FAQ: Using BlackBerry PlayBook Video Chat Behind A Firewall

By Mauricio

While I was flying back from BlackBerry World I tried to video chat with my buddy Jon using my BlackBerry PlayBook but it kept giving me a firewall error notification. Apparently RIM took notice because they’ve recently published an article in the BlackBerry Technical Solution Center on how to get around it. According to the BTSC article, certain ports need to be forwarded if on a restricted network in order to use the Video Chat application for the PlayBook. If you’ve had problems with a firewall when trying to video chat you’ll want to look this over.

Check out all the details below and let me know if forwarding the ports worked for you!

Overview

For most personal/home networks, a firewall that is restricting network traffic will not be an issue and BlackBerry® Video Chat will function as expected.
In most public and corporate networks, a firewall is put in place to add an additional level of security by permitting and denying network traffic between devices on the internal network and the internet.
Note: If the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ is on a network that is behind a firewall, which is restricting network traffic, see below.
BlackBerry PlayBook Video Chat uses the following ports and porting forwarding must be enabled for the application to work on a traffic restricted network:
443 (TCP)
3478 (TCP)
3478 (UDP)
45535 to 65535 (UDP)
Depending on the Network Address Translation (NAT) configuration for the network, additional ports may be used for video traffic.
The network administrator can refer to the router, firewall, or security software documentation for guidance on how to setup port forwarding.