diff --git a/cas.py b/cas.py
index d28c3cc..40fb6ce 100644
--- a/cas.py
+++ b/cas.py
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
+import requests
 from six.moves.urllib import parse as urllib_parse
-from six.moves.urllib import request as urllib_request
-from six.moves.urllib.request import Request
 from uuid import uuid4
 import datetime
 
@@ -82,10 +81,10 @@ def get_proxy_url(self, pgt):
 
     def get_proxy_ticket(self, pgt):
         """Returns proxy ticket given the proxy granting ticket"""
-        response = urllib_request.urlopen(self.get_proxy_url(pgt))
-        if response.code == 200:
+        response = requests.get(self.get_proxy_url(pgt))
+        if response.status_code == 200:
             from lxml import etree
-            root = etree.fromstring(response.read())
+            root = etree.fromstring(response.content)
             tickets = root.xpath(
                 "//cas:proxyTicket",
                 namespaces={"cas": "http://www.yale.edu/tp/cas"}
@@ -98,7 +97,7 @@ def get_proxy_ticket(self, pgt):
             )
             if len(errors) == 1:
                 raise CASError(errors[0].attrib['code'], errors[0].text)
-        raise CASError("Bad http code %s" % response.code)
+        raise CASError("Bad http code %s" % response.status_code)
 
 
 class CASClientV1(CASClientBase):
@@ -114,11 +113,12 @@ def verify_ticket(self, ticket):
         params = [('ticket', ticket), ('service', self.service_url)]
         url = (urllib_parse.urljoin(self.server_url, 'validate') + '?' +
                urllib_parse.urlencode(params))
-        page = urllib_request.urlopen(url)
+        page = requests.get(url, stream=True)
         try:
-            verified = page.readline().strip()
+            page_iterator = page.iter_lines(chunk_size=8192)
+            verified = next(page_iterator).strip()
             if verified == 'yes':
-                return page.readline().strip(), None, None
+                return next(page_iterator).strip(), None, None
             else:
                 return None, None, None
         finally:
@@ -142,14 +142,16 @@ def verify_ticket(self, ticket):
         return self.verify_response(response)
 
     def get_verification_response(self, ticket):
-        params = [('ticket', ticket), ('service', self.service_url)]
+        params = {
+            'ticket': ticket,
+            'service': self.service_url
+        }
         if self.proxy_callback:
-            params.append(('pgtUrl', self.proxy_callback))
+            params.update({'pgtUrl': self.proxy_callback})
         base_url = urllib_parse.urljoin(self.server_url, self.url_suffix)
-        url = base_url + '?' + urllib_parse.urlencode(params)
-        page = urllib_request.urlopen(url)
+        page = requests.get(base_url, params=params)
         try:
-            return page.read()
+            return page.content
         finally:
             page.close()
 
@@ -191,10 +193,11 @@ def parse_response_xml(cls, response):
 
         tree = ElementTree.fromstring(response)
         if tree[0].tag.endswith('authenticationSuccess'):
+            """ Get namespace for looking for elements by tagname """
+            namespace = tree.tag[0:tree.tag.index('}')+1]
+            user = tree[0].find('.//' + namespace + 'user').text
             for element in tree[0]:
-                if element.tag.endswith('user'):
-                    user = element.text
-                elif element.tag.endswith('proxyGrantingTicket'):
+                if element.tag.endswith('proxyGrantingTicket'):
                     pgtiou = element.text
                 elif element.tag.endswith('attributes'):
                     attributes = cls.parse_attributes_xml_element(element)
@@ -265,7 +268,7 @@ def verify_ticket(self, ticket, **kwargs):
         try:
             user = None
             attributes = {}
-            response = page.read()
+            response = page.content
             tree = ElementTree.fromstring(response)
             # Find the authentication status
             success = tree.find('.//' + SAML_1_0_PROTOCOL_NS + 'StatusCode')
@@ -302,16 +305,15 @@ def fetch_saml_validation(self, ticket):
             'connection': 'keep-alive',
             'content-type': 'text/xml; charset=utf-8',
         }
-        params = [('TARGET', self.service_url)]
+        params = {'TARGET': self.service_url}
         saml_validate_url = urllib_parse.urljoin(
             self.server_url, 'samlValidate',
         )
-        request = Request(
-            saml_validate_url + '?' + urllib_parse.urlencode(params),
+        return requests.post(
+            saml_validate_url,
             self.get_saml_assertion(ticket),
-            headers,
-        )
-        return urllib_request.urlopen(request)
+            params=params,
+            headers=headers)
 
     @classmethod
     def get_saml_assertion(cls, ticket):
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 15e4d17..271aafd 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -21,6 +21,12 @@ here. For additional detail, read the complete `commit history`_.
 * allowed to customize name of logout redirect url parameter
 * base cas client with SAML on CASClientV2
 
+
+**python-cas 1.2.0** ``[2016-11-06]``
+
+* Replace urllib2 calls with requests to avoid SNI issues
+* In SAMLV1.1, the user username is withing NameIdentifier tags
+
 .. _commit history: https://github.com/python-cas/python-cas/commits
 .. _django-cas-ng: https://github.com/mingchen/django-cas-ng
 
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 3fde35a..3cba0af 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -52,9 +52,9 @@
 # built documents.
 #
 # The short X.Y version.
-version = '1.1'
+version = '1.2'
 # The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
-release = '1.1.0'
+release = '1.2.0'
 
 # The language for content autogenerated by Sphinx. Refer to documentation
 # for a list of supported languages.
diff --git a/requirements-dev.txt b/requirements-dev.txt
index c960f77..8d18e28 100644
--- a/requirements-dev.txt
+++ b/requirements-dev.txt
@@ -3,3 +3,4 @@ pytest-pythonpath==0.3
 pytest==2.6.4
 six
 tox==1.8.1
+requests
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 469bdad..0caa1f1 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 lxml>=3.4
 six
+requests
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 7a340a1..d21c20b 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
     ],
     install_requires=[
         'six',
+        'requests'
     ],
     description='Python CAS client library',
     keywords=['cas', 'cas2', 'cas3', 'client', 'sso', 'single sign-on', 'authentication', 'auth'],
@@ -33,6 +34,6 @@
     packages=['.'],
     url='https://github.com/python-cas/python-cas',
     download_url ='https://github.com/python-cas/python-cas/releases',
-    version='1.1.0',
+    version='1.2.0',
 )
 
diff --git a/tests/test_cas.py b/tests/test_cas.py
index 4930535..3d92aff 100644
--- a/tests/test_cas.py
+++ b/tests/test_cas.py
@@ -193,3 +193,10 @@ def test_cas2_jasig_attributes(client_v2):
         'nombroj': ['unu', 'du', 'tri', 'kvar'],
     }
     assert attributes == expected_attributes
+
+SUCCESS_RESPONSE_WITH_NON_STANDARD_USER_NODE = """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<cas:serviceResponse xmlns:cas="http://www.yale.edu/tp/cas"><cas:authenticationSuccess><cas:utilisateur><cas:displayName>John Doe</cas:displayName><cas:user>someuser</cas:user><cas:uid>someuser</cas:uid></cas:utilisateur></cas:authenticationSuccess></cas:serviceResponse>
+"""
+def test_cas2_non_standard_user_node(client_v2):
+    user, attributes, pgtiou = client_v2.verify_response(SUCCESS_RESPONSE_WITH_NON_STANDARD_USER_NODE)
+    assert user == 'someuser'