Seduced by Charter’s upstream speeds (2 mbps with their 20 mbps service, and 5 mbps with their 60 mbps service), along with their better prices than AT&T’s slower DSL services, I finally caved. On Friday, a tech installed my 20 mbps service, and we were off to the races.
Earlier tonight, I was working with Dan Wilson on some code for a presentation, and I wanted him to look at my latest build. I sent him to the URL of my development server, and he couldn’t get to it. Thus started my so far unsuccessful journey of getting a straight answer from Charter as to what ports they block.
Now, it’s been documented that Charter blocks various ports on sites like DSL Reports and other forums, but nowhere on Charter’s site do they mention these things.
The first time I called in, I got a rep that sounded like he might be at a call center in India. I asked him what incoming ports Charter blocks, and he said that they do not block anything, that Charter gives me the “Full Internet”. I explained to him that I knew, from being a previous customer, that Charter at least blocks port 25 for external mail servers and port 110 incoming, and he said that Charter “doesn’t block any ports”. I asked him when that policy had changed, and he disconnected me.
I called back, and got a rep with a southern accent. I thought that my problems were over, that I was directed to someone competent, but I would eventually realize otherwise. We had quite a long conversation, that summed up went something like this:
Charter Rep: “We do not block any ports”
Me: “I know you block ports 25 and 110″
Charter Rep: “We don’t allow you to use other mail servers”
Me: “You just contradicted yourself. You said ports are not blocked, but then you tell me the mail server ports are blocked”
Charter Rep: “The ports are not blocked, you just have to use our mail servers, just like any other ISP would”
After a while, he decided that actually trying to troubleshoot might be prudent, and I connected my laptop directly to the cable modem, to prove that it’s not my firewall blocking the ports. I then asked him to try connecting to port 80 on my machine, at which point he confessed that he did not have the tools to do so. I asked him if he had a web browser, and he got confused and said that my machine should already have a web browser installed.
After a little more back and forth, he said that he was going to check with someone about something (he mumbled), and then disconnected me.
I cooled off for a couple hours, and decided to subject myself to more punishment by calling back again. I got another American rep, and I gave him a brief summary of my night so far, and he said that the previous two reps were right, that Charter does not block any ports. I held the same argument with him about mail ports, and explained to him all I wanted to do, like occasionally show my work to clients, or to connect to my home network when I’m on the road, and I needed to know what ports were blocked so I could properly configure my network. He said he’d check to see if one of his superiors could talk to me.
He came back on the line, and said that he found out that, lo and behold, Charter DOES in fact block ports, and here is the complete list:
- 80
- 23
- 119
- 110
- 21
- 1080
- 135
- 139
- 593
- 445
- 25
- 143
- 8080
Armed with this supposed complete list, I asked why I couldn’t then connect to my laptop on port 22, SSH. He started to give me some runaround about how running a server is against Charter’s Acceptable Use Policy. After going back and forth a bit, I decided I had enough, and politely ended the call.
I just read the acceptable use policy, and there’s nothing in there about running servers. Now, understand that I’m not actually running servers, I just want a way to occationally let clients glance at the latest builds of my code, and connect to my network via VPN. I’m not using any P2P software, nor am I trying to run any active websites. I’m able to do all of this just fine with AT&T’s consumer DSL service, and I’m quickly growing tired of the runaround.
I’ve pointed Umatter2Charter to this blog post, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Ah my Twitter friend, next time just DM me, I get those to my BB, and if it is an emergency, I will log on.
To be honest, I am not totally clear on what all we block, but luckily the guys on my team are REALLY good with internet issues. I am going to have Josh @Umatter2Chtr2 contact you today to get this resolved.
Sorry for all the troubles you have had this weekend, I am sure it was very frustrating.
Thanks for letting us know, Eric
Interesting that they block port 80, but not 443. So, if you did want to host a website at your home (or have someone view a demo site on your server), technically you could just run it as https.
