Wind Responds Re: Port Blocking

UPDATE: Issue fixed.

For the past few days, a number of angry Wind Mobile customers have been complaining on the Wind website about how the unlimited data plan is restricted via port blocking. In a display of customer feedback response uncharacteristic of the Canadian wireless industry, Wind Mobile has responded in a timely fashion with a post on their blog and a tweet.

This follows their stated customer-communication-centric attitude, and it is nice to see them backing that up with action. It should be noted that a solution for the port blocking issue has not yet been announced, but one is promised soon. Still, they have acknowledged the problem, commented, and have promised a response. Bravo, Wind. Bravo.

Port blocking is a method of network control where the network owner can restrict the type of traffic traveling on their network by restricting the ways computers can connect to each other. Some internet service providers employ this tactic to restrict unwanted traffic such as P2P use. Employers may use it to restrict access to certain types of content at work for their employees.

In this case, Wind’s network is currently configured to only allow basic internet functionality – browsing and email – which makes tethering the phone to your laptop to enable internet access very restricted. Currently, usages such as ftp and ssh (which I both use to update this site) are blocked. As one of the major draws to Wind is the unlimited data tethering, this is a service that website owners such as myself would be attracted to, and would rely on for access to their site while away from home.

Furthermore, it seems that there is a per-connection cap of 14 MB of data transfer allowed, which means that the largest file one can download using a Wind phone as a tether is 14 MB.