My ports are blocked by my ISP

Pand3mik

Hey guys,

I'm living in the Strand apartments in Limerick and was told before moving in that our free internet connection was 2mb. At the moment i am getting about 0.4mb download speeds. There is an option to upgrade to a 8mb line but the problem isn't just speed, it's the ports that my ISP are blocking. The only port that is open is port 80. I'm an avid gamer and because of this i can not connect to Xbox Live and play online!

I emailed the ISP and they told me that they are not blocking any ports! What are my options, besides getting a 3rd party internet provider? Do any of ye guys have experiences of similar situations.

Thanks for your time in reading this.

dub45

It might help if you revealed the 'shocking secret' of who your isp is?

vibe666

you'll probably find that it's not your ISP but the router supplying the 'free' broadband to the apartments that is doing it.

i imagine they've just set up a customised (or not) router connected to a normal DSL or cable internet connection and closed off all the ports on it except the basics to stop t getting over used.

if it's free then you can't really complain if they're just offering a basic service. if you want better then I guess you'll have to start paying for it.

Knasher

From the sounds of things I'm guessing that the interent connection that your "ISP" (quotation marks because I'm guessing its not an actual ISP but just something run by the apartment owners) is providing you is simply a shared line among all of the apartments in your building. They are also probably not blocking any ports (as in you can connect out on any port) but you are behind a NAT firewall so you can't connect properly to XBL without being able to open incoming ports. Your abysmal speeds are probably because somebody else is downloading or because there are just so many people trying to use the service at once.

I'd ask your ISP if you sign up with them for the 8Mb service, is it an uncontended line or shared like before (I'd be guessing uncontended as it would be quite hard to give you the speed upgrade on a shared line) - it mightn't be completely uncontended as even with most full scale ISPs customers usually share lines, just as long as it isn't with the whole apartment block. Secondly I would ask if you would have publicly addressable IP address. If this is the case then you can buy your own router to share your line among your devices and XBL should work. If they don't have a minimum contract (an again I'm guessing here that it isn't a proper ISP) then you might be able to sign up for a month to just see what it is like.

jor el

If they're sharing a single connection to an entire apartment building, you won't be doing much gaming on it even if the ports were open to you. If they use a DHCP arrangement, which is likely, that makes port forwarding to a particular user very difficult, as your IP will vary. Getting them to understand what you need, and getting them to set it up correctly may be impossible.

Get your own broadband installed, UPC maybe, and then you have total control over it.

Cabaal

to be honest if its internet access provided by the apartment block I don't blame them for blocking ports, their ISP however is not blocking the ports.

Having lived in an apartment block were idiots constantly used crap like Kazaa ( because they could) it annoyed the hell out of everyone else as it made the network unusable.

PogMoThoin

Its more likely that an ISP would block port 80, if You do a check with this You'll see. They don't set out to block all ports, You'll find its a router firewall blocking Your console. They only block ports for security and financial reasons.