For several years, I've run 3 VOIP phones from my house. About a week ago they stopped working. SIP REGISTER started failing.<p>Turns out Spectrum now blocks TCP/UDP port 5060. My workaround is to use a VPN. After that, everything is fine.<p>This reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/t8nulq/spectrum_is_rate_limiting_voipsip_traffic_port/ suggests Spectrum was rate limiting 5060 on 300mbps plans, but not on the 100mbps plans.<p>I have the 100mbps plan, and it is definitely affected now.<p>So if you are in SoCal, using Spectrum, and your VOIP phones suddenly stopped working in the last week or so, maybe this will help you.
At least where I am in SoCal, AT&T literally just deployed fiber with plans up to 5 gigabit/s. I'm so glad to be leaving Spectrum behind, because when moving here I never thought I'd have a cable Internet provider that made me miss Comcast...<p>So hopefully you have some other options soon. :)
My ISP breaks traceroute <i>outside</i> of the network. <i>Their</i> transit is cut out of my traceroutes.<p>Full technical story at
<a href="https://blog.habets.se/2022/05/Another-way-MPLS-breaks-traceroute.html" rel="nofollow">https://blog.habets.se/2022/05/Another-way-MPLS-breaks-trace...</a>
Guess they want you to pay for their bundled phone plan instead. I’m guessing you can bring this to their attention and get some boilerplate response containing words like “abuse” and “safety”. Prognosis: This will go to court on common carrier terms and the block will be lifted in 3-4 years.
My call quality also seems better since I've switched on the VPN. I do not have numerical proof of this, but it sure seems like my voice calls are crystal clear now.
FWIW, when I lived in Seattle I found that Lumen's DSL service blocked it as well. It wasn't an obvious block, though. It was either some DPI or size-based filtering. I wrote it up here for posterity:<p><a href="https://blog.prolixium.com/2021/01/23/does-centurylink-dsl-block-sip/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.prolixium.com/2021/01/23/does-centurylink-dsl-b...</a><p>It worked just fine through Comcast's Xfinity service (although at the time, that service had other critical issues for me..) and I have no problem now with Verizon Fios.
It looks like port 5060 is becoming less common on their networks:<p><a href="https://trends.shodan.io/search?query=port%3A5060+org%3Acharter%2Cspectrum#facet/overview" rel="nofollow">https://trends.shodan.io/search?query=port%3A5060+org%3Achar...</a>
Fuck spectrum. They’re the worst. Drop them for a better carrier.<p>A critical service is nonfunctional. You should not have to VPN for your internet service to work. I can’t believe I even have to say that.