If you’re using 2ndNumber in Mexico and find it less reliable than in other countries, you’re not imagining it. The difficulties aren’t down to your handset or our servers, but rather to the way internet and telecoms are run locally.
The Incumbents Don’t Like Competition
Mexico’s telecoms market has been tightly controlled by a small number of large providers for decades. These incumbents also happen to sell traditional voice services, so VoIP (which is what 2ndNumber uses) represents unwelcome competition. The simplest way to keep VoIP less attractive is to make it work badly.
That tends to happen in a few ways:
-
Port blocking – the standard ports VoIP relies on are occasionally filtered.
-
Traffic shaping – some ISPs slow or degrade VoIP traffic compared with normal web browsing.
-
Odd routing – VoIP packets sometimes take the scenic route, with the result being lag, choppiness, or calls dropping mid-conversation.
State-Level Interference
It’s not always just the private providers. Mexico has at times taken measures at a national or regional level which amount to blocking or filtering VoIP traffic. These are usually presented as regulatory or fraud-prevention efforts, but the effect is the same: legitimate customers end up with flaky service.
The Symptoms You’ll Notice
From a user’s perspective, these blocks and bottlenecks show up as:
-
Clients refusing to register.
-
Calls connecting but only one party can be heard.
-
Random disconnects or “all circuits busy” messages.
Practical Workarounds
There are a few technical tricks which can make life easier:
-
Alternate ports: Check this guide: https://kb.2ndnumber.tel/support-articles/changing-the-settings-in-2ndnumber-app-in-case-it-is-not-connecting and also this guide: https://kb.2ndnumber.tel/support-articles/i-cant-make-calls-using-the-app-but-its-configured-correctly
-
VPNs: A reliable way to sidestep provider interference by tunnelling traffic elsewhere. We recommend a VPN that is not easily identifiable by Mexican regulators, often meaning smaller, lesser known VPN providers that support VoIP traffic such as: https://zoogvpn.com/?utm_source=zoog_affiliate&utm_medium=revshare&utm_campaign=aff688b2b5895434&a_aid=688b2b5895434
- Divert inbound calls: You can have all inbound calls ring your "real" number by setting a divert on the line - that way bypassing the app and all of the local regulatory issues described above by having all inbound calls ring your local Mexican number/cell number: https://kb.2ndnumber.tel/support-articles/how-do-i-divert-all-inbound-calls-to-my-2ndnumber
-
Detailed reporting: Telling us which ISP and region you’re on helps us spot patterns.
In Summary
The challenges aren’t universal, but they are more common in Mexico than in many other countries, largely due to how the telecoms market operates. We keep a close eye on it and make technical adjustments where we can, but some of it comes down to local policy and practice.
If you’re running into repeated trouble, the workarounds above usually help. And if they don’t, let us know the specifics – it may be that the rules of the game have just changed again.
