Vodafone Sure Signal v3

[tubascuba]

My Sure Signal v3 has worked fine since it came out of the box. About 48 hours ago the village here suffered a power cut. When power was restored I had to get BT sort out my router but it turned out that Openreach people were working in the street outside and had played with connections. Once sorted everything worked - except for Sure Signal. Just a solid red light and a slow flashing white ethernet light. I have tried disconnecting, holding reset button for 30 seconds etc. and have plugged it into a different router - always the same two lights. Have left it untouched for more than 24 hours but no change. Never had a problem before this. All the rest of my kit is working OK. Any help/advice much appreciated as my Vodafone signal here is rubbish! SS is connected to BT Home Hub 4, broadband speed about 7 mbps. System is Mac OSX 10.10.3. First post - pls forgive length...

[tubascuba]

24 hours since I restarted the BT Home Hub 4 and restarted Sure Signal - and still nothing. Same old lights on SS - solid red and slow flashing white internet. Doesn't change at all. The BT HH4 still shows SS as being connected with a static IP address. Checked with My Vodafone and my SS is sill shown as registered with status 'active' - if only it were! Any further suggestions to get this box working would be very much appreciated.

[Retired-Sarah · Accepted solution]

@tubascuba Have you been able to try the Sure Signal with a different Ethernet cable?

Please ensure that all the below ports are open:

Ports to be opened for forwarding

• 8 (TCP & UDP)
• 50 (TCP & UDP)
• 53  (TCP & UDP)
• 67 (UDP)
• 68 (UDP) 
• 123 (UDP)
• 500 (UDP)
• 1723 (TCP & UDP)
• 4500 (UDP)
• 33434 - 33445 (UDP)

IP addresses to be allowed on the router & firewall

• 183.133.177-179
• 183.133.181-182
• 183.131.128-191

[tubascuba]

@sarah

Thanks for the info. How do I open ports? On the BT Home Hub 4 I can set up port forwarding (apparently) but I don't really understand it. Also, how will the settings affect other devices on my network? Please also tell me how I arrange for certain IP addresses to be 'allowed'. Sadly, I am not a great techie! I find this advice interesting as Sure Signal is sold as being simple to set up with no mention of opening ports etc. Seems odd to me that it was all working fine until one short power cut - that didn't affect any other equipment in my home. Also, seems strange that whatever I do and whatever suggestions I follow the SS always shows just the same two lights - solid red, slow flashing white internet.

[tubascuba]

Woo! I just had a go at added the ports you listed via port forwarding and, without restarting anything, got an immediate reaction. The SS now has all the proper lights showing and - wait for it - I have 5 bars on my iPhone! OK, so that's not 3G but I'm happy with that. I didn't get around to do anything with IP addresses. Although I am not a techie I have been saying all along that it seemed like something to do with DHCP vs static IP. After the port forwarding changes the SS is now using DHCP. Thanks for your help - I have noted the port numbers for future use.

[cuddlezuk]

Is the Sure Signal any good, as my phone signal is 1 bar to no signal, would that help?

I have virgin cable broadband

[tubascuba]

I have SureSignal where I used to get no bars in my study and max 2 bars in some part of the house. Now I get 5 bars near to the SureSignal (3G with WiFi switched off)and enough bars for calls in other parts of the house. There is some luck with the set-up. It either works or needs some messing about but most problems are fixable. Pity we have to pay extra for the darn thing after paying for the phone contract but I live in a rural area so I guess that's a downside.

     In short, it's working fine for me!

[duncanblowe]

When it works it does a great job. Trouble is when it doesn't work it can be a world of pain because there's no real fault finding system. Are you fairly tech savvy? You need to be able to do some messing with settings on your router  if it doesn't just work.