away the Ojo that is no longer being used in storage.
I recently ported my Sorenson VP-200 to an new Ojo with ZVRS.
Sorenson did tell me that I would lose the VP-200 features.
Porting should be allowed especially when… in my case an consumer is very dissatisfied with one VRS companies Tech Support or Customer Service, etc and decides to move to another VRS provider.
It does take a while to port from one to another. That is my experience.
Sorensen needs to be investigated. They have been problematic since day one!
During the VRS workshop, Claude of TDI talked about off the shelf portability. Cell phone companies port numbers daily. Totally feasible. The problem is the investment in discounted or free devices to the deaf. Without portability, the deaf consumer will need a new device for each VRS provider.
This is unbelievable as obviously service enhancements reside in the server of the provider and should a consumer decide to move to a different provider then they would check out the range of service enhancements that provider is able to supply and then port over. It is a fallacy to suggest that enhancements (apart from those that are proprietary of course) are only restricted to a specific provider!
So if the FCC brings in a tech expert that petition would be exposed and its real intentions (to hang on to customers) would be revealed.
The reality here is twofold: the majority of modern off-the-shelf Videophones available today use SIP. SIP phones must call home for a configuration, and must register with a SIP Registrar for service. More importantly, to get two SIP phones to communicate, custom signalling fixup is neccesary to get the headers into a format that is compatible between two SIP videophones.
The magic that you don’t see behind VRS providers that sell and service SIP based videophones resides in their platforms.
Sorenson has been petitioning the FCC for a while to support their “industry devised” (ie, PROPRIETARY) protocol to “lock in” VRS videophones to use a horrible SIP registration hack they devised to allow “videophones to be portable between default providers”. After SIP Registering, Sorenson is promoting the idea that VRS videophones should be able to send a SIP INVITE, and get a 302 SIP response to a h323:// URL.
Here’s the fun part folks: doing this BREAKS ALL SIP PHONES ON THE MARKET. It not only “embraces and extends” (think Microsoft terminology here) the SIP protocol to do something that NO VENDOR SUPPORTS, it also has the added benefit of giving you a brain-dead phone that has virtually no enhanced services.
Simply put, you will no longer be able to buy an off-the-shelf hearing videophone and have any hope of making VRS calls to other videophones. If that protocol is embraced, ALL VIDEOPHONES WILL HAVE TO TALK THAT BROKEN PROTOCOL. Vendors like Tandberg (aka Cisco now), or Polycom, or take your pick of any other videophone vendor, really don’t want to have anything to do with this custom firmware to handle custom protocols devised by engineers that are really trying to lock customers into limiting their future options for videophones.
You can’t buy a EDGE/1xRTT/CDMA cellphone from Verizon and have your cellphone work on AT&T’s HSDPA/EVDO/GPRS/GSM network. The technologies are incompatible. Port your number to a new cellphone, and get service. That is functionally equivalent. The hearing world does this today.
Even if the wireless radio technology is compatible, you can’t take a Verizon cellphone and use it with Sprint unless you UNLOCK it. An unlocked phone costs _hundreds_ of dollars more than a locked phone, for the simple fact that a provider didn’t subsidize the cost of the phone in the first place.
And that’s the big issue here. VRS providers are subsidizing videophones for their customers based solely on the revenue that those phones have a promise to produce. Think of the investors. What kind of investor is going to spend millions of dollars buying hardware to subsidize for customers unless there is some kind of eventual return on investment?
As for incompatibility, Videophones are even worse. Beyond the simple signalling differences, there are video CODEC incompatibilities (multiple profiles for H.264 for example), NAT traversal issues, and general interop problems that cause any VRS provider a headache to add another videophone to the Neustar iTRS dialplan and have any hope of calls working correctly.
That some providers have decided to subsidize off the shelf hearing videophone hardware and integrate it into the VRS environment to make P2P calls (which are also not revenue producing) speaks volumes to the technical adeptness of those providers.
