Broadband Tech Issue Forcing Me to Leave Vodafone

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83 posts

Master Geek

#1375009 27-Aug-2015 08:37

Demeter:
Aredwood: Vodafone have been making some changes. They now do port based authentication. I was able to plug in my old ex Orcon, Dynalink RTA1320 to a Vodafone ADSL line. With the intention of just seeing if the modem can still get DSL sync. But it established a PPP session and I was able to goto speedtest.net And Also tried a Vodafone station router that had never been used on that line before. Which also worked.

I told the flatmate (who has that line) and he said that Vodafone do Port auth now. He works for Vodafone and gets that line for free. (which is why my house has both ADSL and fibre connections) Although it comes from a Chorus cabinet instead of the red network though.

So suspect something to do with the change to port based auth caused the drayteks to fail.

Well, yes and no. You could be right about the DSL connection, but afaik we do port based auth for UFB - ADSL and DSL connections still go through our BRAS. John, can you confirm?

Did you by any chance choose the same username and password as you had with Orcon when you signed up with us?

Yes, only VDSL and Fibre are port based authentication. ADSL needs username/pass.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375041 27-Aug-2015 09:44

Have you tried putting your modem into bridged mode and dialing in with the PC?

Yup, I tried that fairly early on in the process.

First try was Draytek in bridge mode to Netgear router. Then Draytek in bridge mode to PC. Then Draytek in router mode trying to authenticate itself. No luck with any of these.

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1375058 27-Aug-2015 10:01

Not to run OT or anything but just a general observation.

This thread illustrates well the issue that 90% of broadband users have knowledge that extends as far as the on/off switch for what seems (I have no idea - it may as well be written in High Hungarian for all the sense half this makes to me!) to be actually a pretty complex technical thing.

Joe Customer: Turn on, surf net. Not working.

Tech Person: Have you got interleaving PPOEAXYX set to Integer Demand and profile under-thread set to Constant Stream Hyper Threading - and is your flux capacitor fluxing? Is your RADIUS log parping couplet in cottage mode?

Joe: Eh?

Just a general observation but putting all this complex stuff into idiot mode for most of the public must be pretty hard work!!

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18657 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1375130 27-Aug-2015 11:44

When 'ordinary' people buy professional gear and then can't make it work, that is their own fault for reaching beyond their capabilities. The supplier has no obligations to help them.

When 'ordinary' people buy consumer gear that is marketed as such and they can't make it work, the supplier does have an obligation because it is not fair or reasonable to expect lay people to be able to cope with technical stuff. Naturally there is a huge grey area with lots of overlap but people who buy consumer products shouldn't have to do more than plug in a cable and press a button.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

dylanp

840 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1375134 27-Aug-2015 11:55

Geektastic: Not to run OT or anything but just a general observation. ... Just a general observation but putting all this complex stuff into [common language] must be pretty hard work!!

Yeah, it is difficult! Customer service representatives need to establish within a couple of sentences how to communicate effectively with the person without being complicated on one end or condescending on the other, and also have patience and empathy, and follow company policies etc all at the same time. Full respect to them in whatever company or industry.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375135 27-Aug-2015 11:56

Rikkitic: When 'ordinary' people buy professional gear and then can't make it work, that is their own fault for reaching beyond their capabilities. The supplier has no obligations to help them.

When 'ordinary' people buy consumer gear that is marketed as such and they can't make it work, the supplier does have an obligation because it is not fair or reasonable to expect lay people to be able to cope with technical stuff. Naturally there is a huge grey area with lots of overlap but people who buy consumer products shouldn't have to do more than plug in a cable and press a button.

Just to be clear, we're not talking here about someone not being able to get gear to work. I set the gear up, got it to work perfectly and it did so for 3 years. But then with no changes on my end, it stopped working. It seems reasonable then, to query what has changed on the Vodafone end and to ask them to investigate that.

Anyway, as I said, let's try to keep this thread focused on the unsolved technical issue at hand and not venture too far into the philosophical argument around who should support what and when (as interesting as that discussion may be).

mrfte

83 posts

Master Geek

#1375153 27-Aug-2015 12:45

Earbanean:
Rikkitic: When 'ordinary' people buy professional gear and then can't make it work, that is their own fault for reaching beyond their capabilities. The supplier has no obligations to help them.

When 'ordinary' people buy consumer gear that is marketed as such and they can't make it work, the supplier does have an obligation because it is not fair or reasonable to expect lay people to be able to cope with technical stuff. Naturally there is a huge grey area with lots of overlap but people who buy consumer products shouldn't have to do more than plug in a cable and press a button.

