Spark Launches new Inhome Experience - Spark Smart Modem & Spark Smart Mesh

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark Launches new Inhome Experience - Spark Smart Modem & Spark Smart Mesh

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'That VDSL Cat'
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#2335943 12-Oct-2019 13:09

The pace is pretty dated yeah.. Surprised to see many out there!

Reach out to your rep and have a chat :)

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hio77

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#2335944 12-Oct-2019 13:10

nickbrooker:
mpvincent: Hi all. Will the new modem be a notable upgrade to our current pace v5542 which we currently have operating with our fibre connection? We are finding wifi pretty flaky now with the number of devices we have.

We've had a few people staying and had 16 to 18 devices on it for a few days and not had any complaints.

Got the 6.00.07 firmware on there now? Bandsteering activates in that :)

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mpvincent

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#2335949 12-Oct-2019 13:22

Thanks everyone. Looks like time for an upgrade.

nickbrooker

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#2335979 12-Oct-2019 14:45

hio77:
nickbrooker:

mpvincent: Hi all. Will the new modem be a notable upgrade to our current pace v5542 which we currently have operating with our fibre connection? We are finding wifi pretty flaky now with the number of devices we have.

We've had a few people staying and had 16 to 18 devices on it for a few days and not had any complaints.

Got the 6.00.07 firmware on there now? Bandsteering activates in that :)

Still on v6.00.06 build01 so I'll plug in the fibre directly later and see if it upgrades.

Bandwidth steering is nice. Usually a reasonably mid to high end feature.

zyo

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#2335984 12-Oct-2019 15:35

How does this modem compare to Vodafone Ultra Hub (which also has 4X4 AC and GB ethernet)

hio77

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#2336004 12-Oct-2019 15:45

zyo:
How does this modem compare to Vodafone Ultra Hub (which also has 4X4 AC and GB ethernet)

Technically wifi is slightly better as it does 1024qam, but that's kinda low support.

They both are relatively rival products though. Providers putting it forward and going, the market has changed. People expect the unrealistic from wifi these days and so you need decent chipset and design to back ya.

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nickbrooker

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#2336174 13-Oct-2019 08:31

nickbrooker:

Still on v6.00.06 build01 so I'll plug in the fibre directly later and see if it upgrades.

Bandwidth steering is nice. Usually a reasonably mid to high end feature.

Plugged in and got the upgrade to 6.00.0.7 and band steering is enabled by default.

Not quite the expected result though, all the devices are on 2.4GHz now. I'll keep an eye on it and see if they move as they drop off and reconnect. Maybe the 5G radio is slower to startup. Could they delay enabling the 2.4G radio for a while at reboot?

Does it just ignore the first handful of association requests on 2.4 for the SSID typically?

How often would you expect to see updates? IS this going to be a little an often type thing?

Thanks for taking the time to answer all the questions by the way. Spark have been a whole different company to deal with in the last few years. Really helpful and responsive.

hio77

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#2336175 13-Oct-2019 08:50

I'll ask the guys... In our testing it was almost solidly on 5ghz.. Atleast in my personal use it never dropped to 2.4.

Its possible dfs got you though.

We spent quite some time messing with it in literally the worst wifi environment..

Updates are as needed. Another one is scoped for next month sometime.. I'll try to post in line with that.

Glad to hear input here has been handy, this device was done differently to most. So everyone behind this one are all learning what works best, what we can change etc. :)

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geekIT

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#2336267 13-Oct-2019 13:50

Which modem are we talking about now?

Sorry, lost the thread :-(

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hio77

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#2336269 13-Oct-2019 14:01

geekIT:

Which modem are we talking about now?

Sorry, lost the thread :-(

Link is in the first post.

Spark Smart Modem is what it's called :)

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geekIT

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#2336329 13-Oct-2019 16:26

Thanks, got it.

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wratterus

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#2338243 16-Oct-2019 16:53

Just set one of these up today for the first time.

Really nice device & like the UI - quick and clean.

Band steering seems to work well.

Few thoughts - why is AES + TKIP still the default option for 2.4GHz? Everything really should be WPA2-AES only these days surely.

Being forced to change the login password to something complex is a bit of a pain. I know it's good for security etc etc but for the average home user it's unnecessary and a pain as they are pretty much guaranteed to forget the password, meaning a factory reset is required next time someone wants to change a wireless password or something simple. As long as the routers ship nice and secure from the WAN side IMO there is no need to force a PW change - the other option would be to ship with a random password that does meet the requirements and print this on the back of the router like the wireless password is.

Also I noticed there seems to be an unsecured "SPARK_FON" SSID broadcasting from somewhere - didn't have time to look into this further but is that coming from the ONT? First 6 digits of the MAC are 72:86:20. Not much of a fan of that if it is the case.

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#2338252 16-Oct-2019 17:07

wratterus:

Also I noticed there seems to be an unsecured "SPARK_FON" SSID broadcasting from somewhere - didn't have time to look into this further but is that coming from the ONT? First 6 digits of the MAC are 72:86:20. Not much of a fan of that if it is the case.

Thanks, forgot to mention that last time. Even if FON is off it still broadcats the SSID

I assume Spark is a partner of

https://fon.com/

wratterus

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#2338301 16-Oct-2019 17:17

Yuck. Is it possible to get that disabled?

hio77

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#2338306 16-Oct-2019 17:30

nickbrooker:

wratterus:

Also I noticed there seems to be an unsecured "SPARK_FON" SSID broadcasting from somewhere - didn't have time to look into this further but is that coming from the ONT? First 6 digits of the MAC are 72:86:20. Not much of a fan of that if it is the case.

Thanks, forgot to mention that last time. Even if FON is off it still broadcats the SSID

I assume Spark is a partner of

https://fon.com/

No. It should be disabled now.

If your still having it show please DM me the serial number of your modem (while it's plugged directly into the ONT)

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