Sure Signal stopped working with Home Hub 3 – Me too!

[MiracleMaud]

My Sure Signal has been moved from one router to another, which happens to be a BT Home Hub 3.  Since the move, I cannot, with any certainty, say the Sure Signal has ever worked.  I have Googled a fair bit and have implemented the changes I found on that search – enabling ports, fixed IP and so on.  I also contacted the Vodafone support area, and after a reset was referred back to BT to have settings checked – like the PPPoA, which I couldn’t find on the Hub admin area.

The email I received from Vodafone, confirming the required settings was poorly written, so when read to the BT guys in India it became a bit of a farce.  My settings were checked and supposedly confirmed as correct.  The only outstanding item was that my latency is higher than Vodafone’s 15 – 20ms.  It is usually high 30s or into the 40s.  Is this latency utterly critical?  BT seemed to feel it was not, as a ping test returns that I am sending and receiving equal numbers of packets and my fibre broadband speed is c75/c15 down and upload speeds respectively.

Without Sure Signal my mobile is pretty much an iBrick.  I’m on a 30 day contract, so can change fairly readily, but I don’t want to do that.  I’d rather the Sure Signal worked again.  Working it’s an impressive piece of kit.  Not working it just takes up space and gathers dust.

The kit I have is a Sure Signal 2 (Serial No:  40123509545), with BT Broadband Home Hub 3. 

Can anyone else help here?  Thanks in inticipation.

[Retired-Matt_Vo]

Hi 

Please take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread. If this doesn’t resolve your query, please post your reply either below, or in the relevant thread, together with the details requested, including the following information.

Your speed test results from here.

Your ping test results from here.

Your external IP address from here.

The results of a traceroute.

Your Sure Signal serial number:

VSS Traceroute command

On a PC:

Click on Start and select Run

Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok

A black box will appear.

In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter

Paste the output of this command into your reply.

This will help us get the quickest possible resolution for you.

Thanks

Matt
Moderator

[MiracleMaud]

Thank you for your response.  The detail you requested are:

Speed test results:

Ping: 25ms

Download Speed: 71.06 Mbps

Upload Speed: 14.64 Mbps

Ping test results:

Packet Loss: 0%

Ping: 41ms

Jitter: 6ms

External IP address: 81.159.66.52

The results of a traceroute:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Maud>tracert 212.183.133.177

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 4 ms 2 ms 2 ms BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]

2 9 ms 9 ms 10 ms 217.32.144.163

3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 217.32.144.206

4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 213.120.181.58

5 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 217.41.169.15

6 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 217.41.169.109

7 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms acc2-xe-7-2-0.sf.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.251.23

3]

8 16 ms 24 ms 22 ms core2-te-0-4-0-16.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.

251.59]

9 23 ms 18 ms 25 ms host213-121-193-152.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.1

52]

10 24 ms 22 ms 22 ms lndgw2.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.124]

11 18 ms 20 ms 20 ms 85.205.116.6

12 * * * Request timed out.

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

Sure Signal serial number: 40123509545

 Please let me know if you require anything else.

[Retired-Lee]

Hi there MiracleMaud,

Thanks for posting those details.

You might be affected by this issue.

I can see the VSS made a connection to our servers this morning.

Are you still having trouble?

Cheers,

LeeH

[MiracleMaud]

Thanks for your response Lee.  I was hoping not to be affected by "the infinity issue", which I had noticed during my digging around, before posting on here.  

I have just tried making a couple of calls - one to my home landling and the other to my partner's (Vodafone) mobile.  Whilst both connected, and I retained the 2 bars I have at present.  Very often I will have 2 bars, which disappear as soon as I try to make a call.  And is it fair to expect a better signal than 2 bars?  I certainly had a better signal when I was connected to a broadband line at c6mbps.  That connection is no longer available, otherwise I would simply revert.

Right now, I have the red power light and the next one to it (which looks like a signal strength icon) on, and solid.  When I make a call, no other lights illuminate, although I would have expected the one like a mobile to come on?

What do you suggest now?

M

[MiracleMaud]

To be fair, what that ramble really means is that I am not experiencing anything different - neither improvement nor a degraded experience.

(Why use one word when several will suffice.  :))

[Retired-Kay]

Hi MiracleMaud, 

It still sounds like it could be the BT Infinity issue, the only way to know for definite would be to try it on a different Internet connection (at a friend or family members). 

I've just done a resync for you, please do a reset to complete this process to see if this helps;

-Locate the button on the base of the box next to the Ethernet ports.

-Press and hold the button for approximately 30 seconds.

-Once the lights come back on, release the button.

Thanks, 

Kay

[MiracleMaud]

Thanks Kay.  I've just done that and will watch over the next couple of days.

I'll report backonce things are clearer.

[MiracleMaud]

Reporting back, as promised.

Being an impatient sort, and with no improvement showing, I decided “thinking outside the box” was required. I decided to get an old, de-registered Sure Signal back out of the cupboard and see if that would work with all my new router settings and so on. As I had no more spare ports on the Hub, I daisy chained it with a Powerline adaptor I use to improve the internet upstairs. It took ages to boot up, but almost immediately I had a full signal. However, my partner was still struggling on 2 bars or less. Hmmmm.

So, I de-registered, registered and reset the newer Sure Signal box we were originally working with, and it also went through the protracted set-up routine. But, that worked for my partner – giving him a full signal. Most bizarre. Of course, we had not way of knowing if he would have achieved a full signal anyway after a while anyway, but I was impatient.

Anyway, I left all of that overnight; both of us having full signals for several hours. We then did a little testing, initiating calls to the home landline and watched which box responded most promptly.

Our current position is that yesterday I disconnected the newer of the Sure Signal boxes (as it appeared “sluggish” - although the other box may have been interfering with it), and now both have full signals downstairs and 3 or 4 bars upstairs.

Fingers crossed, and thanks for all your help.

[Retired-Kay]

Hi MiracleMaud, 

Thanks for letting us know. If you experience any further issues please let us know. 

Kay