I know that really doesn’t help your situation. I just thought it was odd that they would block one and allow the other.
So I am going through this same situation right now and it’s crazy I feel like I was reading a mirror image of what I just heard on the phone I unlike you am trying to set up a website, I just installed windows home server and figured ok they built this software so that home users could have a small server at home to cetralize there media which would be perfect for what i’m trying to do now i would like to use the personal website so that I can load the pictures and videos that I take of my daughter on the server and let my mother accesss them from her computer so she can watch them whenever she wants seems simple enough… Yeah I have been on and off the phone with charter since 7 last night trying to find some resolution to this madness. I think that it’s ridiculous that I can’t set up remote access on my server so that I can access the files other places I could understand if I was pirating Bill Gates next big OS or something of that nature but what i’m doing is legal on every account and I think that it’s ridiculous that Charter isn’t willing to try and help make this work. I talked to a supervisor after an hour on the phone with some incompetent woman and all he could tell me was that Charter’s Terms of Service does not allow me to connect a server to the there internet on the package that I have and since my internet is working there’s nothing else that he can help me with. I have never been more dissappointed in a company’s customer service. Sorry that was probably a little long but I felt like I needed to vent some steam there after dealing with them for so long. All I want to do is get this remote access setup and get on with my life… Seem like to much to ask? I guess so.
Contact the Charter Cares team at http://twitter.com/umatter2charter or Umatter2Charter@chartercom.com
They should be able to help you out.
Same exact experience today, right down to “Let me check with someone on this…. CLICK” (disconnected). What a bunch of jerks.
I have had charter for a couple of years now. When my service was first installed, the young man that did the installation was how can I say this… A hacker in the good sense. At the time he told me all the ins and outs of what charter does as far as their internet service. He told me how I could host my own web server, because it was something that he did himself. The web ports 80 ~ 85 are pretty easy to get around. Just one correction to your list of ports. Port 8080 is open. I have my router remapping port 80 to 8080 for my home web server. I also have port 81 mapped to 8081 for a https file server and 82 mapped to 8082 for a web cam. I used a https file server program instead of a FTP server because charter blocks both ports 20 and 21 and I have not found a way to remap those to other ports that I am able to configure an FTP server to use. Right now I am trying to figure out if it’s possible to remap ports 25 and 110 into something that an SMTP and pop3 server can use. I found that I can remap port 25 to something else and then it’s open, but I need to find out if I can change the port that Microsofts SMTP server uses. I haven’t yet found a port remap for 110 yet though for pop3.
Dyndns, which I use has an open port tool for testing for blocked ports to your ip address.
Yesterday Charter to Charter networking stopped working. None of our employees using Charter at their homes for internet can VPN but everyone else on different ISP’s can. Looks like Charter is going to lose a lot of business from just our company’s employees…
@Chris: I suggest hitting up the guys on Twitter… http://twitter.com/Umatter2Charter/statuses/4717759498
I have recently learned about this issue with charter blocking ports. I always keep a LAMP server running at home so that I can develop and test websites for clients. It was a pain for a while having to upload files to a live webserver and mysql server to allow clients to view progress on the websites. However, recently I realized an easy work around.
I configured apache2 to listen for connections on port 90 (one not blocked by charter) and just inform my clients to connect via xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:90/path to view the site. It has saved my time and headaches. Still wish charter would get is head out of its *** and provide full services to its customers. When I had verizon I did not have this problem. That was over 3 years ago now, though, so maybe verizon is playing the same game.
What I do not understand is how they consider customers running web servers to be an issue when kids downloading torrents 24/7 takes of FAR more bandwidth.
It’s not about bandwidth, it’s about sales. Charter wants you to buy Charter Business internet if you need to host anything. I couldn’t justify those costs, so I tell my clients to use port 89
Yup…my problems started the day I switched to charter. I decided to use my own modem, I watched & heard the install tech tell charter that I would be using my own modem. Since he had already given charter the MAC address from one of their modems , he had to give them the new MAC address from my modem.
