Comments on: First look at the new Vodafone Sure Signal

By: London Calling » Top posts and links for 2010

London Calling » Top posts and links for 2010 — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 09:25:45 +0000

[...] 1. First look at the new Vodafone Sure Signal [...]

By: London Calling » Do we need influencers or advocates?

London Calling » Do we need influencers or advocates? — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:42:52 +0000

[...] much so that when they tweeted some incorrect information about their recently released SureSignal product, instead of tweeting something negative, I used the connection I had and emailed the Twitter team [...]

By: Rick Melton

Rick Melton — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:24:24 +0000

If you don’t use DHCP (which I don’t) it’s a worthless piece of junk!

Not happy with it at all, need to find a way to hack into it and set the IP address manually.

By: Jake Bennett

Jake Bennett — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:47:47 +0000

1. Ordered from Vodafone yesterday at 4pm
2. Delivered at 9am this morning
3. Plugged in to BT Home Hub and registered with Vodafone
4. All handsets working by 9.30am with no problems at all

The best £50 I’ve spent in a long while

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:25:11 +0000

Thanks for a very informative article.

Finally taken delivery of my gateway (after a week of lost-in-transit and forgotten shipments), not entirely vodafone’s fault and got the issue resolved by their twitter contact point. As you found in-store, I got at least 2 customer service agents on the phone who didn’t know what the gateway was. We’re in September, so it’s hardly the next day anymore, which struck me as poor training.

My one complaint thus far? I can’t read the number from my gateway, as I have no site so must wait for a relative. I have the same issue with registering a contract SIM, seems more a universal constant than a specific problem. still stings, for someone who can happily reassemble his own PC, all because of a few numbers I have to wait. Ah, the injustices of life.

From what i’ve read the gateway will help tremendously though, we’re living in a converted farmhouse where the signal is otherwise worthless.

By: Willy Magill

Willy Magill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Success! Bit more tweaking of the hub -had initially copied all the pre-configured settings and set port translation – removing that seemed to the trick. Have a long house with 2ft thick walls everywhere, could use a couple of these.

By: Willy Magill

Willy Magill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:15:08 +0000

Andrew, the problem is that it won’t connect to Vodafone. @ keeps flashing slowly. Have spoken to them and they say it’s sending signal out to them but the return isn’t getting back in. Have opened up ports 8,50,123,500 & 4500 (at least I think I have) but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. Even put the booster into a DMZ and it didn’t help. Have even tried two older routers. Still no joy. Begining to suspect the device itself.

By: Andrew Grill

Andrew Grill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:07:19 +0000

Willy, I have a BT home hub 2.0 and I just plugged it in without any problems. What is the error/issue you have with the Vodafone Access Gateway?

Why not give the Vodafone Access Gateway team a call on 08454 402 104.

By: Willy Magill

Willy Magill — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:21:23 +0000

Can anyone help with the correct settings on a BT home hub 2.0?

By: Andrew Grill

Andrew Grill — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:16:25 +0000

Bogdan, yet to make a handout call – will post when I have.

As for the friend visiting – they should be able to make calls as normal (except in my basement where there is no signal without the femtocell).

The femtocell’s power levels are designed to be very low so as not to cause interference issues to other 3G users.

By: Bogdan

Bogdan — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:04:44 +0000

Hi Andrew, thanks for the article it is really interesting and the overall comments debate is great!

I am interested whether you have made a successful hand-out call, when you initiate the call on the femto and go out from the femto zone.

And the other one, what if a friend of yours makes you a visit and he is with Vodafone 3G phone as well, but not listed in the femtocell white list.

Could you both make a normal call or there are some interference issues?

Thanks in advance!

By: Andrew Grill

Andrew Grill — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:20:12 +0000

David, yes I understand the device supports all 3G functions including video calling (if your carriers supports this). It runs HSDPA at 2-3MB/s so should be able to handle a 384kb/s video call.

With regards to using it overseas, I doubt this would work as the femtocell does an initial setup and would sense that it has moved to a new network as it will “see” ceil sites with different MNC and MCC codes – indicating it is roaming and not on it’s home network.

Part of the femtocell’s role is to reduce local interference by blending into the frequency and network plan of the operator – and this is done during the initial setup by listening to the local cells over a period of several hours.

By: vodafoneuk (Vodafone UK)

vodafoneuk (Vodafone UK) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:37:27 +0000

Twitter Comment

@AndrewGrill And a great job you're doing too, might have to start paying commission at this rate!

- Posted using Chat Catcher

By: andrewgrill (Andrew Grill)

andrewgrill (Andrew Grill) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:33:29 +0000

Twitter Comment

Hey @vodafoneuk looks like I'm doing your selling for you again...[link to post]

- Posted using Chat Catcher

By: David Doherty

David Doherty — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:08:15 +0000

Thanks for the very interesting post/comments…

I wonder why Vodafone haven’t put one in each of their stores? They’d be staff training, set up experiences and cost savings rolled into one!

