Hi List,

Remember a few weeks ago when I asked about Verizon and Echo Link.  I was 
having a problem with my friend's DSL connection and connecting to Echo 
Link.  He could connect to the general server but could not connect to any 
of the repeaters or other individual nodes.  There was some significant 
discussion on the list with some people saying that the Verizon routers just 
wouldn't allow this port enabling and others saying that they had no 
problems with Echo Link at all on their Verizon account.  Well, here is the 
resolution.  I was involved in a 3 way conversation with my friend and the 
tech support at Verizon.  After some initial instruction as to the 5198 to 
5199 UDP and 5200 TCP ports and after a number of failed attempts to get 
these ports active.  The tech support person tried enabling something called 
Static NAT.  Now I don't pretend to know just what this means, but I do know 
that it's nothing to do with giving the subscriber a static IP 
address--since the tech support person insisted that this is indeed not the 
case, but whatever that setting is, once it was enabled, my friend's Echo 
Link worked like a charm.

So if anyone using Verizon DSL Internet service is still having difficulty 
using Echo Link (as some people on this list had indicated after my initial 
inquiry) then maybe you could give it a second try.  The tech support person 
indicated that she would put this information into the Verizon trouble 
shooting database and that in future, there would be a record of any 
problems if people should call for help.  For all I know, maybe the system 
has been altered a tiny bit so that Echo Link may work on it's own now--as 
long as you have personally configured your firewall software/hardware 
correctly.  You still must do that first of course.

I hope this post is helpful.

The Scourge Of Authoritarianism Is Intellectualism