Unrestricted APN

Do you want/need an APN that allows connections initiated from outside the APN?

  • No thanks, no idea what this means - don't think it applies to me

    Votes: 17 8.5%

  • No thanks, I know what it means and I will never need it

    Votes: 15 7.5%

  • Yes please, for [desktop or other] remote support

    Votes: 110 55.3%

  • Yes please, for hosting

    Votes: 61 30.7%

  • Yes please, for some other reason explained in my post in the thread

    Votes: 27 13.6%

  • I clicked a 'Yes' option above, and am prepared to accept the risk of being hacked

    Votes: 93 46.7%

  • I clicked a 'Yes' option above, and am NOT prepared to accept the risk of being hacked

    Votes: 6 3.0%
  • Total voters
    199
Nope, didn't know about internetvpn (As I'm new to forum I may learn a lot... went to conference on Tuesday which got me hooked).

Will I be able to use port 21 (FTP), 3389 (RDP), 5900 (VNC), 4899 (Radmin) & 1723 (VPN)
 
ic said:
As a rule of thumb, if you need any inbound ports open on a Vodacom connection, then you need to be using the unrestricted APN, if you don't need inbound ports opened but do need a publicly routable non-NAT'ed IP address then the internetvpn APN will do just fine.
Click to expand...

Yup,

ic, I've type it up so often, can you move one of the 'apn overview' posts I've posted to the beginning of the thread?
 
ic said:
Unfortunately I cannot shift the order of existing posts, but give me a moment and I will create a post #1 for you that you can edit to collate that info...

<edit>Ok done, I created a copy of your post #1 from the FAQ thread and placed the copy in this thread, so you now have post #1 in this thread.</edit>
Click to expand...

Cool, now I need to find the posts where I described all the APN's (hint, hint...;))
 
Another question related to Unrestricted APN... (not sure whether this has been asked before)

What's the difference between a standard ADSL account from Webafrica (as en example) and an Unrestricted APN from Vodacom ?

I don't have to ask for 'ports' to be opened when applying for an ADSL account with other ISP's.
 
pls be a little more specific...
eg: difference...there are many, what are you referring to exactly?
also,:

"I don't have to ask for 'ports' to be opened when applying for an ADSL account with other ISP's."

are you asking or stating this?
 
specifally relating to incoming 'ports' being blocked ie.

If I open a Internet account with Mweb,Webafrica, Telkom etc 'ports' such as 3389,21,5900 etc etc are not blocked (incoming).

The standard internet account with the 3G Vodacom card seems to block most incoming 'ports'

Hope this makes it clearer...
 
Brad@Bois said:
Another question related to Unrestricted APN... (not sure whether this has been asked before)

What's the difference between a standard ADSL account from Webafrica (as en example) and an Unrestricted APN from Vodacom ?

I don't have to ask for 'ports' to be opened when applying for an ADSL account with other ISP's.
Click to expand...

Blocking the incoming ports is an active effort of Vodacom's side to help protect people against network attacks.

It would be easy to open up all the incoming ports for everyone (probably easier than blocking it) but we'll then need to field a flood of "Why is my account so high? I did not use the data" type of queries as subscribers' PC's get infected with network viruses, get port-scanned, etc.

While not intentionally trying to slow the process down, I did make the request for opening up the ports a manual process where you have to sign on the dotted line, the reasoning being that you don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry deciding this apn sounds cool and auto-provision themselves. And then later complain about excessive charges. (It happens!)

I need to re-look at the process and see how we can streamline it. ic is also helping trying to figure out the best way.

I've asked for your number to be provisioned so it's probably already done. Will let you know.
 
V3G, is it possible, to ask for only a couple of ports to be opened, as opposed to having it all open by being on the Unrestr APN?

Thinking about it - its prolly not, cause that would mean EVERYBODY on a specific APN would have those couple of ports opened? Right?

What about creating a extra APN, with only a couple of extra ports open, like the default VPN and Remote Desktop ports?
Just a thought, leave it with you, use it, dont use it.... :-)
 
Nope, not good enough to restrict to certain band of ports... eg passive FTP I limit to a range of ports. A whole lot of other reasons as well which go beyond this topic.
 
hvr said:
V3G, is it possible, to ask for only a couple of ports to be opened, as opposed to having it all open by being on the Unrestr APN?

Thinking about it - its prolly not, cause that would mean EVERYBODY on a specific APN would have those couple of ports opened? Right?

What about creating a extra APN, with only a couple of extra ports open, like the default VPN and Remote Desktop ports?
Just a thought, leave it with you, use it, dont use it.... :-)
Click to expand...

I'm trying to reduce the number of apn's for various reasons, so creating more is going to be problematic. Soon I hope to have just 2:

- Internet - routable IP with blocked incoming ports
- Unrestricted - routable IP with open incoming ports

If we could trust Microsoft's security, we could open up common incoming ports such as desktop support, but......:rolleyes:
 
Hello. I have just gotten unrestricted APN. However the consultant couldnt tell me what to fill into the required fields except that at APN it should be "unrestricted"

What happens to the other fields:
User ID
Password
DNS1
DNS2

I have a HSDPA modem. The unrestricted APN is activated. However I dont think its working to its fullest potential
 
thize said:
Hello. I have just gotten unrestricted APN. However the consultant couldnt tell me what to fill into the required fields except that at APN it should be "unrestricted"

What happens to the other fields:
User ID
Password
DNS1
DNS2

I have a HSDPA modem. The unrestricted APN is activated. However I dont think its working to its fullest potential
Click to expand...

You can leave all these fields blank.

Why do you think it's not working?

What IP do you get when you connect? (do an ipconfig on the CMD line and post the output here)
 
Ok. You guys seem fast enough. I shall try and be more presice.

The short and sweet is Im using this for games. Spesifically Warcraft. In other words Battle.net
I also use it for internet browsing but for that normal apn is fine.

However because my ports were blocked i was being kicked after a couple of minutes because i was apparantly idle. Which isnt true. This should have been fixed when my unrestricted accoutn was opened. Also my ping should have dropped from 120 to 20+-

However Im still getting disconnected and also my ping has stayed the same with me needing to reconnect sometimes to get better ping. Better ping because programs already loaded into memory. Thus focusing on coneection and speeding up process.

If u need more info on how battle.net works I can give that as well.

In the end I need my APN to allow me to show battle.net that im not idle and is in fact still communicating with the server whilst in a game. Normal port 6112 communication should do the trick. I tried with/without firewalls. Exceptions for/not for 6112.

Narra...

The main thing I can go on is the fact that someone else wiht unrestricted got smooth connection and no more disconnecting. I am getting help from people on the battle.net side as well to help out.

Also just lately my normal browsing has also slowed down considerably. This isnt spyware because my uploads/downloads were as normal for the page I was viewing. Also I have AVG installed. I also enabled/disalbed firewall for this instance and nothing changed.

So now my browsing is also actually affected come to think about it.

So give me your thoughts and let me know what other info u need.
 
You get an unique IP, so that should be OK.

What values are you getting for a ping? If the 120 you referred to is 120ms, then it's actually very good and you should not expect better on a mobile connection.

Run a speed test on http://speed.vodacom.co.za

What are your download/upload speeds?

Running on the unrestricted apn with no firewalls is VERY dangerous. And in a gaming environment. You're basically begging to be hacked.

AVG alone is not going to detect all malware. You also need to scan for rootkits (ugly little buggers) and spyware.
 
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