Please, think about what I’ve said above. There are two sides to this story. Sorenson’s side isn’t as innocent as you might seem to think it is.
Isn’t this similar to the cellphone market where the phones are locked to a certain provider? Functional equivalency?
What is it that providers want? Competition? Functional equivalency? Or these arguments are used only to get what they want?
If they want cake, they have to eat it too.
This is not a cafeteria where the providers get to pick what they want.
Providers should want what is best for their customers.
Speaking for at least one provider, we want both competition and functional equivalency. Both serve our customer, and both are critical to the health of the industry.
We want to eat the cake. But for the sake of functional equivalency, we want to make sure that the customer is getting a cake that isn’t single sourced from one bakery. We want a variety of cakes from a variety of specialty shops, using the best locally grown ingredients possible.
As for not being a cafeteria, I think you’re missing the point. The FCC sometimes mandates things, like removal of 800 numbers from the iTRS database. Some providers follow these non-functional equivalent directions like sheep (ie, Sorenson). Some providers refuse to follow them for the benefit of their customers and the industry as a whole, and believe they are doing the right thing.
Porting numbers is the right thing. Porting phones is not. Take it from an Engineer that fully understands the technical issues involved here. Or don’t.
Read the FCC mandates yourself if you like. Take some off-the-shelf videophones and try to make them work with the FCC iTRS dialplan. Make sure those phones can call all other videophones in the market. Then come back here and comment as an educated citizen.
Mr. VRS Engineer, whoever you are, I think its healthy to have this discussion so as to become educated about what this issue really means. Not everyone out there, hearing or deaf, understands petitions. To make it short and sweet, hearing people buy their phones from a specific vendor with a service plan they like, and can get a telephone number with it. Later if they do not like the service or device they signed up with, they can then go to a new vendor they purchase a new device and service plan with that vendor, however, they can move/take with them (port) their telephone number from old vendor to new one. Deaf likewise should be afforded the same equal opportunity. This petition is not about moving from one telephone number to another. This petition addresses the equipment issue, primarily because not every Provider offers equipment but for those who do, CSDVRS, SnapVRS, Purple, and Sorenson are not able to port each others device features to their exclusive product they market. For CSDVRS ie., Z VRS videophone equipment, to take on SorensonVRS features, they would have to revamp their platform to make it technically feasible to allow the consumer who was with SorensonVP200 with all its features. Currently, likewise is true for hearing persons, cannot port a Verizon telephone product to a Sprint telephone/service plan with all its features.
What everyone, deaf and hearing alike can do is, move (port) their telephone number from one vendor/Provider to another.
Hope this helps.
> For CSDVRS ie., Z VRS videophone equipment, to take on
> SorensonVRS features, they would have to revamp their platform
> to make it technically feasible to allow the consumer who was with
> SorensonVP200 with all its features.
Unfortunately, it is more insidious than that.
Due to Sorenson’s firmware changes, their phones are not “off-the-shelf” videophones:
1. The VP200 calls home to Sorenson via a proprietary encrypted HTTPS request to get the configuration, addressbook, and otherwise “register” to Sorenson’s service.
2. When VP200 dials a 10 digit number, it makes a proprietary encrypted HTTPS request to request to Sorenson to obtain a H.225 gateway to signal to. The phone then tries to do a H.225 SETUP message to that gateway, which then sends the phone a Facility Redirect response to bounce the phone to the IP address Sorenson thinks is correct for the number dialed.
Or you can configure the VP200 to use Sorenson’s SIP/H.323 made up “protocol” to allow the VP200 to register to another provider using SIP Register messages and have the SIP proxy redirect the phone to h323: IP addresses whenever the customer tries making phonecalls.
There is not one hearing off-the-shelf videophone that works this way. The H.323 device manufacturers use something called H.323 Gatekeeper Registration. The VP200 does not support this mode of operation.
