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[Tam]

Hello strangers!  Hope everyone is o.k.

Has anyone at PlusNet tested out the packet signatures from traffic of the Vodafone Access Gateways? ( www.vodafone.co.uk/gateway )

I've got a user that's going to put one on his PlusNet line, just wondering if its going to get shaped to hell or not.


Cheers,

Tam

<edit to add> Looks like the forums is not as popular as it used to be ... how many posts this year???    Guess i'll not hold my breath for any responses! </edit>

[spraxyt]

Yes, these forums are not as active as they were but that doesn't mean they are not read and responded to.

However, the best people to answer this question are probably Plusnet staff. It might well be Monday before they are around to respond.

David

[bud]

I am looking to deploy one here as well to save having to hang out the window to make and receive calls and was wondering about this.

[Liam]

I've been trying to get hold of one for weeks but thankfully I have a choice between Plusnet or A&A I can put it on.

[bpullen]

I queried this when they were released and last I heard we were trying to see whether or not we could make an 'agreement' with Vodafone to get one in the office for testing

I'll have a word with a few people and see what, if anything, came to fruition...

[Tam]

Well .. they are basically a mini 3G transmitter, so if you dont have a 3G phone it wont work.

You have to register the numbers of the phones you want it to work for, it'll accept upto 32 numbers, but 4 is you maximum concurrent calls.

Its on the line and working - don't know what the traffic is being classed as because its at someone's house and therefore I haven't done any packet logging.

Works well though

[bpullen]

Turns out one of our Network Engineers has one and he doesn't have any problems with it either. Tommo did a bit of testing a while back and noted that most of the traffic was over a Cisco VPN. If it's standard Cisco VPN then we'll have all that built already.

I'd ask Tommo for more details but he's on holiday at the moment. He should be able to clarify things further when he returns...

[Phil Richardson]

We had a recent query from a Orange user due to receive one of their gateways. They got some further details which includes specific protocols required. The list included Cisco VPN and two other protocols we prioritise by standard.

There was a fourth which we couldn't get immediate confirmation of. The nature of it though, there was no reason for a sig not to be built.

[James]

How does one go about getting an Orange Gateway?

My MD would love to trial one (although not sure his PN connection would support it though)

[Barry Zubel]

Do these just carry data traffic, or can they carry voice conversations too?

B.

[xpcomputers]

They carry primarily voice but as IP data packets. These IP packets might be sent over the cisco VPN to provider (Voda/Orange/etc), although I'm guessing here. I'm sure they will carry data too, but why use data at home on your own broadband connection, when you can use wifi! (unless your phone doesn't have wifi). So I| think their main purpose is for the voice aspect.

They are like mini cell transmitters for your own home or office which you plug intop your broadband connection, so you get better phone signal in a dead spot (stop you hanging out of windows to get a good signal!).

They normally have a 4 calls at once limit, but can have up to 32 phones registered with the unit. Phones have to be registered though, so you don't provide service to every passing neighbour, just phones you choose to allow.

I haven't read it myself, but I guess this link might help...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell

Hope this helps

Mike

[xpcomputers]

Ijust noticed on the wikipedia page, a link to a free guide from Epitiro for deploying femtocell units on broadband networks. Might be worth someone grabbing a copy.

http://www.epitiro.com/request-form.html

Mike

[bud]

The Register has a review of the vodafone gateway here

[bpullen]

Interesting observation here. Looks like the gateway doesn't play nicely with our server-side firewall.