Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

I was at a private school chapel today and had a real puzzler. Perfect 4G signal BUT it wouldn't allow me to connect to Livestream at all ..a total bar on any outgoing internet browser, even mobile broadband!!

I can only assume somehow the school (a strict Catholic one) is able to stop even mobile devices from going online and one assumes it is to stop the kids from doing so??

Once out of the school area (and the reception down the road) all was fine again... Weird!!!

Has anyone come across this when broadcasting ??

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

That is weird.

Keen to learn more. Thanks for highlighting.

Did you end up not being able to do the job?

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

From a technology standpoint that is a pretty easy thing to accomplish.

Here in the US its not legal to do if you have to emit a signal to do it. If you can build your structure to be radio unfriendly, that is OK but you can't do it by transmitting your own signal.

That said the technology is readily available and not expensive. There has been a number of business in the US that have been fined for exactly that. Movie theaters and high end hotels (that charge for WiFi) are a couple of examples that come to mind.

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

I heard some football (soccer) stadiums black the signal to stop lifestreaming matches.

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Thanks Guys!

We came out on top anyway but had to do a delayed broadcast a few hours later so the event still went online but recorded on site then we just upload the recorded file to the CDN ... not as good as watching it live but the client still gets the end result.

We actually have one wedding venue here that has absolutely zero mobile reception so for those we have no option but to broadcast the recorded file later!

The comments on being able to blackout just a specific area is interesting. I wonder how they control the perimeter ...if you do a blackout for say a soccer stadium (or school in my case) your area needs to be quite accurate as with us we had residential homes just over the road so you cannot block those. There was a CISCO unit with green flashing lights mounted high up near the ceiling and a ethernet cable that went into the roof in the actual chapel so I wonder if that was the offender?

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

The only way you can block a port (and hence prevent streaming) on a user's connection is to have the data run though your gear. This can be done with WiFi by making available "free WiFi" via your own equipment and internet connection, which just happens to enable you to block traffic to/from annoying things (for a chapel) such as YouTube. Or to block streaming out if you really wanted to.

Cellular data requires the use of fake (non-telco) towers which the phones will 'grab' on to as it's closer and with a stronger signal. For most purposes this is also illegal.

Stadiums with broadcasting rights are a bigger level entity, and I'm aware that the telcos bring in additional (legitimate) cellular reception / tower capacity for major games. There's nothing preventing the sport/stadium administrators from saying "if you want your customers to have an enjoyable experience on your brand network when they most need it, you need to block outgoing data on this networking port (for streaming out) otherwise you can't come". It would be a compelling argument and trivial to implement without major concerns as it doesn't interfere with regular web traffic.

I don't know what has happened in the case of Chris having good 4G reception and still no outbound traffic for streaming, except that I have had this situation myself. I haven't gotten around to sorting it out yet and really need to call tech support. Might always be to do with me clicking all the buttons with new 4GX modem+router gear. :-)

Andrew

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Hi Andrew

The school did have "Guest Wifi" actually so I wonder how they managed the block? I should have been suspicious when I went to the wedding rehearsal the night before as I also had perfect 4G reception but my tablet would not do a speed test and refused to connect to the router too!!

It definately wasn't my gear that caused the issue as I did a quick test in the street after the wedding ceremony and everything worked again. Funnily the week before we did a wedding ceremony at a different private school and never had any issues but that probably was due to the fact that their chapel was not within the actual school complex but maybe 100m away from the main buildings.

Guess if you are going to a new venue to do live streaming it pays to do a few tests earlier if you can!

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

So you were connecting via 4G and not WiFi?

Andrew

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Hi Andrew

Encoder is ethernet connected to a 4GX Router/Modem so no wifi is involved ... I tried a wifi connect between the encoder and Nighthawk M1 too it connected perfectly (as did the cable connect) but simply refused to connect to the CDN .... move out of the school venue and it connected perfectly as it also did just up the road at the reception venue so it must be something in the school chapel (and grounds) that blocks any sort of connection to a web address. I guess it's a system so the students can't watch porn at school?

I never tried their guest wifi that was available but I probably could have connected but upload certainly would not be adequate for an HD broadcast. The 4G signal from my Nighthawk was brilliant but it simply refused to connect to the CDN !!

Dunno how they did it but there was a blackout just in the school buildings but as already mentioned there was a little white box connected with a Cat5 cable on the wall near the ceiling that was running. First time I have ever encountered this !!

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

The little white box connected with a Cat5 cable will be a WiFi access point. Nothing much to it.

My money would be on the 4GX unit and something being not quite right with it (or somewhere in the chain). I'm yet to get around to sorting out this issue on my box, but will have to do so soon as I'm likely to have an event come up where it is needed for connectivity.