More importantly: the one IP per telephone number thing is entirely an artificial limitation of the way that Sorenson phones are currently programmed to work. There is absolutely no reason why you cannot technically have MANY phones behind the same IP address, and a port mapping is NOT necessary if you have functional NAT traversal working in the videophone.
Instead of adopting an industry standard way of handling H.323 dialing, Sorenson made one up. They started having technical discussion phonecalls where they devised a way to embrace and extend the SIP protocol to do something that is not documented or supported in any IETF RFC or ITU specification. Their answer to the FCC mandate that phones be portable was to make up a protocol that directly impedes the ability for any other provider to go to a H.323/SIP device vendor and purchase an off-the-shelf videophone for their needs.
If any other provider adopts this Sorenson self pronounced “standard”, they will need to convince the manufacturers to add thier completely made up “protocol” to the firmware in their phones.
Sorenson has a staff of developers to create custom firmware for that single DLink DVC-2000 videophone. They aren’t going to release the source code for that firmware to their competitors. It is in their best interest to devise any business means possible so that competitors cannot “take over” their subsidized devices.
I agree entirely with Sheri A. Farinha, whoever you are.
The functionally equivalent way of handling this problem is to port phone numbers to devices that are subsidized and supported by their default providers.
Port numbers. Not phones.
The engineering reasons behind this are numerous.
I believe porting is not a problem. Take ZVRS for instance. I don’t know how it’s possible but I have a number with them and guess what? That number works on my VP-200 whereas I also still receive calls with my Sorenson #! So I am not a whiz with this but the logic is sound to me. We should have the same rights to choose our provider. Why should we have 5 different VRS # when we only need one, if not 2 of them for backup reasons. We should be able to just take the number we want and carry it to another provider if we wish. This isn’t a monopoly like Microsoft did years ago and lost. We have the right to choose the provider we want. I think this is just a ‘sneeze’ in the other direction to keep their customers from changing numbers but hey folks, the database that provides us with phone numbers shouldn’t be abused. I know one guy who has 5 numbers with 5 different providers and they all come up on the VP200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m amazed myself.
VP-100; VP-200; MVP; VPAD; VPAD+; Z-150; Z-340. I can understand that those phones can’t be ported.
But what about the OJO? Why can’t it be ported from Snap to Z or vice versa?
If a VRS Provider came up with a platform for Tandberg 150 or 340. Why not allow the Z-150/340 to be ported to the that VRS platform or vice versa? Isn’t it like formatting Windows off the computer then installing Linux instead? Isn’t that functional equivalent?
VRS User:
If you point all of your phone numbers at the same IP address in the iTRS database, and you put your Sorenson VP200 on that IP address to listen on TCP 1720, all of then numbers will ring that phone.
If you have a ZVRS ZPhone, you should call up your customer service and ask for a ZConnect address which will make your phone number ring your ZPhone instead.
This way, you can have your individual ZPhones ring when called by phone number, and you don’t need any port mapping or extra IP addresses from your ISP.
Consumer Driven:
There are multiple things to consider there.
The first, where does the phone “call home” to pull down its initial configuration. Think of this as functionally equivalent to a LOCKED cellphone. Ojos are manufactured by Worldgate, and you need to contact them to “UNLOCK” the phone and point it at a different provider’s configuration server. The same is true for the Creative InPerson phone, you would need to contact Creative and convince them to “UNLOCK” the phone so that it points at a different provider’s configuration server. Every phone is different.
The second, what protocols need to be supported by the new provider’s platform to provide this configuration. Every phone has its own HTTP/HTTPS protocol for auto-configuring the phone. There is no standard for this. When the phone calls home for a configuration, it is told which H.323 gatekeeper or SIP registrar to register with, and which credentials to use.
The third: after a videophone knows where to register to and what credentials to use, it needs to discover what kind of NAT firewall it is behind. Either with STUN/TURN/ICE with SIP, or with H.460.18/19 or H.460.23/24 for H.323. This is all well documented in the VoIP standards.
