Any seasoned road traveler trying to set up a remote office has at one time experienced port blocking by hotels and organizations when setting up remote VPN connections. My current setup includes VOIP using a PPTP connection provided by sharing the PPTP connection in my laptop to the phone. I was hoping PEPvpn would be able to navigate this tricky and frustrating setup but alas it suffers from the same Achilles heel as IPSEC.
Since IPSEC is problematic at times, PPTP seems to be the only way to go. The current setup requires the laptop be on and configured and does tie up the sole network connector on the laptop which means my connection to the hotel network must be wireless. I currently us a PEPWAVE Surf On-the-Go for my connectivity and create a local cloud for all of my devices.
Most routers have a PPTP option on their WAN side, but cannot navigate captive portals and other roadblocks most travelers experience regularly. The Surf On-the-Go Profiles allow me to preset my username and password for most hotel chains or at least allow access to the captive portal login. I’ve only had 1 instance where I was not able to connect to my VPN using the Microsoft PPTP software VPN client.
I’d love to have the feature set of the Surf On-the-Go and be able to establish a local 802.11 ‘cloud’, navigate the captive portal and share a PPTP connection via NAT with all of the Surf On-the-Go client devices.
This way I could keep just the PEPWAVE and VOIP phone powered up and freely use my laptop without utilizing the ethernet port and configuring PPTP every time I use the laptop in this configuration.