[Ben]

Sure Signal is an amazing, unique product, and it puts the other UK MNOs to shame that they haven't even tried to compete with Vodafone in this area. Without Sure Signal I'd have no signal at all at home, from any network.

But there's a serious flaw in Sure Signal and that's in the support offering. For a start, the Sure Signal devices are completely black box - there's nothing that can be done aside from actually plugging them in and resetting them.

This wouldn't be a problem if the support was there, but it isn't. Sure Signal won't connect? Nothing you can do. You can talk to Vodafone but all they'll be able to do is give you a list of things to troubleshoot in the hope that you might tweak something on your router that'll allow Sure Signal online.

I can't connect at all over my Spitfire connection. A lot of poking around suggests that perhaps the IP range isn't allowed. Spitfire isn't exactly a big residential ISP so I can understand how that might be the case, but the IP range is UK so it infuriates me that this could be the case - especially as the person on the phone at Vodafone didn't even mention that IP restrictions at Vodafone's end could be a possibility. Surely they should've had some sort of diagnostic test!

Anyway, I posted on the eForum at the start of November and... nothing. In fact, I'm yet to get a single decent response out of the Vodafone eForum, it's a complete waste of space. The replies are slow and, if they do come, they're non-specific or apologetic and that's it. The eForum seems more useful for Vodafone customers helping one another where Vodafone is failing them, and to that end they'd be better off coming to Talk3G!

Yeah, as someone who spends a fair whack with them each month on a company account with multiple connections I'm severely unimpressed. I foresee some lengthily phone conversations coming up if I ever want to get the Sure Signal working over my new net connection. Yippee.

[Wilt]

I don't understand why they would disallow unknown IP ranges - unless it is to ensure that only UK ISPs are being used (so nobody can dodge roaming rates), but for that they would only need to look at the country specified in the IP Whois. Does iPlayer and everything like that work correctly?

There have been reports that o2 will be launching a femtocell soon - if your experience is typical of a Sure Signal user voda need to sort themselves out, and quickly, or they'll find that o2 completely steal their head start on this. Perhaps voda launched this too early and should have waited until all of the kinks were sorted out?

[Hands0n]

The likelihood is that Vodafone completely over-engineered this solution. If they're filtering out IP ranges then it would have been a simple matter to include ALL UK ranges and be done with. But as Ben has found out, the Vodafone technical support is very weak at the edges for anything other than superficial BAU issues. Should a more difficult issue arise it is impossible to get to liaise with the engineering team in the know, and there will be very many, each with their own disciplines and support responsibilities.

The problem is that Support calls are not triaged properly and thus the customer rattles around the innards of the company before eventually leaving in utter frustration. It is not an uncommon problem, not difficult to solve, but it does require a holistic view of the overall support requirements. Few firms get this right. Telcos and mobile operators are notorious for getting this wrong - I've been in and around the industry long enough to say that with complete conviction.


I can cite another instance that I am aware of this year. One of our Talk3G colleagues took up a new mobile number with another operator, I cannot recall which exactly. The problem he faced was that he could text any Vodafone number, but that Vodafone numbers could not text his. I have seen this before, it is all to do with the SMS system not being aware of the number range of his "off-net" mobile operator. Voice calls and MMS worked fine of course, because those systems were properly configured for the number range.

Number ranges come into being constantly, and it is up to the various operators to update all of their systems with the correct range/routing information so that calls, texts and MMS can route correctly. It is a childishly simple job to maintain, it just needs due diligence. Sadly for our colleague, Vodafone displayed none of the required characteristics. No matter how far he escalated the issue it proved impossible for him to get Vodafone to update their SMS service to recognise numbers in his range. Months passed and eventually he gave up.

Congratulations Vodafone, snatching failure out of the hands of success.

Now, I had exactly the same issue several years ago and I just happened to land on the right call centre operative that day. He even understood the logic behind the issue and took a personal interest, ownership, to see the problem to a satisfactory conclusion.

So I'm sorry Ben, but you may just have to walk away from this one ... or do something a bit funky with a VPN back to your office network just for the SS, assuming Vodafone know something of that IP range and don't block it too.

What a shambles.

[Ben]

Cheers guys.

A healthy injection of competition may well help improve things. If O2 do release a similar solution then, going off the eForum and my search efforts, it wouldn't be hard to surpass Sure Signal's reputation.

When I get time I'll get back on the phone and try until I'm blue in the face, but if that fails I'll probably have to give up. I've tweeted this thread at Vodafone, perhaps one of their more proactive web teams will pick it up and offer some real information as to what is going on.

[a_ukboy]

I also have a Suresignal, have to say for me a fantastic piece of kit which has never given me any issues at all except for outages which have been very few over the last 12 months, never had to call for support so can't comment on that.
When I first installed I was with Sky, plugged it in registered and within 10 mins it was working no hassle, since I have changed suppliers and now with Virgin again just plugged in and worked within a couple of minutes! When I visit my parents it comes with me, they are with AOL and again absolutely no issues..

For me its just worked flawlessly, shame it's let down by poor support. I have seen a few people comment the same regarding the support on the Vodafone eforum, I have a mate who works quite high up in the Vodafone ranks so will pass on comments regarding the support.

[Ben]

Thanks, appreciated. Yes, it really is a great product when it works, agreed. The new box is particularly nice and I daresay it performs better than the old Sagem one ;) But when something does go wrong there's just nothing to go on.

[3GScottishUser]

Checked on UK Hot Deals the other day and found Sure Signal available for just £20 delivered.

I like the spec and the idea of one but I get a fantastic Vodafone signal at home so I think it would be a waste of money! A bit like buying a MiFi device when you have a smartphone that can act as a wireless access point.

[Ben]

Yeah my last one was £20 as I'm a business customer. They're still charging a bit more direct from Vodafone for consumers I believe.

That analogy doesn't hold true. If you have Vodafone 3G signal at home (or even just 2G and WiFi) there's zero use for Sure Signal. If you need to use data a lot when you're out and about then a MiFi is great because it has its own battery. It also means you can carry an additional network around with you for a data 'backup' - I often use my Three MiFi from my Vodafone iPhone! So yeah, don't really get where you're coming from with that one.

[3GScottishUser]

It's just that since I got my Android phone with Access Point facility I have had no use for my 3G Dongle. It's so much easier just to carry one device and switch on the WiFi as required.

[PhilUK]

But when something does go wrong there's just nothing to go on.

the problems are nearly always with the customer's router. I changed router when I changed ISP and it killed the suresignal, until I disabled the router's firewall. Some time I'll get round to writing the rules to allow it to work with the firewall intact, but allowing all inbound and outbound traffic wasn't enough, had to turn it off.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's not that for me unfortunately. :(

[Hands0n]

@PhilUK - elsewhere on Talk3G is an article I wrote that details the required Port Forwarding for the Sure Signal to operate through a router's firewall.

Generally, it is not a good idea to disable the firewall, even with firewalls installed on the discrete devices on the LAN/WLAN.

[PhilUK]

@PhilUK - elsewhere on Talk3G is an article I wrote that details the required Port Forwarding for the Sure Signal to operate through a router's firewall.

It doesn't need any port forwarding, it just needs firewall rules that permit it to work. Port forwarding may be a way of opening those ports in the firewall but the actual forwarding part per se is not necessary.