Flashing other ISP's HG659 with BigPipe firmware

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Dynamic

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#226245 28-Dec-2017 10:19

Hi Team

My 2 year old Netcomm NF7 is freezing every few weeks which is annoying, and as I'm looking to hand the connection over to less techie housemates in the next few months, I'm looking for a modem the ISP will have a chance of supporting (or at least walking the new account owner through checking the LEDs when troubleshooting).

I don't mind buying the official HG659 for $99 but I have a couple of barely used ex-Vodafone units lying around so it strikes me as wasteful not to use one of these. I was wondering if anyone had tried re-flashing another ISP's HG659 with the BigPipe firmware?

Cheers

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#1925975 28-Dec-2017 10:23

You don't even need to flash the firmware it should just work

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toejam316

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#1925978 28-Dec-2017 10:29

As above, it should just work, however if you do want to flash the firmware, after you actually login to the Vodafone UI it's pretty easy, and you get a few more features out of the BigPipe firmware that Vodafone locked away.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Dynamic

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#1926324 28-Dec-2017 20:57

Thank you Team.

Earlier thsi evening I took a disused Voda HG659, logged in as Admin, and uploaded the BigPipe firmware, and after it loaded then did a factory reset. It connected to BigPipe UFB pretty much instantly with the default settings which is EXACTLY what I wanted it to do, so if some muppet pushes the reset button again I don't have to wring their neck. I was a little surprised to see it keep the Voda WiFi settings as per the sticker on the back, but not disappointed!

THANK YOU BigPipe for not locking the features down. Oher ISPs have made some PITA choices like the inability to back up the config or disable DHCP.

Thank you Vodafone for not locking the device down so far it was useless for another ISP. That would have been extremely wasteful.

I've disabled 5GHz and turned 2.4GHz down to 75% volume to try and preserve the life of the WiFi chip which I've heard someone mention can have a short life.

Cheers.

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Dynamic

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#1937545 12-Jan-2018 09:28

Just a followup to this.... after initially looking like an excellent solution, I ended up having to pull the HG659 as my incoming RDP sessions were dropping out several times per hour. I was really disappointed as I was initially confident this solution was exactly what I needed.

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