'User did not respond' - Has something changed with ichat?

Question

This seems to be an issue for nearly everyone. I have been using ichat video succesfully for over a year now. For some reason, in the last month or so, the video has stopped working on all three of my macs (powerbook G4 Tit, new mbpro, and imac g5 at home)
From my tibook (10.3.9)...I can sucessfully connect to the apple test video without problem. The person I am trying to videochat with can also connect to the same apple test video with no problem. However, we cannot chat with video OR audio with each other.
I have done a bandwidth test, and I am on a 1.5 T1. I am behind a company NAT (cisco 1700 router, Novell server handling the nat/pat) He is in LA and has succesfully be chatting with people on the east coast, so I don't think he is the issue.
Here is the log from the connection doctor:
2006-05-16 09:33:45 -0700: REMOTE USER NAME HERE did not respond.
Tried to send UDP SIP "invite" to the following IP addresses and ports:
69.229.11.215:5060, 192.168.15.100:5060, 172.16.1.35:5060
2006-05-16 09:40:51 -0700: REMOTE USER NAME HERE did not respond.
Tried to send UDP SIP "invite" to the following IP addresses and ports:
69.229.11.215:5060, 192.168.15.100:5060, 172.16.1.35:5060
2006-05-16 09:47:26 -0700: REMOTE USER NAME HERE did not respond.
Tried to send UDP SIP "invite" to the following IP addresses and ports:
69.229.11.215:5060, 192.168.15.100:5060, 172.16.1.35:5060
2006-05-16 09:53:33 -0700: REMOTE USER NAME HERE did not respond.
Tried to send UDP SIP "invite" to the following IP addresses and ports:
69.229.11.215:5060, 192.168.15.100:5060, 172.16.1.35:5060
As it has been for nearly everyone else on the list, I am extremely frustrated. I have never had an issue using ichat, but now I can't get it to work from anywhere. I have been able to get everyone in my family to switch to imacs so they can chat with my kids....and now we can't get it to work at all.
What am I missing? I find it hard to believe that this is so hard to use that so many people are not able to use it.
Any help or new suggestions would be most appreciated.
sqe

Answer 1

I'm new to Macs and bought a MacBook Pro for myself and partner mostly for the iChat AV feature. Neadless to say, I'm frustrated beyond belief. I've spent over 25 hours trying to get it to work to no avail.
Each of us can connect with the Apple test buddies with no problem. We can't connect with each other though, except for two times that it actually worked.
I've troubleshooted everything I can think of. I've called my ISP (Verizon), Netgear (my wireless router), and just this morning I called Apple. I was at work so, I'll have to call them back when I get home but they don't seem to even know about the problem. Which is astonishing considering how many people are reporting this on the forum.
I can connect to anyone while on my office wi-fi but only to the Apple test buddies when at home. That's why I called my ISP and Netgear. I took the router out of the picture and still had the same problem at home.
It makes no sense that the Apple test buddies do work but not real people.