Friday, November 20, 2015

Adventures in Fixed Wireless

We are not able to get cable or fiber internet where I live we only have fixed wireless providers.  I thought I would share some of the technical issues I have with my provider (probably common to all fixed wireless providers) and some workarounds.

1. Vudu Streaming will not work.  The problem is multiple NAT firewalls between you and the internet.  With cable, DSL, etc. you have one NAT firewall (your wireless router).  With fixed wireless there multiple NAT firewalls (home, CPE, base station, ISP to internet) and Vudu can verify you are actually in the U.S.  There are two workarounds.  One option is to use Vudu's PC application that can download movies for offline.  The other better option is use flixster and connect it to you Ultra Violet account.  All your vudu movies are actually UV movies and you can access them from flixster.  All your movies will show up in both places and any movies you add to one will show up in the other.

2. abc.com will not work (same NAT issue as vudu).   The workaround is to pay for Hulu

3. OpenDNS Family Shield and Home parental controls don't work because the configuration is based on your internet IP address.  If losts of people share the same external IP address you can't configure it.  The workaround is to use Norton Connect Safe instead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_ConnectSafe.

4. Dynamic DNS will not work.  You can't connect to you home directly from an outside network using IPv4.  Workarounds are to use chrome remote desktop or TeamViewer.  Another options is setup IPv6 using sixxs.net https://www.sixxs.net/

Anyway if your a fixed wireless use hopefully this is helpful.

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