SFB Online in Saudi Arabia

Brass Contributor

Hi,

 

We have an office in Saudi Arabia, and the users over there complaint poor conference call quality everytime they join Skype meeting and started to happen recently since early June. Not a problem if they have P2P call over the MPLS.

 

We researched over the Internet, and many websites mentioned VOIP services are blocked in the country by local authorities. If this is truth, we might having trouble here as we're on SFB Online. The IP ranges, and FQDNs are shared partially with Skype for commercial as well.

 

Anyone has any information about SFB Online in Saudi Arabia?

 

Thanks.

4 Replies

Hi Wan.

 

In case the service is blocked by local authorities, users would expect limited connections and not poor call quality. 

 

If you meetings are hosted in a datacenter far far away, the datapackets can travel half way around the world, which can cause poor call quality. 

 

I would suggest you take a look at your CQD data and if possible your Advanced Call Analytics data, these could reveal some of the problem.

 

/Kenneth ML

Hi 

 

Middle-Eastern countries are really strict on the use of SIP based internet calls. Its a monopoly between the government and the telco's stating that all PSTN calls should traverse the telecom network and people should not be able to make a free call, or a call that bypasses local telecom call charges. 

 

For Skype consumer it is easy for the ISPs to block that traffic because its unencrypted, they can see the packets and block them. With Skype for Business it is a little bit harder because the packets are encapsulated by TLS.

 

However, what you may find is that the ISPs will apply traffic prioritisation policies to throttle suspicious traffic.

 

However, even if you could get around the restrictions, by bypassing the telco provider you may be commiting an offence that could lead to a fine or prison (check out the Dubai story). That said there is nothing stopping you using Skype for Business Online with Cloud Connector Edition. CCE will bridge the gap between cloud hosted accounts and PSTN in/egress localised to Saudi. Therefore when you place your calls to the PSTN you're using the telco in Saudi for it, but taking advantage of internal P2P calling.

 

This approach is the standardized model for all countries who have Toll-Bypass law enforcement.

Hi,

 

I did a pathping to the global.tr.skype.com (13.107.8.2) and it was obvious that the traffic hit a snag with 100% packet loss when exiting the Saudi Arabia's Internet backbone to the nearest MSN.net entry point located in the EU. We had escalated this to the ISP, but chances are thin to get it fixed.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Hi

 

That endpoint is Skype Consumer, not Skype for Business.