Author:
John
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Date Posted: 16:24:07 04/23/01 Mon
In reply to: Carl's message, "CUSEEME and Routers" on 16:24:07 04/23/01 Mon

I also think that the Asante Friendlynet Cable/DSL router, as well as the Linksys Etherfast router 
(which I owned for all of 2 days) are excellent routers. However I have had problems with CuSeeMe 
through the Linksys router even with Port Forwarding enabled.

Almost every router currently on the market has port forwarding (opening and closing specific ports 
online) capabilities; however, what I have found out from several technicians and salespersons that this 
feature doesn't always work. It really depends on the design of the firmware.

These ports aren't "physical ports" found on the router but are based on certain internet protocols.
 Think of them as virtual ports- almost like channels on a television set. It tells each host or client 
computer where to access, send or receive data. When you contact another computer for information 
say for example to download a shareware application to your computer from their FTP site. Your 
home or client computer has to go through certain "channels" or ports to get your file. Almost like 
turning a channel on your T.V. set for a certain show.

Problem is not all firmware; because it is essentially software written onto hardware, is good at 
accessing those channels (ports). Even if you were to open your router to send and receive all channels 
(in essence placing one of your client computers on your LAN (local area network) outside the router's 
firewall also known as DMZ hosting or demilitarized zone) you may not always appear outside the 
firewall to other computers on the WAN (internet) depending on how the firmware was coded. 
Apparently its not a very easy thing for programmers to do!

That's exactly the problem I had with the Linksys router. Although the linksys states that certain ports 
are open in reality the firmware wasn't able to open them so the admistrator is left confused. The 
linksys team verified that there is a problem with DMZ hosting and port enabling for certain 
multimedia applications even with all ports "opened".

So with the Linksys Etherfast Router, the only way I was able to run videoconferencing; which 
includes sending and receiving video telephone calls from my brother in Florida was to make sure one 
of my computers was directly and physically connected to my cable modem. (kind of defeats the 
purpose of having a router and defeats the practicality of video telephoning; in other words the only 
way for me to be able to receive phone calls from my relatives was to temporarily remove the router 
and reconfigure my TCP/IP settings on my computer and go through the hassle of resetting my cable 
modem each time I was to expect a video phone call) In the end I sent the Linksys Router back and did 
more research. As Tom's updated page states I found that the ZyXel Prestige line of routers were the 
only routers which explicitly stated support for CuSeeMe, quicktime, and other multimedia applications 
(games) so I felt safe with it. In the end the Zyxel worked exactly as advertised.

That's what I think every mac user who is contemplating on doing video conferencing in the future 
should check first. CuSeeMe is the most popular videoconferencing program for the mac right now. If 
you use a hardware router to share your internet connection with a desktop computer and as in my 
case a portable computer make sure it can do videoconferencing now or else in the future you may be 
upset. Just because your router is able to open or close ports doesn't guarantee that it will work. The 
Zyxel manufacturers were confident enough to believe in their router and firmware combination that 
they openly advertised CuSeeMe support.

I took this video telephoning a step further and was able to use my Apple Base Station as a wireless 
access point for my ibook. The Apple Base Station most likely would not be able to support CuSeeMe 
on its own due to the fact that it uses NAT translation to feed IP addresses to its client computers 
throught its DHCP server. The Airport Base Station also doesn't allow for a range of ports to be 
opened through its router which is required for CuSeeMe to work. I was however able to use the 
Airport as a wireless ethernet bridge and uplink it to my Zyxel with a crossover cable. You have to 
manually configure the Airport base station to do this. What's nice about this set up is that all the client 
computers are still protected behind the Zyxel's firewall and able to access other CuSeeMe users 
through its port forwarding capabilities.

In the end I have wireless videoconferencing with an internet connection through my router which is 
always on. So either my trusty old Powermac 6400 desktop or my ibook is able to accept calls 
provided that either of them is on. The beauty about using the ibook is that I do not need any external 
powersupply to do video conferencing. Just hook up a USB camera and mic and you are able to accept 
video phone calls while sitting on your toilet :)