By any chance do you know if this 3G Femtocell supports inbound & outbound 3G Video Calling?

@Ali: It sure would be interesting if you could set this up abroad… I could see it being a great USP for hotels/rentals/2nd homes eg. give us your mobile number and you can make calls like you’re at home.

By: nouwen (Jonas Nouwen)

nouwen (Jonas Nouwen) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:04:29 +0000

Twitter Comment

Dat is een rare username! RT @AndrewGrill Hey @vodafoneuk looks like I'm doing your selling for you again...[link to post]

- Posted using Chat Catcher

By: Andrew Grill

Andrew Grill — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:04:54 +0000

Hi Clare, I could have done with this as well at my old office where like you 3G coverage was poor. On the question of sharing the femtocell signal across mobile networks, unfortunately, until phone companies merge, you will need a separate femtocell for each carrier. At the moment, only Vodafone offer the device – this could be a great time to all move to Vodafone under one of their business tariffs! Just as there are separate towers in the area for different mobile networks, each femtocell will be bonded to a particular operator.

I hope this helps!

By: Clare Warren

Clare Warren — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:54:57 +0000

Hi Andrew, I have just read your article and subsequent comments with much interest, as our office has little or no mobile reception on any network. We are a small mews based company and use Vodafone to provide our office mobiles, but our personal phones are on a number of different networks. Do you know anyway of boosting the signal of all our mobile networks?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:08:47 +0000

Jan,

Active calls outside initiated on a macrocell do not seem to be handed-in to the femtocell.

I am yet to try a call initiate on the femto and then walk outside.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:08:23 +0000

Andrew, I think all 30 could be registered and in idle mode – it’s more of an issue with bandwidth in having > 4 active calls.

The range is less than WiFi – but it is enough to give me coverage of my study which is in a basement.

Active calls outside initiated on a macrocell do not seem to be handed-in to the femtocell.

I am yet to try a call initiate on the femto and then walk outside.

Hope this helps.

By: Twitted by Dutchcowboy

Twitted by Dutchcowboy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:59:06 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by Dutchcowboy [...]

By: darkskiez

darkskiez — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:34:08 +0000

I’d like to know how many phones can use the femto cell at the one time when not making calls. The documentation is unclear about this, as all it says 4 can make calls at the same time. Can All 30 be registered and ready to receive a call at once?

What sort of range do you think you’re getting? Full coverage of your house?

By: Jan Vercruysse

Jan Vercruysse — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:48:08 +0000

Andrew, What is your experience when you move out of the house with your handset? Does it keep the call? And the other way around, when you go in again?

Thanks,Jan

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:43:02 +0000

I don’t think there is a local web server for you to connect to – all the config stuff is done manually on the Vodafone network side.

By: Guy

Guy — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:27:21 +0000

Thanks for the article Andrew.

Being on a company wide Vodafone tariff and living in a poor coverage area, this was perfect so ordered one yesterday and it arrived today!

Waiting for the first sync up as I write.

While waiting, I was trying to see if there was any configuration interface on the device. I have found the IP from my DHCP table on the router and although it pings, there is no response from a web browser or telnet (both on the normal ports).

Anyone found any way in?!?

Guy

By: James White

James White — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:02:54 +0000

And between 150kbytes/sec and 300kbytes/sec on HSDPA.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:54:27 +0000

James, really useful comment – thanks for the port forwarding info.

I found that on the BT Home Hub 2.0 you did not need any special port forwarding set up – this may be useful info for those that connect it at home.
Andrew

By: James White

James White — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:43:44 +0000

Oh, and looking at our bandwidth graph. One call takes around 10-15kbytes/sec and 3G data (not HSDPA) goes upto around 60kbytes/sec.

By: James White

James White — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:35:50 +0000

I installed one of these last week in our office which always had terrible mobile reception. They are great, we all now get great reception in and around the office. A couple of things are annoying – they seem to be aiming for the consumer market and so the documentation doesn’t mention what ports to open on a firewall (phoning got these), and also, you cannot assign it a static IP which is also quite annoying. Other than that, it works a treat!

Those ports by the way:

NTP on UDP-123 to 212.183.133.181
NTP on UDP-123 to 212.183.133.182
Ping on ICMP-8 to 212.183.133.181
Ping on ICMP-8 to 212.183.133.182
ESP on IP-50 to 212.183.133.177
IPSEC NAT Traversal on UDP-4500 to 212.183.133.177
ISAKMP on UDP-500 to 212.183.133.177

By: Ali

Ali — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:59:07 +0000

One of the forums I was reading, someone suggested the possibility to take the femtocell to an international location and route the connection over VPN. Wondering if that is possible without being noticed by the operator?