Vodafone Sure Signal

[Jimfew]

I have just changed ISP to BT Infinity. As expected, my Sure Signal has failed. I have tried all sorts of resets and have asked Vodafone support to reset my device and do a network reset. I have also done a hard reset myself. It still does not work. I have opened all the necessary ports on my router (not the BT hub but a Draytek 2820).

I wonder if I also need to ask BT to open ports on their servers? Is this necessary? My old ISP, Be*, did not restrict any ports but BT may be different.

Can anyone advise me.

My VSS number is 21221070754

Can anyone list all the ports the VSS needs to be open (as up to date as possible).

Many thanks, Jim.

[Matt]

Hi

Can you take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread, and then post back your results if you’re not directed to an existing thread?

Thanks

Matt

Moderator
eForum Team

[Jimfew]

OK, I have read all of the items on BT Infinity and use of the Draytek 2820. I have also contacted Vodafone (who advised a hard reset again) and BT who say that outside of the router, they do not block any ports on their network.

I have now put the VSS into dmz mode on the router and reset it. Since moving from BE* to BT Infinity my VSS has never worked and prior to this is mostly worked.

I know some have got a VSS working on BT Infinity through a Draytek 2820 but no-one seems to know why this works and can advise me why I cannot get any connection.

The tech guys at Vodafone say that it is nothing to do with PPPoE, white listing, black listing, WAN routing. They still say it must be a setting on my router but I cannot see what that could be since I have changed nothing since it worked with BE* (on PPPoA).

I wonder if I need to change from a VSS version 1 to a version 2? Some have suggested changing the Draytek for a better one (2850 perhaps). Someone suggested I need to set VPN clamping to "enabled" but this option is not available on the 2820 as far as I can see.

Anyone got any thoughts or advice or help?

Jim.

[Simon]

Hi Jimfew

Thanks for your post. We'll require some further info just so that we can perform some further checks at our end. We can see from the serial number that the Sure Signal is connecting and that a re-sync has taken place, however I can see no activity for the device.

Please could you advise what the light sequence of your device shows and follow the troubleshooting here.

If you could also provide your IP address and perform a traceroute posting back your findings that would be great. You can perform a traceroute by the following:

• On a PC click on Start and select Run
• Type CMD into the Run box and hit enter/ok
• In the black box, type tracert 212.183.133.177 and press enter
• Paste the output of this command into your reply

Thanks

Simon

[Jimfew]

Hi Simon,

Tracecert is:-

Tracing route to 212.183.133.177 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.11.1
  2    54 ms     8 ms     8 ms  host81-139-64-1.in-addr.btopenworld.com [81.139.
64.1]
  3     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  213.120.178.141
  4     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  213.120.178.194
  5    14 ms     8 ms     8 ms  213.120.177.102
  6    74 ms     8 ms     8 ms  213.120.176.74
  7    10 ms     8 ms     8 ms  213.120.176.182
  8    10 ms     9 ms    10 ms  109.159.249.236
  9    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  core2-te0-11-5-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.2
49.135]
 10    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  acc1-10GigE-0-5-0-7.l-far.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.1
59.254.110]
 11    12 ms    14 ms    15 ms  LNDGW2.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.124]
 12    11 ms    12 ms    11 ms  85.205.116.2
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 28     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 29     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

When doing  hard reset the only light on is the power light and it is not blinking. No other lights come on other than during the reset prior to taking my finger off the reset button after a power off.

Anything else you need?

Jim.

[Jimfew]

I have followed the fault check using the "power light on steady" option. Everything works properly and the DCHP is working correctly (as it did previously on BE*). Since I am not blocking any ports through the firewall now for the Suresignal, it is looking more like an external network issue.

Jim.

[Jimfew]

Still not working. Vodafone Support asked me to do another reset and also they did a network reset. So far, after two hours, nothing. I know I need to leave it for up to 24 hours so I guess I'll have to contact support tomorrow afternoon.