The fourth: the videophone then needs to do its SIP/H.323 registration. Most videophones are fairly interoperable at this level, but some do try to register without fully formed URIs or otherwise need special workarounds on whatever SIP registrar you setup to handle that specific model of phone.
The fifth: now that the phone is registered, and NAT traversal and/or pinholing is working to that device through your gateway for return signalling, you need to start worrying about signalling interop between this specific device’s protocol flavor and the signalling protocol flavor used by other videophones. While H.323 is pretty good about this, there are still things like “Fast Start” and other nuances that can cause some interesting interop headaches. SIP is actually quite horrible about interop, every vendor interprets the RFC specs their own way. You end up doing all kinds of fancy tap dancing on your signalling platform to get two SIP devices to talk to one another reliably.
The sixth: assuming you can get a H.323 SETUP / H.245 media path setup working through the NAT, or you can get a SIP INVITE / SDP headers to be well formed for interop with other devices, you need to consider the video CODEC differences between devices and how they negotiate. Many modern videophones don’t suport H.261/H.263 at all, and many only support the basic H.264 profile.
Implementing videophones and getting interop to work is far more difficult than you might think.
It’s not as simple as “formatting windows off the computer and installing linux instead”. Even if you have the same model of device, you will need your own custom firmware (think “write your own Operating System from scratch”) to get that phone to talk to your backend configuration infrastucture and signalling platform.
ZackS: How were you able to port your videophone? I cannot find information about porting videophone on several providers’ web site. I’d like to learn more about it without all the engineering jargon. Can you or someone provide useful links where I can learn more about this? Thanks.
Todd: ZackS sounds like he ported his VP-200 phone number to a Ojo with ZVRS.
The phone number was ported from Sorenson to ZVRS.
ZVRS would have assigned that phone number to his new Ojo.
The VP-200 should no longer use that phone number to identify itself.
Todd and VRS Engineer:
I best post exactly what happened. I got my first VP-200 with Sorenson about a year ago. I learned how to use it. Worked very well but then I never actually knew there were other VRS companies.
I changed my ISP. The ISP gave me an new DSL high speed modem. Sorenson helped at first configuring my new modem to work with the VP-200. Then in a week or so I discovered whenever I called into Sorenson VRS to make relay call I was getting a black screen (I could not see the VRS interpreter at all, but I could recieve calls as in the “missed calls” feature. I could NOT call the misssed calls back on the VP-200 because of the black screen.
I contacted Sorenson Tech Support to have them set up my VP-200 so I could use it and call back the missed calls (LONG list).
To make story short- Sorenson Techs could NOT configure the router after several attempts and I could NOT use the VP-200 really. They kept me waiting for almost a month, blaming me for changing the settings, etc (I did NOT). Finally they said they would send a “Field Tech” to my house. I had to wait even longer because it turned out the “Field Tech” was in Japan or something and had to wait.
I told Sorenson: What about all the missed calls? I was losing business and had many calls on the missed calls list? (Also I was NOT sure the VP-200 could call 911 in an emergency). Sorenson DID NOT CARE. Kept pointing fingers and made all kinds of excuses.
I decided to purchase an different VP because of all that. I was offered an free OJO from ZVRS if I had the VP-200 number ported to the new Ojo.
I needed an VP badly and took the offer. The Ojo came and worked well right out of the box, but I had to wait about 3 weeks or so to have the VP-200 number ported to the new Ojo. (I do think the ZVRS Tech/Customer support is MUCH better than Sorenson).
The Ojo worked well and I finally had the VP number ported to the Ojo. Problem came when I needed to return or make calls to someone using an VP-200 on the Ojo.
You guessed right- Whenever I tried to call an VP 200 I was shunted to an VRS Interpreter. These VP-200′s were in State Offices I needed to contact, and some Local colleges. Needless to say I could not get thru to them and other friends locally whom used VP-200′s.
Sorenson Customer Service/Tech support simply DID NOT CARE about the fact I could not use their product for at least a month.