Andrew

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

You could try a VPN app. Might work might not but worth a try. (Only for phone's.)

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Thanks Andrew

I do weddings here there and everywhere and both my 4GX units work perfectly. What no-one can explain is why despite a perfect signal you cannot connect to any website within the complex but everywhere else is perfect. Doesn't make sense to me as I work anywhere from the beach to the hills without any connection issues yet it's just this particular campus that causes a blackout. Yep I figured the box was a wifi hotspot as it came up on my tablet and encoder lists. Why would two different units both refuse to connect within the campus yet out in the street they connect perfectly.

No real matter as this is an isolated case! If you use 4G a lot then look at the new Netgear Nighthawk M1 It has an eithernet port too so you don't have to rely on flaky wifi to connect to it.

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Yes, I see that the new 4GX modem has an ethernet port built in. I just hate it that I've bought the previous version of the 4GX gear with ethernet docking station for the data modem unit. This newer model is so much smaller.

Andrew

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Hi Andrew

My older unit was a 4GX Advanced II so it is a lot smaller than the Nighthawk M1 but as you say still more compact than a data modem and docking station .. My older unit is a Pre-Paid device and I got it last year for $129.00 including 6GB data allocation and they threw in a 10.5" Huawei Tablet too (and I needed one)
However pre-paid is pricey at $10 per GB so when I moved over to a monthly deal which brings the price down to $4.50 per GB they threw in the Nighthawk M1 as well so that saved me getting a docking station as wifi is so flaky sometimes at gigs! I can have a 30mbps upload speed and the stream fails miserably at 2.0 mbps and I use to end up having to stream at a non HD rate!

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Hey Gentlemen,

All internet connections provide access to the internet in the way each connection is programmed to do so. This not a "standard" in any manor shape or form. Every access connection you use be it wired or wireless will only provide as much or as little functionality as it is set up to provide. The thought that "well I am connected so I am good to go will burn you".

Behind every access point is a control panel with almost limit less control over what you can do on that network. Functionality can be granted or denied by global settings or in some cases room to room at each connection point.

The amount of bandwidth allowed is the most common one most of us are aware of, but it goes far beyond that. Access can be denied not just by filters that block types of sites but individual addresses can be blocked. In the same way that things can be blocked or blacklisted access can also be granted by "white listing" your devices. Sometimes this is not as difficult as it sounds. When I go into a resort or corporate office I work with the IT guy in advance. I provide him with my IP addresses (fixed), and mac addresses for the devices I will be using. They "white list" them and then I show up prior to the event to live test all systems all the way through to receiving devices. I only work with herd wired connections when streaming those events.

Chris, I know that is not practical for your go anywhere do it anytime system you are building and refining. So my point to you is that you are doing your best to work in an imperfect system. The issues you run into is exactly why I have to go through so many steps of advance work and testing when I do a MUST NOT fail perfect gig. As mentioned how wi-fi and hard wire connections are controlled is very simple. I do not know the specifics of how they limited your 4G but I am not surprised at all. I have seen cell phone signals controlled in Las Vegas casinos for years. It might be a toss up between who wants to control you more, a casino or the Catholic Church! And I'm Catholic so I can say that ;-)

Kind Regards,

Steve

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Thanks Steve

I always appreciate your comments and suggestions. We actually do have a clause in our terms and conditions that if we cannot achieve a satisfactory connection we will simply record the event and stream it later and all couples seem to be happy with that!
This of course was an isolated case where it's highly unlikely that we would ever use the chapel again as only past students are allowed to have weddings there. I would, of course, be concerned if we had the issue at one of our popular venues as that would need investigation but there is a 99% chance this was a "once off" venue.

We do however have one popular site nestled deep in a valley outside the city that simply has zero 4G or even 3G reception so brides getting married there are informed up front that the wedding ceremony will be a delayed broadcast.

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Can a streaming service like Facebook or YouTube potentially block your broadcast based on a GPS "blacklist"?

Re: Anyone ever had a stream ban?
 

Hi Cliff

I know that YouTube and Facebook will ping you if you have commercial music but I doubt whether they have the GPS facility .. We had a boxing match here that someone stream to Facebook which caused a huge ruckus with the pay tv station who was charging viewers to watch and the FB page had 10K views so I would say initially no they cannot do it. I'm not sure if FB or YT would stop your stream if they detect copyright stuff either BUT FB would not allow the end result video to be published and YT put ads on your video and often block viewing on a mobile phone.

Has anyone streamed to the free sites like the above and had a stream halted due to copyright??