[Jimfew]

OK a (final?) update. BT advise me that the Vodafone Sure Signal will never work on any ethernet system such as the BT Infinity service over ethernet. The reason is that the VSS requires an MTU of 1500 but that ethernet systems in the UK, and especially BT Infinity use a maximum MTU of 1492. (As required in spec from RFC).

The restriction means that there is packet fragmentation and ultimately loss of information especially for any VPN traffic..

This means that anyone with a VSS should not change ISP to BT Infinity or indeed any ethernet provider in the UK using any MTU less than 1500. There is no way round this problem or restriction unless Vodafone re-design their Sure Signal device.

Fo me, it means I have to reject BT as my ISP or change from Vodafone for all my business phones to a supplier with a stronger signal in my area (probably O2).

C'est la Vie.

I guess this ends the saga unless the info I have received from BT is incorrect.

Jim.

[Lee]

Hi there Jimfew,

The information you have been given is incorrect!

Our support teams have engaged BT about this and BT have in fact been able to set up both versions of our device on their Infinity product without issue. They have advised us that they plugged in the VSS and waited for it to configure and we're online within an hour.

This was obviously with the BT support teams and not with the customer facing staff.

Can I ask what ports are open please? Better still, a screenshot of your router set up would be fantastic.

Cheers,

Lee

[Jimfew]

All ports are open on my router (a Draytek 2820). The Suresignal is in the dmz (no port blocking). I know that you can see the VSS as the previous tech reply said that the control signals were being seen but that no actual information transfer was taking place.

What settings do you want to know. There are over 200 pages of setup info on the Draytek. One thing you need to know is that it worked fine on the BE* ISP service and has never worked on the BT Infinity service. I have configuired everything correctly including all the DCHP settings and VPN setup.

BT did say that they have had numerous failures with Infinity for customers using the VSS and now say that the device is NOT supported on their network even with their fibre hub V3.

The last time I had this much trouble with the VSS it was because of a stalled stack in your servers. Once this was reset, everything came back on-line. Perhaps I should deregister and re-register my VSS to see if that helps?

I am grateful for your help but with there being no solution I must either change ISP or Mobile network. I cannot do without mobile phones for business use here, it is killing me.

Jim.

[Jimfew]

I have again contacted BT. They are adamant that the VSS is NOT now supported on Infinity. They say this is a brand new tech update. The tests they did on a VSS previously was to test the concept of the device working over PPPoE on their network. This does seem to work but they say that the device does not seem to work over their Fibre hub, Fibre modem and Fibre DSLAM configuration and that they are having a lot of problems with the VSS failing with new transfers to FTTC. It is nothing to do with my router configuration. Since the Suresignal is not their bit of kit, they say there is nothing more they can do.

So, again, unless BT are just misinformed, I think that ends the saga and I need to find a new business phone supplier.

It would also be wise fo anyone considering moving to BT infinity to decide if they can do without their Sure signal.

Jim.

[Jimfew]

I now have some info from Vodafone technical and a reasoning behind why the Suresignal does not work (and never will) on the BT Infinity network.

Voda saying it isnt compatible:
http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Vodafone-Sure-Signal/Vodafone-Sure-Signal-Is-It-Compatible-With-PPPoE...

Why it doesnt work:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=34387.0;all

The only way out of this is if Vodafone can demonstrate a SS working at someones home with BT Infinity and what the setup configuation is. At the moment, the evidence is pointing towards the VSS never working on any PPPoE network (such as BT Infinity) and that Vodafone Technical know this problem.

Are there any plans to rectify this and launch a revised SS able to work accross a PPPoE network with differing MTU's? I would also like to know if there are any ethernet routers out there which can successfully translate between the VPN requirements of the VSS and those of the PPPoe Infinity network.

Jim.

[philip42h]

Jim,

The forum is a delightful source of information and misinformation. I can assure you the the VSS dosen't care what the MTU value is - I've used several - and doesn't know nor care whether the connection between the router and the Internet is PPPoA or PPPoE. There are many customers posting 'success' on these forums and even at least one (Freddie 34) on the link you posted - "The SS works fine for me over the BT VDSL/PPPoE service with a default MTU in the homehub of 1500 octets". So you can be reassured that the SS will work over BT Infinity - though there is some evidence that folk have had difficulty with this.