This whole thing has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I notice that the calls to my VP number (via the Ojo) have dropped off dramatically to almost ZERO. I believe that the people with VP-200′s simply cannot reach my Ojo.
I hope this makes clear the actual situation.
Z
ZackS:
> (With the VP200) I could not see the VRS interpreter at all, but I could recieve calls as in the “missed calls” feature. I could NOT call the misssed calls back on the VP-200 because of the black screen.
If you called Sorenson for VRS, you are initially put into an IVVR queue that plays the SVRS greeting video. If this was black, you probably had a NAT issue on your firewall/router.
Sorenson doesn’t actually leave that call up when the call is answered, however. They actually send an H.225 releaseComplete and then the interpreter’s videophone calls you back directly (establishing another video call). Technically, a VRS provider is not supposed to call you back to establish a call, but this is what they do.
As for calls showing up on your VP-200 as “missed call”, this is a “feature” of the VP-200 firmware. If a 10 digit destinationAddress is supplied in the H.225 signalling for a inbound video call to a VP-200, the VP-200 compares that 10 digit number to the number the phone knows as its local phone number and its DirectVP number (tollfree number). If the 10 digit number is neither of those, the VP-200 will IMMEDIATELY send a releaseComplete (hangup) to the calling phone and show that call as a Missed Call in the VP-200 interface.
You might contact Sorenson and ask them why your VP-200 is rejecting valid inbound video calls from their Video Interpreters. You could use your Ojo to make that call to Sorenson, if Sorenson didn’t actually hang-up and then call you back (seeing that you have problems with inbound Ojo video calls at present).
> I believe that the people with VP-200’s simply cannot reach my Zojo.
If you have ZConnect and are unable to receive inbound calls, I’d wager it is probably a firewall/router that is blocking fragmented UDP SIP INVITE messages. The solution to this problem is to enable fragmented UDP datagrams on your firewall/router, or replace your firewall/router with a device that supports stateful inspection on re-assembled fragmented UDP datagrams (as it should).
If you can receive calls from other Zojo phones, but not from non-Z phones, this is probably what you are facing.
Again, the complexity involved with video calls is much higher than many would lead you to believe.
VRS Engineer:
Thank you for the explanation. I do not use the VP-200 any more.
I did ask Sorenson why valid inbound video calls were rejected (in some other words), but they did not or would not tell me why, and like I said they took over a month without solving the problem. Their Tech support made me jump thru a lot of hoops.
I just felt they had no interest in keeping me as a customer and it was time to move on.
Z
Hello,
I read all hose email and course it old message.
Zacks, I understand what you been waiting from VRS employee didn’t came over and get the fix.
It hard to believe that the technical support couldn’t do anything that much because they have access remote to fixing the videophone, I am using VP200, and that person helpful and explain all that setting.
I have seen another technical person do is simple and explain short that not explain what happen or anything. I know sometime the firewall went out of blue to update without me know the new firmware on router.
The tech person that I talk on videophone while it has issue black screen or people can’t call me that keep shows the missed call listing. The tech support did modify to allow me to see tech person and we talk.
Tech person explain that sometime if black screen remain stuck and do hopefully that I check the email that further get videophone work.
Remote control access is truly hero but not know why that whoever person from tech support isn’t helpful.
However; after that fix and don’t have problem ever since that tech support explain and prefer to set firewall as port forward or port rules without conflict with other VRS device such as I have Z ojo. If the router still as DMZ isn’t good suggest because that black screen issue plus other device have UPnP that scanning and use that DMZ. Since the DMZ is disabled and that device can’t use DMZ and rule out to use SIP.
Again… sorry about you wait that long. As today, I over heard that who trainer is no longer contractor and become full or part time employee and wipe the trainer lot of them out.
I don’t know how trainer is doing and think have some respect to trainer who is try to do best schedule appointment each one of us.
What that VRS Engineer explain and make sense
HOWEVER… it a port number not the videophone itself that blaming Sorenson.
