SagemCom Sky router and O2 Boostbox issues

[johnmac1990]

Hi
I have using an o2 boostbox happily since Feb - until last week, now it wont connect at all, I know the Broad Band connection is fine and I also know the Boostbox is fine as it works ok at a mates house, although not on a Sky Router. I have been told by o2 to open 4 specific ports which I beleive I have done but its still not hooking up to the outside world, any ideas / suggestions would be welcome.
Whist I understand Sky dont want to have any responsibilities once the Broad Band is working ? But I am guessing something has changed over the last 2 weeks for this to suddenly stop working, firmware update or something, any help would be great.
thanks
John

[Isitme]

I didn't think the BB had been released officially. Are you a tester for O2? If so, they should be able to tell you whether they have made an update which may have broken it.
O2 Boost Box - Page 2 - O2 Community

[johnmac1990]

hi
thanks for responding.

o2 have not provided any update, its been fine since Jan then its just stopped working, I have tried a new boostbox and a new Sagem router from Sky and the same problem is there, I am close to cancelling the Sky broadband as I cant use the boostbox.
Your right its not yet released but they allowed me to buy one, this is so frustrating.

All I need to do is open up the ports, that is where the problem seems to be, I have followed the instructions on Port forward but iut still doesnt work/?

Help?

[James_Mitchell]

If it's anything like the issues I had with my Sky Router and an old Vodafone SureSignal box, it was down to my Sky IP address not been on Vodafone's firewall whitelist. As UK femtocells are only allowed to be used from within the UK, the mobile provider needs to filter the IP's connecting to their data centres.

A block of new Sky IP address had been purchased from the US and the 'database' of IP locations had not been updated so Vodafone saw the Sky IP as still been in the US and thus blocked the connection. Speak to O2 and give them your external Sky IP address so it can be whitelisted. A lot of other people also had a similar issue with Vodafone & Sky. I suspect O2 will run their femtocells the same way.

As long as you have UPnP enabled on your Sky router, you should not need to open any extra ports. I didn't need to configure anything in the Sky router to use my (now redundant) SureSignal box.

[Isitme]

I am close to cancelling the Sky broadband as I cant use the boostbox.

What makes you think you will be better off with another provider? If you paid £150+ for this bit of kit I think O2 should be making sure it works with all providers. It is a bit unfair to blame Sky for the fact that another suppliers equipment is not working. Vodaphone supply an identical device for a fraction of the cost, which does work with Sky. Maybe you should be considering changing your phone provider rather than your broadband.

[James_Mitchell]

I would also suggest changing your mobile supplier rather than your broadband provider. That's exactly what I did. I've never been a believer in using these femtocells in the first place (blagged mine for free from Vodafone. I certainly wouldn't pay for one of these things as at the end of the day, it's not the customers fault the mobile provider wont improve their coverage)

Other mobile providers do also offer femtocells for free too.

[johnmac1990]

hi
I know its NOT the boostbox because it does work at other properties, its something SKY have changed? My landline and BB is with Sky and I feel SKY do have a resposibility to help me navigate to diagnose the problem, if it had never worked then fine but its been fine for months, maybe the SKY migration has something to do with it...

- - - Updated - - -

thaks for that, I think I know what you are saying (not a techkie myself) but its worked fine for 5 months then dead since about 5 weeks ago....
The reason I relate the voda sure signal is they are both made by the same company...
So frustrating...

[James_Mitchell]

If your Sky router has re-booted for any reason and your external IP address has changed, this may well be your problem and explain why it did work and now doesn't.

Also as O2 are currently only trailing femtocells at the moment, I doubt there's much Sky can or will do. Not sure if you are aware of this already, but even though many people use it, Sky still do not support port forwarding so will not help with any port forwarding issues.

[johnmac1990]

I am getting that impression from Sky, the IP address Q is valid but each time if its changed I have changed it in the port forwarding section, looks like I may have to cancel Sky I know the BT Hub works..

Not a great service...

[Scubbie]

As you are on Sky Fibre, it is not the Router which will need to be rebooted, but the BTO Modem.

We understand that the router is checked around every 30 minutes. I would advise the you power off the BTO Modem for around 45 minutes. This should ensure that you change the IP Address from the current 176 .nnn.nnn.nnn to a new IP Address. Hopefully it will not start with 176.