I don't have either BT Infinity or a Draytek router so I can't really help much further but I do vaguely recall folk reporting that one of the Draytek's default settings was to drop fragmented packets as part of the security settings. This would ceratinly cause problems and need changing ...

[Jimfew]

Hi Philip,

I can assure you my VSS does not work. All I have done is link to reasons why it might have failed when I changed ISP. BT now say (and they are adamant) from a recent tech update that the VSS will never work over Infinity. My Draytek is configured correctly and it does not drop fragmented packets. I can also show activity on the ports and it tries to set up a VPN.

It would be nice to have contact with someone with a VSS who is on Infinity who have got this working so they can advise me how they did it. It would also be nice if any of the Vodafone tech people who have replied on this thread would follow up my answers to them.

Other than the VSS, I have no problems with devices on my network connected to the internet through Infinity. I use several VPN tunnels for business.

Jim.

[philip42h]

Jim,

See posts 11, 12 ,13, 14 and 15 from this thread ...

[Jimfew]

Hi Philip,

That is very helpful. I have not tried using an interfacing router like that suggested. I will try that.

It is also possible that the Draytek (a 2820) cannot easily be configured to work. I am considering a change to a 2850 or better, a 2750 although both are still Draytek.

The BT tech guy came back to me a said that the newer FTTC DSLAMs have a different chipset and that is causing real problems (only with fragmentation). They will not now support the VSS working. I am not sure I believe this but it is true I have tried lots of different things to no avail.

In case you think otherwise, myself and my team here are pretty good with networks and setups so I am convinced the problem is more tricky that others think.

It is helpful to know that others have succeded which means I will try to "tweak" things for a bit longer.

I am genuinely thankful for your input.

Jim.

[sparkiemike]

For Info I have the draytek Vigor 2750n and it does not work, I have posted this in another thread

[Jimfew]

Thanks Sparkiemike. I was considering buying the 2750 as it is specifically designed to work with PPPoE networks like BT Infinity. However, this weekend my team and I have tried and tried to get the VSS working. We have inserted an interface ethernet router, we have played with the MTU arrangements (we can set an MTU of 1500 on the interface router without affecting the 1492 required for BT Infinity), we have tried all sorts of configurations, we have followed the tips from everyone we could find on the forums, we have set many, many different telnet settings. I have also de-registered and re-registered the VSS to see if a reset helps, it does not.

The VSS has never worked on BT Infinity for us. BT advise it will never work but they cannot comment futher as it is not their piece of kit. They just say it is now up to Vodafone. The VSS always worked previously on BE* via their LLU setup which is also a PPPoE backhaul (but uses a 1500 MTU).

For information, absolutely everything else works fine on BT Infinity and I have just finished setting a VPN to our servers in Germany with no problem.

I have opened all ports on the VSS (it is in the dmz on our router). I can see that all of the ports are set up by the VSS correctly but that no actual information is transferred. This means that the fragmented packets are being rejected somewhere.

I can only assume that the device needs a re-design or that the servers in Vodafone need updating.

As a business, we have taken the decision that we need to move to another phone supplier. We cannot do without our VSS as the Vodafone signal here is just too weak.

Jim.

[Jimfew]

How do I check if my IP address (a static one from BT) is on the Vodafone whitelist?

Jim.

[Jimfew]

I spoke to Vodafone 3rd Line technical this morning. My IP is whitelisted.

They said that the VSS is not designed to work over PPPoE and anyone who manages to get it to work is lucky. They said I needed to ask BT to change from PPPoE to PPPoA for my line. Because this is a new fibre to the cabinet technology and BT have defaulted to ethernet and PPPoE they cannot change (they say they have no technical way they can revert to PPPoA anyway on fibre lines).

That ends the saga. I wish I had known before hand as I would not have changed ISP. Now I need to find a new mobile supplier as the vodafone phones for my business no longer work in this area (weak signal).

So, anyone reliant on their VSS should not change to any ISP using PPPoE.

Jim.