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.

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?

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.

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.

SEETECH

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.

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..