What Does Your ISP Block?
The only low cost broadband provider in my neighborhood is Comcast. I determined this evening that they block ports 135-139 and 445 TCP inbound and outbound. What ports does your ISP block? I am seriously considering getting a T-1 from Speakeasy.
Comments
Honestly I wouldn't even consider a T1 at home. Way too pricey for way too little bandwidth. True, it's far more reliable, and if it does go down it'll be back up quickly. But I can live with a total of a day or two a year of downtime for the price/performance difference. Full T1 is $500/month here, my 6 Mb down, 512 Kb up cable modem is $90/month. Unless downtime costs you dearly, or you really need the upload speed, T1's aren't the best solution.
Of course my cable provider's network is pretty solid. Low latency (30-50 ms), good speeds (full 6 Mb almost always, when the remote server can handle it), and not a whole lot of downtime. I know those things aren't true many times with residential broadband providers though, in which case a T1 might make more sense.
The idea was to assign this type of restriction to all home based subscriptions (with a drop out option) and unblocked to professional subscriptions.
From the ISP's side I can only say, and after accounting the reason for all the problems we must handle (abuse, spam, pishing, zombies, etc) and that reason being Windows based machines, that I agree with this practice.
From the customer side, and not as your ordinary Windows user, I wouldn't want to be limited in any way, and would require the ISP to allow me to choose, not having this imposed.
Btw, I find those prices high. Is there any limitation on traffic? (normal plans on my ISP have 20GB national and 2GB international traffic included)
That should be the case for any business-class connection no matter the ISP.
What he explained is how he manage to have an outgoing SMTP server at home by using the smart host feature.
My ISP at home only blocks 25 outbound like this, but all inbound ports are open. I like that :-).
I guess the problem with your current ISP is testing? I think the best solution would be to get cheap web hosting somewhere with ssh access, and make sure they're now firewalling anymore. You can then ssh to the box and use commands on the server, or even use ssh tunelling and redirect ports from your computer.
I saw that in the Merchandiser advert flyer that I get like bi-weekly on the south end of Manassas (~5 miles north of Dumfries on 234) that there is a wireless ISP called TRANSCON offering services. Doesn't give much detail, but you may want to call/try them. They claim service is available in all of Manassas, so you're probably in the area of coverage at both home & office locations. They say they'll have all of PWC covered in 2006.
Let us know what you find out.
Thomas
I could always change port numbers around, but why fiddle with remembering port numbers and setting up client packages special ways just to get my connection to work?
I wasn't exactly too happy about it, but I need the bandwidth and DSL in this area just can't provide 5Mb down, 512k up. I'd really be interested in seeing what can be done legally about this. If I'm paying for my bandwidth, I should be able to use it any way shape or form (within the law) that I choose.
My company operates a carrier and we filter ports based on subscription level exactly for this reason. We are responsible to our carrier to keep our network clean and to prevent abuse, so the accounts are tiered and priced based on risk of abuse and predicted bandwidth usage.
We do have special pricing options for low-usage customers who wish to run servers from home for non-business purposes, but each of us has to do his/her part to keep the malicious and/or annoying traffic controlled on the Internet to keep it a usable environment.