Just to be clear, we're not talking here about someone not being able to get gear to work. I set the gear up, got it to work perfectly and it did so for 3 years. But then with no changes on my end, it stopped working. It seems reasonable then, to query what has changed on the Vodafone end and to ask them to investigate that.

Anyway, as I said, let's try to keep this thread focused on the unsolved technical issue at hand and not venture too far into the philosophical argument around who should support what and when (as interesting as that discussion may be).

+ 1

Is there a non-Draytek modem you could borrow from a friend maybe? Just to trial it to see if that works. Maybe it's a firmware issue with Draytek? Just trying to think of options.

You could get a tech to come out and test the line with his own modem. But the likelyhood of you ending up with a No Fault Found callout fee is high.

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dylanp

840 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1375172 27-Aug-2015 12:59

mrfte: Is there a non-Draytek modem you could borrow from a friend maybe? Just to trial it to see if that works. Maybe it's a firmware issue with Draytek? Just trying to think of options.
...

Or do you have access to another adsl connection you could try your modem on?

noroad

949 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1375182 27-Aug-2015 13:23

I found an interesting issue a couple of months ago when upgrading a family member's router. Thinking I was doing a good thing I supplied a Draytek and separate 802.11ac wireless unit. The Draytek and a subsequent Asus router would not stand up PPP but all the cheap routers I tried had no issue. Seeing as I have access to the Radius logs I had a look, and it turns out the two expensive/high end routers were both stuffing up the password. The password had a % in it and these routers would only send the characters before the % character in the authentication attempt. Removing the % in the password solved the issue. I doubt that its related in this case, but I'm sure it will be a useful bit of information for everyone else.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1375202 27-Aug-2015 13:56

Demeter:
Aredwood: Vodafone have been making some changes. They now do port based authentication. I was able to plug in my old ex Orcon, Dynalink RTA1320 to a Vodafone ADSL line. With the intention of just seeing if the modem can still get DSL sync. But it established a PPP session and I was able to goto speedtest.net And Also tried a Vodafone station router that had never been used on that line before. Which also worked.

I told the flatmate (who has that line) and he said that Vodafone do Port auth now. He works for Vodafone and gets that line for free. (which is why my house has both ADSL and fibre connections) Although it comes from a Chorus cabinet instead of the red network though.

So suspect something to do with the change to port based auth caused the drayteks to fail.

Well, yes and no. You could be right about the DSL connection, but afaik we do port based auth for UFB - ADSL and DSL connections still go through our BRAS. John, can you confirm?

Did you by any chance choose the same username and password as you had with Orcon when you signed up with us?

The line / account is in the flatmates name. No idea what his login details are. Just had to plug in the routers and they both worked first time.

Guess there is always the possibility of port based auth only being used on some connection types. Maybe EUBA ones only?

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375211 27-Aug-2015 14:14

Is there a non-Draytek modem you could borrow from a friend maybe? Just to trial it to see if that works. Maybe it's a firmware issue with Draytek? Just trying to think of options.

Haven't got one to had, but might try that when I get a chance.

You could get a tech to come out and test the line with his own modem. But the likelyhood of you ending up with a No Fault Found callout fee is high.

Yup, went most of the way down that route yesterday, unintentionally.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375214 27-Aug-2015 14:15

Or do you have access to another adsl connection you could try your modem on?

Both were tested on SnapperNet's test ADSL set up and authenticated fine.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375216 27-Aug-2015 14:17

noroad: I found an interesting issue a couple of months ago when upgrading a family member's router. Thinking I was doing a good thing I supplied a Draytek and separate 802.11ac wireless unit. The Draytek and a subsequent Asus router would not stand up PPP but all the cheap routers I tried had no issue. Seeing as I have access to the Radius logs I had a look, and it turns out the two expensive/high end routers were both stuffing up the password. The password had a % in it and these routers would only send the characters before the % character in the authentication attempt. Removing the % in the password solved the issue. I doubt that its related in this case, but I'm sure it will be a useful bit of information for everyone else.

That's interesting. However, in my case the password only has alphanumeric characters. Also, it was working fine for 3 years with that ID and PWD.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375219 27-Aug-2015 14:24

Maybe it's a firmware issue with Draytek? Just trying to think of options.

I thought of that also. I updated the firmware to the latest and also worked my way through flashing 10 different alternate firmwares supplied by Draytek. No joy with any of them.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375386 27-Aug-2015 20:26

Anyway, I remembered that I have an old D-Link modem/router (DSL-502T) from many years ago. So I pulled that out and gave it a go. I didn't have a chance to go through the config thoroughly, but with mostly defaults and my new ID and PWD it did not connect.

So this isn't an exhaustive test, but it now seems I have 2 x Vodafone modem/routers that do connect and 2 x Drayteks and 1 x D-Link that do not.

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