Hello,

I have a video conferencing device and I struggled a lot with a bunch of different routers. I was giving up but then I plugged in a friend's old Linksys/Cisco Adsl gateway and all the problems disappeared (kudos to Cisco). The problem is that the gateway is not ADSL2+. I have since borrowed a Linksys/Cisco ADSL2+ router, however, there isn't a possibility to enter port speeds/duplex manually (required to prevent packet loss in video conferencing, I really want to have that option for the peace of mind). I have been looking around on the internet but I can't seem to find this ability any routers' specs. What I need is as follows:

- Has to be Cisco or Linksys router
- Has to be ADSL2+ (Annex A)
- Doesn't have to be wireless, even single port is OK
- Preferably has DMZ
- Ability to hard code lan port speed/duplex (i.e. no autosense)
- No other functions needed so hopefully a cheap option

Anyone can recommend anything? Thanks in advance.

Cisco 887VA

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11063/index.html

_________________
---
David
CCIE R&S #38338, CCIP, CCNP

http://networkbroadcast.co.uk - My Blog
http://twitter.com/davidrothera

Bought that. What a waste of money. I set up my Linksys ports for H.323 in about 30 seconds. I had two professionals working on this thing for two days (remotely) and they didn't manage to get the same results (getting one way video). No support available, everyone is just stuck up. The commands are unnecessarily complicated, given that all I need is simple port forwarding that consumer grade routers can do and fixed LAN speed/duplex I am definitely returning this pile of garbage and never going back to Cisco again.

Sorry you had a bad experience but there is no need to call it a pile of garbage, no offense to your 'professionals' but if they were working on it for 2 days then you obviously got the wrong guys to look at it.

One other thing, you say no support is available but why if not anything else did you not post back here for help, after all there are a forum full of professionals (real ones) that could have helped you along...

_________________
---
David
CCIE R&S #38338, CCIP, CCNP

http://networkbroadcast.co.uk - My Blog
http://twitter.com/davidrothera

If I give you my log in credentials for the network, and all the details of it, and any of you guys manage to sort this out, I will pay £30.00 on PayPal. I think this is a pretty decent offer. I am not interested in how it all works behind the scenes and I have no interests in figuring the technicalities out, all I want to see is my video conferencing device working properly.

How much were you paying your "professionals"?

This was more or less the value of the bids, but I haven't paid anything out because they didn't manage to do it.

I call bullshit. That device does what was listed. Sounds like you don't know what this issue is.


Sent via mobile internet.

_________________
- Pete

Whatever, I am not mad, just a bit disappointed:) And yeah, it is possible that I don't know what the issue is. But what I do know is that I can send and receive video using my Zyxel P660-D1 £30 router and a bunch of other consumer-grade routers right out of the box, and I can't do that with this one. The only problem with consumer grade routers is that they don't allow to set fixed LAN port speed so I get some packet loss. It is possible that I don't know how to set it up, mostly because on consumer grade routers, if you want to forward port x to a private IP you enter the private IP and the port, then TCP/UDP and it does the job. In Cisco 887 the instructions look more like:

1. Define that the public IP is not a private IP, and also that it isn't a cucumber and definitely not an air conditioner;
2. Define that the private IP is not Richard Branson;
3. If you screw up the settings and wish to reset the router to factory settings, then you have to insert the router between your butt cheeks and jump up and down at 5 seconds intervals, pressing the reset button every 2 seconds with exactly 2 Nm of force; Then it might reset or not depending on your .config files and also what it feels like on that particular day;
4. Configuration can be accessed in just under an hour by entering the same username and password 743 times in a row and disabling half your PCs features. Every supplied configuration program is different and does not recognise each others' settings;
5. Cisco support is extremely efficient and run by automated bots, that operate using the following programming command: if query = problem write('CISCO is not for n00bs');

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ

Have a good day, no hard feelings.

Just post your issue. Someone will try help if they think they have an answer.

Sent via mobile internet.

_________________
- Pete

I have got another guy to confirm that the NAT is working fine. There's clearly some other issue. The previous guy said that my Polycom might be incompatible with the Cisco, and it seems to be the case. The video rate stays at 0k and the format at '----' and I can't receive or send video. Should I just return this or do you think there's a way of solving it?

Just spent another half a day with another guy (this one's got tons of Cisco qualifications) and the pile of junk clearly can't handle H323 packets, unlike my £30 Zyxel. What a waste.

What do you mean 'can't handle' ? It's just a packet. Or are you wanting some sort of ALG?

_________________
www.mellowd.co.uk/ccie/

Post the config up here for us all to look at along with details such as the IP for the VC unit and the port it is on etc.

_________________
---
David
CCIE R&S #38338, CCIP, CCNP

http://networkbroadcast.co.uk - My Blog
http://twitter.com/davidrothera

Hi,

yes please post config.

We have more then 100 Cisco 887 running and never had Problem (we also have 881, 886, ... more or less 1000 Routers)

regards
Michael

_________________
CCNA
http://www.netzwerkblog.info (German IT Blog)

I'll post the config up tomorrow when I am back in the office, but we messed it up a little bit by trying to program a routable IP (got 4 of those) which is different to that of the router, and then do a one to one NAT to that.

When we did the standard forwarding and then one to one NAT (this was done without routable IPs by the previous guy), the issue was that no video was being received, and only sometimes the video would be sent. Ports were forwarded properly according to some command that the guy typed in and the loop back video conferencing server. In the Polycom call statistics you can see what is being sent and what is being received. In the received column the video rate was often set properly, so something like 400k, but 'video rate used' would be 0k. Video format would always be --- instead of CIF or something like that. In the sent column you sometimes get video rate as something that looks normal, and the video format would sometimes be OK, while on other occasions it would be exactly the same as what I've just described when talking about the received column. In any case, I never got to see the video unfortunately. It is really frustrating. Could the router be faulty? It is an 887m-K9 by the way (not VA), but everything works really well apart from the Polycom HDX.

ohh, the fog is lifting,,,, Polycom, hummm,
I do remember a thread here a while ago that the Polycom don't do H.323 by default,
some configuration changes are needed to force them to support h.323

is there any video control software such as VCS express? or are the video units calling each other directly,
if directly, by ip address or by E.164 alias, or some other mechanism?

_________________
"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

Hi... Did anyone manage to resolve the issue between the Polycom HDX VC unit and the Cisco 887VA router...?