No problem, but the next day I get home & have no internet. I call charter & tell them that I suspect that someone changed the MAC address back to the original.
They wouldn’t listen, & had to start @ the beginning of their 2 hour long troubleshooting procedure, with tech’s who’s first assumption is that they’re talking to an idiot.
To shorten this long story up a bit, It ended up being that the MAC address had been changed back to the original. The tech, after I told him that my internet was working again, continued to tell me that we needed to continue troubleshooting?????? I hung up on him, usually they hang up on me.
To this day I still pay a monthly fee for my own modem to charter, as they just continue to bill me for it. I just got sick of telling them that I have my own modem…not theirs, It’s been at least 3 years, but the frustration of calling them isn’t worth the $2.00 or so a month, & wasting 2 hours on the phone to get nowhere.
Also, when I first signed up for charter, they tried to bill me for the previous homeowner’s past due cable bill, About $150.00 if I remember correctly.
I was on the phone with charter , viewing my online bill statement , which clearly showed the previous homeowners past due cable bill, (which I shouldn’t ever be able to see). The charter rep said that he couldn’t see what I was looking at as he viewed my statement.
After arguing that my first months cable bill couldn’t possibly be that high, then finally threatening to call a lawyer, they removed the previous homeowners past due bill from my statement
Charters AUP now shows the following
“Customer may set up one (1) web page per service account for personal use of the Service, but Customer may not establish a web page using a server located at Customer’s home. Customer will not use, or allow others to use, Customer’s home computer as a web server, FTP server, file server or game server or to run any other server applications or to provide network or host services to others via Charter’s network. Customer will not use, or allow others to use, the Service to operate any type of business or commercial enterprise, including but not limited to, IP address translation or similar facilities intended to provide additional access. Customer will not advertise that the Service is available for use by third parties or unauthorized users. Customer will not resell or redistribute, or allow others to resell or redistribute, access to the Service in any manner, including but not limited to wireless technology. ” so according to that even having a router on a home connection is against Charter’s rules. It should be fun tonight when I call to swap their modem for mine (and I wish I had another choice where I live, but they have a Monopoly).
I hear you on the Charter issue. I just switched from AT&T UVerse service and never had an issue with my site. Plus the 1mb upload was very nice for serving it very quickly. But alas, I’m now stuck with Charter until AT&T decided to extend their services. Or I can go back the the “top of the line” package with a max upload of 786kbps.
Maybe one day charter will wake up and open these ports for all services offered.
We are working on this for over two weeks now. I cannot access our email or websites (http://www.stci.us ; http://www.stci.us/shop) that are hosted in another location via charter. I have had technicians over the phone discuss it with me and even talked to supervisors however none of them seem to understand the problem. The only time I talked to someone who may understand it was a person on the security department. They said our sites where not blocked but we have checked from other locations in the region and they indeed are.
I am now shopping for a more competent and consistent service provider. Interesting thing is that so far the competition seems to have more competitive pricing as well – so the frustration may have a positive light in the end. If the problem had not presented itself, I would not have gone shopping.
I just got caught in this trap. Support in the Philippines tried, but they are not equipped. Outgoing SMTP couldn’t send. Your blog gave me hope, then found another site that recommended switching the outgoing port to 587, that worked. Many thanks,
I did get my Charter service to do home server….
They gave me the Netgear Wireless Modem CG814.
The factory preset for this modem is as a firewall so it blocks everything but IE.
Well , in the settings of the modem is a DMZ Host page, so that when you enter
your computers ip address it lets it through.
Plug in a lan cable to modem…I couldn’t find usb drivers…
then enter web address http://192.168.0.1
Thats it!
You computer is going be from http://192.168.0.10 to http://192.168.0.18, ping it to find out which
The http://192.168.0.1 is entered like a web address into Internet Explorer so you can access modem settings.