Hi George (Vodafone) and all,
Following my earlier post I still have the same problem from this morning (and earlier in the week, and prior episodes) even after talking with 3rd line support now and it's almost definately (as I and others have always felt) not a local router issue (they've been fine and nothing changed, etc) and is some issue (again) with the servers that support the Sure Signal boxes in terms of VPN connection to them for connection to the rest of the Vodafone network.
It appears, possibly a red herring but who knows, that the take up of Sure Signal has been vastly more popular (!) than Vodafone expected and that the number of network servers handling the service (and no matter what we're told by many, the boxes talk to servers at Vodafone via VPN and/or the ports always mentioned) was underestimated and has been increased (?) but probably needs further capacity .. so possible scenario is just plain out of connection capacity on the VPN side and/or the servers are dropping connections due to overload etc.
As a positive suggestion, and yes I do want this whole service to work for me and all as it's good when it does so not adverse to positive suggestions as well as complaining like mad at the lack of admission of outages etc., how about producing a bit of diagnostic software or even just a webpage with applet that customers can use when talking to 2nd line support or before that simply checks the outgoing ports and also tests connection to the servers in a similar way to how the boxes themselves are doing. It wouldn't be hard to therefore eliminate (or not) the router/isp aspect that is always the first blamed and would save both the customers and the support staff a lot of hassle and time.
There is now talk from what I gather, in fact one person at support asked to be allowed to do this, of using Logmein software (a great product by the way, I use it a lot for internally business use) to let the support staf remotely control the customers pc's so they can confirm ports are open and the router is working etc. This is not on .. remote access with full control to customers pcs is a huge security issue and should not even be considered given that we all know in the majority of situations it's not related to the router/isp although obviously some specific user problems are.
I personnaly use www.firebind.com website which checks outgoing port capability and handles tcp and udp (with the applet) and that is fact shows and eliminates the router and isp from the equation as it shows whether trafiic can get out on the required ports and past the router/isp .. so Vodafone could utilise similar software or even that website to check and prove or not if it's router/isp related and in case of today and previous episodes it would show that it's an issue at their end in some way.
The mere fact that without doing anything, all .. that's ALL .. of the times I've had problems in the last few weeks the issue has finally resolved itself ithout interaction at my end .. mostly waking up in the morning to find everythings working and implying that it's a remote issue that's been sorted like perhaps VPN Connection congestion relived over night, or servers rebooted, etc etc.
So Vodafone, how about just admitting that the service needs internal work/capacity increases/fixes/etc., perhaps provide software to test outgoing ports are working or not, etc. so all of us, Vodafone and customers, can stop running through many hours of covering the same old ground time and again and wasting so much time at both ends testing and blaming the router/isp every time and concentrate on fixing the route (excuse the pun!) of the issues (in many, admittedly not all, cases)
Fellow customers - I recommend that website to test your outgoing ports and confirm or not if that's an issue and I would strongly suggest to anyone, customer or not, that you give very careful thought before allowing anyone, Vodafone or not, remote access to your pcs!
Best regards,
Derek
as i already stated they have de registared and re registared my sure sure signal 7 times this week god knows why lol also i was promised a call back faithfully @ 3pm today from second line support n guess what nobody called 
I pride myself on knowing a bit about network as I run 2 routers off my virgin 50 meg connection however not for love or money can I get it to work 
