Using old ECI modem with G.INP cabinet

My ECI cabinet recently became G.INP enabled. I am currently using my modified HG612 which is G.INP compatible. I still have my original ECI modem as a backup but, as it hasn't been connected for many months, it won't have had the firmware upgrade needed to use G.INP. If I were to reconnect the ECI modem, presumably G.INP would be switched off, but does anyone know if the firmware upgrades are still being distributed?

The only G.INP firmware upgrades I've heard of were to BT engineers test equipment.

To clarify, I seem to remember some time ago that BT needed to upgrade the firmware in order for ECI modems to use G.INP. I think they may have sent out the upgrade automatically for a while. Presumably ECI modems that missed that upgrade cannot use G.INP, but will they work otherwise as a backup?

As I said, I've not heard of any f/w upgrades to the ECI modem for G.INP but as they're enabling the cabs right now, I would think that any required f/w upgrade for the modem would be available right now too.

If you're feeling brave enough to just plug it in and see, I'm sure the cabinet would cope based on what must be a large number of people not complaining. If the upgrade causes problems, I would have thought the forums would be awash with complaints.

Thank you. I took the plunge and reconnected the ECI modem. It works fine with no obvious difference. As it's a standard ECI, I can't see any stats but a speed test gave around the same result as the Huawei, but perhaps slightly lower. I will leave it connected for a few weeks until I can't resist the urge to see the stats again!

That's good news. Even if it's not using G.INP it will be on Fastpath as that seems to be the new profile on ECI cabinets now.

To clarify, I seem to remember some time ago that BT needed to upgrade the firmware in order for ECI modems to use G.INP.

You are probably thinking about "issue 1" described on Kitz's forum:
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15283.msg284...

This suggests that the appropriate firmware was available at least early 2015 - and it is likely to continue to be available. It isn't so much that firmware is "sent out"; more that an agent process on the modem goes searching on a regular basis. All BT need to do is to leave the firmware sitting on a download site, available to the agent. All the agent requires is a modem that will sync.

Beyond that, understanding the support for G.INP on ECI modems is something of a grey area. The original/locked modems themselves do not tell us - leaving us to work with supposition, guesswork and trials.

On one side, Batboy (almost exclusively) believes that ECI modems (and the HH5a) do not support G.INP downstream. He regularly tells this forum he has evidence, but forum threads that attempt to explore this evidence regularly degrade into slanging matches. In this thread, Batboy's position (of not knowing about any firmware for ECI modems) fits with his stated position on G.INP support in general.

On the other side, BT appear to believe that ECI modems support G.INP (downstream, at least), and have done for a long time. They *did* need a firmware upgrade - and "issue 1" (as mentioned at the top of this post) was a proper concern for Openreach engineer visits over a year ago.

Unfortunately, the ECI modems also became embroiled in the screwup with upstream G.INP (labelled "issue 2" on Kitz's forum). This helped mask any real capability.

Kitz did get a subsequent, attributed, description of G.INP out of Openreach (available here). The third question would be the appropriate point for Ian Lawrence to mention any lack of support for G.INP for ECI modems ... but, instead, we get a reference to the SIN confirming that downstream support is mandatory.

For a long time, the "inbetween" position for a lot of "interested observers" was that there was *some* evidence that G.INP was in use for ECI modems, but not in any provable sense.

Now that BT have started the rollout of G.INP activation onto their ECI cabinets, we appear to be seeing ECI modems respond very positively, with good speed gains. Again, the details remain hidden, so there is little provable, but most of those in-between observers appear to be becoming more comfortable believing that the ECI modems do indeed support G.INP.

If this is indeed the case, there equally does not appear to have been a recent firmware release for this support - so the firmware that *did* add support is likely to date back to early 2015.

I suspect the only way you'll get an answer is for you to try it ... which you've now done.

The best way to figure the sync speed is to run a BT-Wholesale speedtest, and follow through into the final phase. That will allow you to see the "IP Profile" value, from which an approximate sync speed can be calculated.

That'll let you compare speeds, but it will not tell you much about whether G.INP is active. You'll have to figure out who to believe for yourself.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

On one side, Batboy (almost exclusively) believes that ECI modems (and the HH5a) do not support G.INP downstream.

That's because in my experience on a Huawei cabinet the HH5A doesn't exhibit the same behaviour as a HG612 with G.INP, but does exhibit the same behaviour as a HG612 without G.INP.

I spoke too soon. This morning, suddenly, I lost all connection. I rebooted the modem and, using speedtest.net accessing a very local server, my speed seems to have dropped by about 10% and the ping has increased from 1ms to 15ms. I get a similar result from the BT Wholesale speed test. Presumably I've upset DLM?