If I want change to different VRS, it can use VP200 with other VRS but not same feature like missed call, video mail and so on. Similar with cellular phone have miss some feature but still able use phone.
Happy reading..
> However; after that fix and don’t have problem ever since that tech support explain and prefer to set firewall as port forward or port rules without conflict with other VRS device such as I have Z ojo. If the router still as DMZ isn’t good suggest because that black screen issue plus other device have UPnP that scanning and use that DMZ. Since the DMZ is disabled and that device can’t use DMZ and rule out to use SIP.
And this is most of the problem with the Sorenson model of deploying videophones. A deaf consumer should not need to concern themselves with DMZs and port fowarding. Modern videophones support NAT traversal techniques via a registrar/gateekeper such as SIP STUN/ICE/TURN and H.323 H.460.18/19 and H.460.23/34. Doing this, these videophones don’t need to concern themselves with port forwarding.
Sorenson’s VP200 requires a DMZ or port forwarding as it does not use a registrar/gatekeeper model.
The first most common problem is that some routers have Application Layer Gateways (ALGs) that try to “help” fixup devices that are not NAT aware. By doing so, they interfere and rewrite packets outbound in a way that breaks phones trying to use NAT traversal techniques.
The second most common problem is that routers have broken firewall rules that do other bad things, like drop fragmented UDP datagrams, ICMP packets, or otherwise block ports for reasons that are dubious at best.
The third common problem is asymmetric or otherwise confused NAT implementations on these routers/firewalls that break NAT traversal techniques such as STUN/ICE, which requires advanced techniques like TURN – which still does not guarantee NAT traversal.
These unfortunate design decisions by the router/firewall vendors cause particularly tricky problems for RTP media based protocols like video telephony.
Every router/firewall is different. Every VERSION of every router/firewall is different. Sometimes there are hardware revision issues to updating a given router/firewall to a given software version…
It’s difficult to explain to a consumer why their router isn’t adequate for the videophone they’re trying to use. A customer just wants it to work. They don’t care why it doesn’t work. They also don’t want to spend money on a router/firewall that is known to work – they already bought one that worked with their last H.323 videophone. Unfortunately that router has a SIP ALG that breaks their new SIP based videophone.
It’s even more problematic for companies with large firewalls where they’ve spent a large sum of money installing and configuring for their enterprise, only to find that it is entirely incapable of dealing with their videophones when the time comes to install them.
> What that VRS Engineer explain and make sense
Thank you. I really want customers, and the industry as a whole, to understand how things work and the challenges we face.
> HOWEVER… it a port number not the videophone itself that blaming Sorenson.
Sorenson is causing themselves quite a bit of grief on the number porting front. Look at the recent ECFS comment filings.
> If I want change to different VRS, it can use VP200 with other VRS but not
> same feature like missed call, video mail and so on. Similar with cellular
> phone have miss some feature but still able use phone.
It’s more complicated than that. Far more complicated.
Your cellphone is locked to the carrier that subsidized it. That subsidization means that if you change service you get to pay a very hefty Early Termination Fee (ETF). After paying that fee, your phone is generally still locked to that carrier. T-Mobile will unlock phones out of contract, and other providers will unlock phones for a fee. There are also questions of radios and frequencies.
Engineering wise, if you were a SNAP OJO customer, you could unlock your phone and put the ZVRS firmware on it. Doing so, however, would make SNAP rather angry as they subsidized the cost of the OJO phone. It would be stealing. This is why ZVRS WILL NOT USE YOUR OLD OJO PHONE. They will, however, sell you a subsidized ZOJO phone that works the same.
Your Sprint or Verizon (UMTS/1XRTT/CDMA) phone will not work with AT&T or T-Mobile (HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM) as not only are the radio frequencies completely different, the encoding is entirely incompatible. The phones are not interchangeable: the technologies are incompatible.
