Frequent complete loss of iphone service using Sure Signal

[sejam2003]

Has anyone else encoutered this? My Sure Signal (v2) appears to be working fine for weeks and then suddenly my iphone 5s does not work at all, even though it may show 3 or 4 bars : no outgoing or incoming calls possible, calling iphone gives unobtainable sound (in the past, also some kind of wierd recorded message). Since there is no visible sign anything is wrong  this can go on all day without me noticing, so is potentially quite a serious problem, especially since I have decided to try to use iphone for all calls in preference to landline. If I go into the garden of my basement-flat it will not even pick up the local signal. Only way to correct is to restart iphone and/or Sure Signal.

My ISP is Virgin Media 30mb cable BB, and I use a Virgin Superhub as modem and Apple Airport Express as a router. Previous iphone 4 had same issue, as did previous Virgin modem and cable speeds over several years.

In last 2 conversations with Vodafone 191, they reset SS remotely, I believe, and other stuff, and advised not to use 4G, only 3G. They said any further problem must be down to ISP, and texted me a list of things to go through with their support. This included changing port-forwarding. Also other stuff such as PPPoA, static IP and MTU, but I have been told on Virgin's support forum these are not relevant to cable BB.  Also, some other simpler things were queried such as checking download/upload speeds (entire list is copied at end of this). 

Much of this was far too techie for me to understand, and to be brief I gave up on Virgin's phone support with this. However, eventually someone in Virgins's help forum showed me what to do with the Apple router as regards the port-forwarding, so I can try that.

However, I am just wondering if it is worth it, since this morning the SS, which I have just plugged in again, is making the iphone show 5 bars again, so all is fine until the next failure. Maybe if it is working OK now, the port-forward is not the problem and I might even make things worse?

So I am just wondering if anyone else has experience of this. Such a shame to be a long-term customer of two large companies and neither seems able to give you the service you want. Maybe I should dump both eventuallly!

Vodafone's iist of thing to contact ISP about

For the Sure Signal Box to work, some ports need to be forwarded with your Internet Service Provider

Kindly contact them and provide them with the below ports: 

8, 50, 53, 67, 68, 123, 500, 1723, 4500 & 33434 - 33445

Also: 

1. Make sure that your internet connection type is PPPoA 

2. Verify that you have the following speeds :if you have sure signal version 1 or 2  you need download speed of 1 Mbps and upload speed 0.4 Mbps  and  if you have sure signal 3 you need download speed of 4.58 Mbps and upload speed more than 1.5 Mbps . 

3. Test latency bycgoing to www.speedtest.net  under ping  it  should  not be more than 120 ms  

4. ask your internet service provider to  assign a static IP to the SurecSignal Device using the MAC Address on the device.

5. Make sure that the following  Standard ÄTCP & UDPÑ ports are opened on your router :  8, 50, 53,

67,68, 123, 500, 4500, 1723 , 33434-33445

6. Make sure that  the MTU size is 1500.

7. Allow firewall in the router .

[Retired-Andy]

Hi sejam2003,

Intermittent connection issues can be caused by maintenance performed by your ISP or firmware upgrades that have been sent to your router.

That fact that you say the connection is re-established once you reboot your phone/Sure Signal/router does point towards this.

The list you’ve got does cover most things that we’d check for connection issues.

Let me know how you go on once you’ve spoken to your ISP.

Cheers,

Andy

[sejam2003]

I am asking about this on Virgin's support forum as their phone support seems pretty hopeless for somehting as involved as this. 

Here is one reply I got, after posting the Vodafone list of things to check, as posted here:

"Virgin don't block ports and you can set your routers port forwarding yourself on the SuperHub [which I am not using as a router anyway, only as a modem]

PPPoA and MTU are for BT type broadband and not cable broadband

 Virgin do not offer static IP on a residential service"

The only other helpful reply I have contained instructions on how to set port forwarding on my Apple Airport Express router, and it is recommended I try that.

However, as I said, for much of the time, the SS is working anyway, it is just that it cuts out unpredictably completely, as described, with nothing visible to show this is happening, so I may be uncontactable for hours without knowing. I have a feeling the port-setup is not reponsible for this if it is working at other times.

The general feeling I have got form the Virgin support is it in not the fault of Virgin. 

However, I will try the port-forwarding and see if anything improves.

[sejam2003]

One other thought about your previous comment that "Intermittent connection issues can be caused by maintenance performed by your ISP or firmware upgrades that have been sent to your router".

Woudln't this only be relevant to the router, not the modem? As I have said, the VIrgin Superhub is not the router, just a modem, an Apple Airport Extreme is the router.

As far as I know, any software and firmware upgrades for the Apple Airport Extreme are things you get a "Software Update" notification about on your mac, and download manually, they don't happen automatically without you knowing (and don't happen very often, for example, Airport Utility 6 software on a mac was last updated in May 2013 and these problems have occurred both long before and long after that). If I did have a problem soon after downloading such, surely I would be able to tie it in with that, but I haven't noticed any problems necessarily occurring soon after.

I also can't see any evidence on my computer that the internet service has been interrupted in some other way at around the same time I had a Sure Signal problem. It's true it's not perfect and sometimes (not very often, usually) fails, but I tend to have very reasonable download and upload speeds (e.g. 8ms ping, 33mb download and 2 mb upload)

[Retired-Dave]

Hi sejam2003,

The maintenance would be to the line or exchange managed by your service provider, not the router or modem. 

Whether the Superhub is used as a router or modem, it still makes up part of the internet connection. If anything is set wrongly, it will still have an effect.

MTU is relevant to all routers and modems, as this controls the size of the data packets allowed.

Are you able to connect the Sure Signal directly to the Superhub rather than through the Airport Express? It will help to show whether the Apple router is the cause.

Dave