Even though our viewership is not as suppressed living here in Dubai as the poor souls living in Tehran, I thought I would suggest a solution to my problem that I have had which the residents in Tehran can use.
As we all know during our time working and living away from home, communication to loved ones is our life line especially when the cost of phone calls using local service providers are very expensive for international phone calls.
After spending much time on the internet recently, I have spent time researching alternative ways to communicate using VOIP providers that are normally blocked in certain Middle Eastern and Asian countries.
Having a fast internet connection, but with Skype and other VOIP websites blocked by my Internet Service Providers strict filters, I was struggling to find a way of bypassing these restrictions to use these services.
After spending several hours researching the subject further (something of which often gets discussed in varies Middle Eastern expat websites) and trying to find the best way to use these VOIP services, this is the best way to facilitate VOIP phone call.
At first I tried many proxy websites that have great claims to unblock all your internet traffic but to date I have never found a proxy service that will unblock all websites, but more importantly facilitate a VOIP call from the Middle East to Europe. The only method that I have managed to find that works well is via a VPN connection.
What is a Secure VPN connection?
VPN or what are commonly known as VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnels, are frequently used by corporations and government bodies, to allow remote workers to make secure internet connections to the office network. VPN is currently the most advanced form of anonymity and data security for use on the Internet.
What website do I use?
After downloading a couple of paid VPN suppliers the best one I found are called YouSAB Community VPN Messenger|VPN service|Anonymous Surfing .
The reason why I believe that this is the best one for my needs, is because of the features (that I copied from the website) that it has below, which ticks all the requirements that I am looking for:
1. Prepaid card facility- I like this feature because as mentioned above, the previous VPN suppliers that I used were only on yearly subscription that after paying 50$ it was hard work getting configuration setting or problems that I had with the service from technical support. Vpnmessenger.com allows you purchase credit as low as 3 USD, minimizing the risk versus a yearly or monthly payment subscription.
2. No more using unsecure proxy websites. When your using free proxy lists published on the internet be very careful when using these (in fact I strong advise you stay well clear) as these sites could use your details for their own purposes and at your great expense. Remember nothing in this life is for free!
I also found that even when you use proxy sites certain ISP filtering system can still identify your using VOIP protocol and even though you can access websites like Skype the ISPs filtering system blocks you from using the messenger to make a phone call.
3. Secure VPN Messenger VOIP service. This is the first service of its kind to provide a VPN platform, which allows you to instant message and speak to your contacts (PC-PC) using the messenger. The voice quality is very good but sometimes it has a slight echo which I can personnel live with, but overall for the cost it far exceeds my needs.
4. Unblocks all your favourite websites. People who are interested in having a software that unblocks all your favourite websites this feature will really appeal to you, because all websites will be opened to you, even the UK TV websites that are blocked because your IP address is coming from the Middle East.
What YouSAB Community VPN Messenger|VPN service|Anonymous Surfing does is provide you with a different IP address disguising your true country where you�re connecting from.
5. Software interface similar to MSN or Yahoo The vpn messenger interface is simple and easy and lacks all the whistles and bells that Yahoo and MSN does (emotion icons etc), but for what I am using it for I am not bothered. What is very good and allot better than Yahoo, is the fact that you can transfer credit to and from your contacts which is very useful.
6. Total security solution I travel allot on business and I have become really paranoid about connecting from WIFI hotspots (and for good reason) and I always use this VPN messenger to connect to the internet and the speed of the connection is good.
I hope that you will find this article of some interest to you if you are in the same position as me in the Middle East. In fact there are allot of members from the Middle East and China that will find this article very helpful, due to the very strict government viewership.
YouSAB LTD. | YouSAB Community | Your Online Universal Secured Administrated Business Community is a Secure VPN Messenger & VOIP Social, Administrated, Business Community that enables users to access & interact with their social and business peers, through totally secure downloadable VPN software.