Your AT&T phone (900MHz, 1800MHz) will not get 3G on T-Mobile’s network (1700Mhz, 2100Mhz), nor will T-Mobile’s network get 3G on AT&T’s network. The radio frequencies are incompatible: the radio inside each carrier’s cellphone is different. The GSM/GPRS 2G network works for both phones, however, as they can both use 1900Mhz.
But you can merrily port the phone number from any of those carriers to any other carrier and get a new phone for the new carrier.
Sounds like functional equivalency to me.
Sorenson has absolutely no interest in running separate SIP servers for Creative InPerson phones, Worldgate Ojo phone, or Viable VPADs. They do not want to build a proprietary web services backend as did Purple for their MVP. They also have no interest in running H.460.18/19 gatekeepers for Tandberg T150s to register to.
Purple and CSDVRS likewise have no interest in building a proprietary HTTP backend as Sorenson has done for their VP200, nor do they want to do H.225 facility redirect based call direction for P2P calls as the VP200 uses to make iTRS calls today.
Sorenson wants to make up their own SIP protocol abomination that uses REGISTER messages to find the IP of a phone, and redirects a phone to an h323: URI when it tries making a call. There are no videophone vendors that will ever offer an off-the-shelf videophone that uses this protocol. Not only was it not created by a standards body, it would require that SIP only videophones have a full H.323 stack on them. Most new videophones shipping today are SIP only. H.323 is dying. Sorenson is trying to force their will on an entire industry. It simply will not happen.
If Sorenson gets their way, all other videophones will die. There will be only one videophone: the VP200. Deaf consumers deserve more than this.
I can go on and on, but I hope I’ve made my point.
An update……. I was contacted by a Sorenson training manager. We met together, and determined that my VP problems were because of an DSL modem provided by my ISP. The ISP had only one modem type that will work with my DSL service. Could not substitute this modem.
We managed to bridge the DSL modem to an different brand that is known to work with VP-200′s. This was easy to do as long as you know what settings to change in both modems to set them up.
Right now it seems to be working fine. I am not thrilled by having to use TWO modems.
At least the Sorenson manager did listen to my concerns about it took way far too long for their Tech Support to get around to assisting me.
At least they seem to be trying to listen to customer’s concerns by sending a live person to talk with them, and try to solve any problems a customer is having.
internet , modems, land… there always a problem with that gizmos. i hate the error about conection.
SEETECH
I’m a hearing person that has grown up Deaf. Both of my parents are Deaf and it would be nice to call them 3 states away. I’ve had no problems connecting to their Sorensen VP200 by using the Viable Vision software. It worked well for around a year. However; early this month the software quit. There have been no major changes to my home network (no new modems, firewalls or computer changes). I can contact a VRS interpreter with ease, although i don’t have a 10 digit number. I just can’t connect to their VP anymore. It acts like it dials and instantly disconnects without any error messages. Dialing their IP address via Netmeeting works but the video is always poor quality with that program. I also installed Viable Vision on a completely different machine and am getting the same results. I would use P3 but since I’m techinally not deaf I don’t qualify for a 10 digit number.
I have found a Linux based program that I can use on my Ubuntu machine; it supports SIP address dialing and h.323 protocol, but I don’t know what their SIP address is using a VP200. Would it be their IP adreess with @sorenson.net on the end or what?
This has been frustrating to me and that’s saying something. I am a weapons radar engineer and have a good understanding of computers. It’s a shame that there isn’t a standard protocol that the FCC requires to be followed to ensure interconnectivity between videophones. I do believe porting a number from one provider to another should be available instantly, cell phone work this way. Porting hardware however is different. I’m not buying a commercial videophone because I don’t know if it will connect to Sorensen’s hardware.
I am a hearing person who grew up in the Deaf community. Both of my parents are Deaf and I have been happy with using relay services to call them. About a year ago, I installed Viable Vision and used it to to P2P conversations with their VP200. It worked very well until about 2 weeks ago. Now when I call them Viable Vision instantly hangs up. It says SIP is registered and h.323 is fine before I call. My parents never see a missed call or anything. Did Sorensen block Viable Vision? I can dial their IP address with netmeeting and connect but the video has always been poor with NM.
