SureSignal

Okay got one and it has to be one of the worst bits of broadband hardware I've had the pleasure to use.

Four LED's are all you get to show what its doing. You MUST have DHCP enabled on the LAN for it to work, i.e. no web/telnet interface to allow you to set a static IP address.

Registration involves going online, providing MAC and other details, and then waiting for a text message back, 17 hours and counting!!!

Setup guide is as useless as a paper bag, the vodafone forums are littered with people saying port forwarding is needed, but not a single mention of this in the documentation. Vodafone refuse to provide specific guides for even the more popular routers/providers and refer people to their ISP for support.

If it works then it will be good to have decent reception, but still feels a little bad to be paying for the hardware, and my broadband usage, but getting no discount on the calls made.

If this just a poor femtocell implementation by Sagem/Vodafone, or is femtocell technology really this bad. Even the first broadband router I was playing with some 10 years ago had better user interface.

As of 10:30 it is happy in that it has an internet connection, but phone is still not seeing the femtocell.

Now onto support to find out why....

How is this for a fun procedure that I've been given over the phone...

1. on iphone turn wifi off
2. turn aeroplace mode on
3. physically put iphone on top of the suresignal box for 15 minutes
4. Turn aeroplace mode off
5. Hold home and top button on iphone until apple logo appears
6. press reset button and hold on sure signal
7. remove power count to 10
8. replace power and after 10 release reset button

Apparently may still take an hour for phone to be happy even after all that!!!!

I've installed a few for friends up in Scotland where I have a second home and yes I agree the installation guides and tech support are "four fifths worse than useless".

Never had to add an iphone to one but once the handsets are added they work really well - until the broadband network goes down.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Okay got one

You did read the The Register article first?

Yeap - paying twice is not great, but was stupid in terms of reception where I am.

Trying to reset opening window and throwing box into the fish pond.

Some two hours of fiddling, reading random posts on internet

It is a good job you do not have a hyphen in your name.

One of those I set up had a hyphen in the main account name, but trying to get the Sure Signal registered and linked was impossible as the web forms reject an non-alphanumeric characters.

Customer/tech support - their availability was random! Sometimes there, sometimes not.

Well the help from support appears to have worked, as now up and running with the sure signal and full bars, so hopefully no need to run up three flights of stairs to maintain signal when talking on the phone now.

Hi, I must have been one of the few lucky ones. Signal at home is rubbish no bars downstairs and one or two upstairs so changed to Voda when got new HTC Desire. Plugged sure signal into router, registered and waited approx 4 hours and full strength on phone.
Only downside which isn't on the sure signal but my bandwidth (1mb) when on the phone and browing at sametime can cause the call to break up.

In my opinion i think this is a great device for people in a poor signal area especially as I need phone for work and other half on landline all the time!

Living as I do in a Welsh valley this works very well for me. I now have a good mobile signal, something I've not had since BT Fusion a few years back.

It did take about 12 hours to be fully actuated and I'm left with two issues:

1. It claims to deliver a 3G signal but the mobiles in use with it indicate 2G only.

2. Recently the Sure Signal web page seems convinced I don't yet have a registered box.
Consequently I'm unable to add on new mobiles.

In both cases Vodafone Customer Services, including the 'Technical Experts' have been useless.

I got one of these back when it was a Vodafone Access Gateway.

They used to state 24 + hours but when you call, they give the idea it'll happen way before this - it usually does not.

We get many calls from our customer with these devices saying they've only just connected it up, it does not work and Vodafone support have said call us as we must be blocking the traffic - we're not.

Give it a day to sit there and do it's thing. It'll just start working and you might not even notice it but if you've got that poorer signal, you'll probably notice the signal bars increase.

Matt

Setup guide suggests may take up to an hour, but too from Wed afternoon till this morning.

Now working seems very good, but oh so frustrating to setup and no suggestion in the paperwork of all the problems people are seeing, i.e. top 10 tips

Could anyone help me set this up on a netgear DGN2200?
I've opened all the ports needed, Enabled WAN IP Ping, Nat is enabled. Still no luck only got the power light on. The SS has been registered. Not sure excatly what to do next....

Just swapped my suresignal from one ADSL line to my other - got two here.

This other line has a DGN2200 running on it, and no configuration changes were needed. In the attached devices make sure the SureSignal has been given an IP address, you can use the MAC address written on the box to identify which device it is in the Attached Devices list. Some people have suggested port forwarding is needed, but I don't have any setup on that router, just UPnP enabled.

IMPORTANT: In switching it from one network to the other, the device did not re-acquire the new IP address I had to do the following:

1. Press reset counted to 10
2. Pulled out the power plug, counted to 10
3. Plugged back in power, counted to 10 and only then released the reset button.

Have you had the SMS/email back saying the SS is actually registered?

Not sure if you have tried the forum, but it may have additional ideas.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Have you had the SMS/email back saying the SS is actually registered?

I never had this for either my first box during the beta phase or a second SS box added a few months ago to my mum's house.

Matt

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

.... so hopefully no need to run up three flights of stairs to maintain signal when talking on the phone now.

Will have to find some other activity to keep fit.

Already sorted that out....

Trust me I had tried, and had looked for specific information on my phone too - but had tried all that, when I relented and phoned support

In reply to a post by NuttyMucker:

Hi, I must have been one of the few lucky ones. Signal at home is rubbish no bars downstairs and one or two upstairs so changed to Voda when got new HTC Desire.

Same here. Does your HTC Desire indicate 3G reception with the SureSignal?

Im in work at the moment but when I return I will post to let you know

I forgot to mention I have noticed that if I had changed or rebooted my router (Ongoing speed issue with my BB and testing different routers and found the 2Wire 2700 to be the best for sync speed) the SS would loose the connection and until I unplugged it for 10 seconds it would not get the connection back.

Yes, Indicates 3G

Many thanks for getting back to me on that - certainly points to a problem at my end.

looks like pure call centre BS. When my Nexus One phone arrived some days after the suresignal it just saw the signal and worked. There was zero 3G signal here to give it a confusing alternative, which may be relevant.

My suresignal is double NATted as it is plugged into a router with its WAN plugged to a modem/router and both do NAT.

Well almost a week later and pleased to report it is stable.

The impression I've got is that a lot of the problems are down to the device not having a very good DHCP client in it.

Amazingly it is not full 3G bars when downstairs, about half signal when going through two floors. When not raining will have to take a walk and see what range is like

I thought the iPhone had a "signal Bars" bug?

Have bumper on, and it would be odd for it to be consistent in full bars in room with femtocell and less otherwise.

Maybe 4.1 on iphone helped

does the phone give you a dBm signal reading ?

mine goes from -51 dBm adjacent to Suresignal to -69 dBm in next room 6m away. 3G is similar frequency to wifi with same issues. Not sure about power output of femtocell though Voda web site says "The power output of the RF fields that femtocells use is less than 0.1 watt, similar to other wireless home network equipment, such as a WiFi DSL router"