Using iChat with Eircom Broadband & Netopia 3347NWG
Introduction
I've had many problems trying to get iChat working here in Dublin with my Eircom broadband account, using a Netopia 3347NWG wireless adsl modem & router. However...I've finally managed to get it working. I suspect that the fact that it's Eircom broadband is irrelevant. The router configuration pages are Eircom-branded, but I think this is just a thin wrapper.
Description of problems
When trying to use iChat to start video conferences with people with known good configurations, I would experience the following symptoms:
Hanging while attempting to connect (with a message like "Waiting for so-and-so to respond", "Starting video chat with so-and-so",...)
Successful connection, lasting about 5 seconds, before the video chat window freezes (in fact, I've found out subsequently that the router was rebooting at this stage!).
By this stage, I had already forwarded all of the necessary ports (listed below) to my iBook.
Note, port-forwarding is variably described as "exceptions", "special services", "pinholes", and others by routers.
iChat still couldn't establish a connection, though. The router simply wasn't forwarding the requested ports to my iBook.
Solutions
Many routers work "out of the box" with iChat. They use uPnP, which iChat then uses to open up the correct ports on the external IP address.
With most other routers, you simply need to set up port-forwarding, and then they'll work with iChat. I won't discuss how to set up port forwarding. The following links should help:
The following are the port-forwardings that need to be set up for iChat. I've named each rule according to what ports it opens, you can choose other names - e.g. "ichat 1","ichat 2", ...
Rule name
Port range
Base port
Protocol
ichat 16384-16403 tcp
16384-16403
16384
TCP
ichat 16384-16403 udp
16384-16403
16384
UDP
ichat 5060 udp
5060-5060
5060
UDP
ichat 5190 tcp
5190-5190
5190
TCP
ichat 5190 udp
5190-5190
5190
UDP
ichat 5220 tcp
5220-5220
5220
TCP
iChat 5222 tcp
5222-5222
5222
TCP
ichat 5678 udp
5678-5678
5678
UDP
However this wasn't enough to get iChat working on my Eircom-supplied Netopia 3347NWG router. I then had to do the following:
First of all, I upgraded the firmware to 7.5.0. I'm not positive that this was necessary though, so you might want to try the following two steps with whatever firmware you're running.
Turn off uPnP, via the router interface. This stopped the "router crashing when iChat was trying to connect" problem.
Set firewall to "Low" (although "Off" will also work). This stopped the various "Waiting for so-and-so to respond" problems.
Then...SUCCESS! I can now use iChat.
I hope this helps you.
To enhance this page's searchability, I'm also going to describe my router as a Netopia 3347 NWG, and a Netopia Cayman. Some people also refer to iChat as i-chat.