I also installed Vision onto my daughters computer to see if that was the problem to no avail. I can call a VRS interpreter, but not another VP. Nobody in my house is deaf so I don’t qualify for a VP, and I don’t want to buy one only to find out that it won’t connect with their VP.
I have a third machine with Linux installed. It has a program that supports SIP dialing and h323 protocol. What SIP number would I dial for their VP? Would it be SIP:theirIPaddress@sorenson.net?
It’s a shame that in todays world our military can launch a missle in CA and have it blow up a doghouse in Hawaii, but there isn’t a standard for videophones. Numbers should be allowed to be ported to another provider but not equipment. Then again, most users aren’t paying a dime for their equipment so if you change services you should have to return the hardware or be fined. You can’t use a DirecTV box with cable or DishNetwork, but you can still view the same channels. Allow peer-to-peer conections across videophones by requiring the same protocol to be used. It’s time to move to the future where all phones have video support. You’ve all seen it in movies.
Jerome
I feel your frustration. 98% of my Deaf friends use an VP-200 and I had the same problem you had with Vision Software (and other VP Software).
That is one reason I went back to Sorenson.
Right now the VP-200 is OK but I am having issues with my ISP-provided router and the VP-200. Right now I have it bridged to an D-Link 655.
Looks like same problem is coming back to haunt me as with that ISP provided router.
Suggestion: Can your parents use VP software if they have an computer at home?
Always nice to talk to the folks isn’t it?
Jerome:
Linux is still quite painful for video telephony, unfortunately. Ekiga (previously gnome-meeting) is flakey, and the alternatives are even more so. While you could try cluding together ohphone with video support, you’re still not going to be happy with that solution. Sadly, the best option you have is a virtualization layer like vmware or virtualbox running windows XP and a software client. It won’t be fast, unfortunately.
Sorenson doesn’t do SIP. There is no Sorenson SIP gateway to register or proxy through.
If you should happen to find a SIP proxy/registrar that lets you make deaf videophone calls, please let us know.
Current VRS provider’s federated SIP networks, like every hearing provider’s federated SIP networks, are locked down so that only their phones can register and place calls through them.
There are a number of other software clients out there to consider as alternatives to Viable Vision (an older Mirial soft-client): Purple’s P3 (from vidsoft.de), and ZVRS Z4 (the newest Mirial soft-client) are great alternatives.
Still, as a hearing CODA, you’re trapped in a rather un-fair middle ground thanks to how the government restricts the VRS industry. Thanks to the FCC, it is not legal to knowingly allow a hearing person the ability to sign up for VRS service – which by default is why a VRS provider subsidizes the price of a videophone, and the cost of providing bandwidth and infrastructure for their VRS service.
Unfortunately, this drives many CODA to illegally sign up for VRS service. If you sign well enough to convince an interpreter that you are deaf, it’s difficult to detect the subterfuge. This is not an ethical practice.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some legal options, just that there aren’t many at the moment.
ZVRS will sell a hearing customer a Z phone that can only call other Z phones. The phone number assigned is NOT put into the iTRS database, as only deaf videophone numbers are allowed there by the FCC. The phone’s cost is NOT subsidized (you pay full price for the Z phone), and there is a re-occurring $10 monthly service fee as you will never be using ZVRS’s VRS service from that phone.
VRS providers really _do_ want to bridge hearing video telephony to the deaf world. The question is how VRS providers can do so within the current rules. By throwing up the iTRS wall and the limitations of only putting deaf numbers in the iTRS database ensures that there will forever be a deaf/hearing wall between the two respective videophone networks.
Looks like I’m just going to have to set up either oovoo or skype on my parents computer. I’ll just run a VGA cable from their computer to the input of their LCD TV, it’s only about 10 feet away and could do the same with a camera. What a pain though.