ActiveSync over VPN over GPRS.

[Guest Kallisti]

Just for "shits and giggles" as Austin Powers would put it, I've decided that my mission this afternoon is to bug Orange into helping me get this working. They sold me a phone that has all the apparent features required to achieve it, now lets see it working!

Right, well my first step was to try to get it working. I've got my VPN configured, I've got my activesync configured. I've put some entries in my hosts file on my xp box so it should be able to connect the dots if it connects. Of course it doesn't connect. Just sits saying "dialling" all the time.

I've also done some legwork and got a proxy up on port 81 re-directing to 1723. That should map my VPN in case for some reason someone thought it was big and clever to restrict that port. You never can tell.

Anyway, falling at the first hurdle because it's sitting saying dialling all the time. Doesn't as far as I can tell even succeed in the GPRS connection.

[Guest Kallisti]

Well, a quick update to this, and I've given up (already, after a mere hour on the phone being passed from pillar to post).

Level 1 data support sent me a GPRS update (which has DNS ip addresses interestingly).

Level 1 sent me to Level 2

Dave at level 2 said, Oh, I'm not sure. Put me on hold and said, phone this number, apparently they can help.

That number turned out to be business solutions who were flummoxed as to why I'd call them. They gave me business support's number

Business Support said that they had no clue what I was talking about, they shouldn't be talking to me because I'm consumer and that they'd put me through to data support.

Data support quickly put me through to level 2 data support.

I spent 30 mins talking to some chap who informed me cheerfully that they blocked VPN ports over GPRS in order to extort about 6000 per corporate company that wished to use the feature. Actual words believe it or not!

Oh well. Any comments Mr. Orange? Or is this nothing you can comment on because it's nothing to do with you if one branch of Orange happens to be into extortion?

I'm mildly curious however still about the proxy settings that are available, and what level the GPRS is actually connecting up to before it fails. Will it use a proxy if one is configured? If not, what will? Does GRPS "Dialling" actually mean that it's connected, but being blocked on source IP port?

Who knows, certainly not me. I can't afford the 6k asked to enable one of the features supported by my Orange branded phone. Guess I'll try a dialup, see if that gets further.