2Degrees and SPA112 - current working config?

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spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#243018 23-Nov-2018 19:54

Well, I got my VLAN tagging sorted and now I'm on to trying to get my old phone number that was ported from copper to HomePhonePlus working and after a solid 4 hours, I'm getting no joy.

Anyone here recently get an SPA112 working with 2Degrees?

I'm running into a couple of possible issues:

I tried resetting my VOIP password via their web interface and the directions there are very poor. I *think* you have to enter your broadband password into the current password field and then input their autogenerated password to apply the changes. I did this and it confirmed the password was changed, but I get password registration errors when even testing on a softphone like Linphone (which works just fine for my SIP account I use for a USA based VOIP account). Furthermore, when I talked to 2Degrees and asked them if they could send me SIP password, it was not at all the one I changed it to. Additionally they could see that I changed the password, but their system was showing the original password they have.

The question here is - has anyone been able to successfully update their SIP password via the 2Degrees HomePhonePlus portal and still have the SIP device working/connecting?
Any current/updated configuration settings or tips *specifically* for 2Degrees and a SIP device like the SPA112? I've been given conflicting information about using connect2.plus.snap.net.nz versus connect1.plus.snap.net.nz
Recommended softphone for windows for testing HomePhonePlus from behind a NAT'ed router? Like I said, I can get through using Linphone with an SIP service from another company in my current configuration with no problem. Just can't get Home Phone Plus to work at all

Thanks everyone!

1 | 2

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2133177 24-Nov-2018 11:41

So I'm really starting to suspect there is something wrong with the home phone plus password tools at 2Degrees.

My family is on 2Degrees and I have them using Fritzbox as their needs are simpler than mine. I asked 2Degrees to send me the SIP password for their account so I could test it on my connection. Lo and behold, the password they sent me doesn't work on my connection when using a softphone via direct connecting to the ONT and using Windows PPPOE dialer. I tried plugging the same password they texted me into their Fritzbox and even the fritzbox says the credentials are invalid.

Is it possible 2Degrees has a real problem with finding/releasing/updating SIP passwords? Because a password issue sure looks like my problem.

Sadly, Fritzbox encrypts the password in the config file so I can't extract the actual working SIP password from their fritzbox to confirm what it really is...

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spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2133686 25-Nov-2018 09:31

Oh my god 2Degrees.....ok...this is 100% a problem with their password system. 2Degrees has proven to be completely incapable of sending or issuing me the ACTUAL registered SIP password and that is the entire reason I am having a problem.

Here's how I figured this out - my family is using a FritzBox 7490 and 2Degrees HomePhonePlus and I have management authority on their account. Sooo...I called 2Degrees support and asked them to give me the current SIP password to their working phone number. They texted it to me and I tried those credentials on my fibre account and it didn't work as I noted above.

But it also wouldn't work on their Fritzbox either....so after some sleuthing I found a tool that allows me to decrypt the encrypted text in a fritzbox backup config file. Once I decrypted it I could see the *actual* password that their fritz was using to authenticate on their homephoneplus account and strangely it was similar to what 2Degrees texted me but there were some differing issues with the special characters - I've altered the digits in the passwords below with '*' to keep it secure and left only the characters that differ between what 2Degrees provided and what is ACTUALLY in the working Fritz config

SIP Password WORKING in Fritz Config
***[**}+]*

SIP Password that 2Degrees support sent to me:
***<**)+>*

So they swapped the [ for <, the } for ), and the ] for >

Sooo...yeah, I'm not going to have any luck getting these passwords to work or ever getting my phone working if they can't provide me the *ACTUAL* password needed.

So now that I was able to recoved the SIP password from my families Frtiz config file, I plugged those credentials into my SPA112 on my Fiber connection and, voila, it connects straight away and I can receive and make outgoing calls.

I have spent 6+ hours on this problem and I gotta be honest, I am furious that 2Degrees has sent me down this path because they can't seem to properly reset or issue to me my actual SIP password.

The question is, how, in the name of all that is good, do I get my REAL SIP password from 2Degrees. I've logged 2+ hours on the phone with 2D support and have been telling them the whole time that I am 99% sure this is a password credentials issue and they have thrown their hands up and said it's because you aren't using a FritzBox.

That I had to go this far to prove that it is a password issue maddening.

spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2133706 25-Nov-2018 10:45

Ok...and here's the final follow-up.

Got a good rep on the phone at 2D support this morning and I talked him through the whole situation. He pulled up my families account notes and in those notes was the SIP password I had been texted. I read out the SIP password they texted me and he confirmed that was not what was in the account notes. So this confirms that when 2Degrees texts out passwords their SMS gateways seems to be interpolating and swapping special characters. Most notably it is having problems with the following characters and swapping them around...there could be more problems, but I could identify at least these:

<
>
(
)
{
}
[
]

So, at that point, we were able to find a senior tech at 2D who was able to manually reset my SIP password to a password of my choosing. So I just used a 6-digit alpha password because I didn't want to run any confusion/risk of using special characters. Once that was reset on my two homephoneplus numbers, they did not register UNTIL I changed the domain from connect1.plus.snap.net.nz to connect2.plus.snap.net.nz. Once I did that, they instantly registered and both are working.

Phew!

So, here's what has been established and proven:

Using the portal for HomePhonePlus to change your VOIP / SIP password is broken. Also, it is very poorly worded and unclear. When you go to try and change your VOIP/SIP password you have to use their generator (you can't choose your own password) and then you have to put your broadband account password in as the current password to invoke the 'Change Password' button (not your current/old SIP password). Then it will accept the change and tell you that your VOIP password has been accepted and you should update your modem and it will send you an email saying it has been changed. The problem is that it actually hasn't been changed. So, yeah, 2Degrees has some work to do here. And, honestly, 2Degrees, if you read all this and decide to rebuild that page....please give us the choice input our own passwords. Go ahead and enforce strong passwords, but let us pick our own and, of course, make sure it actually updates the systems.
2Degrees texting gateway is interpolating and breaking special characters. Boy...sheesh....you gotta fix that...that's just a recipe for a customer/technical support disaster!
The directions you are providing to customers on your website is not accurate at this page:

https://help.2degreesmobile.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/289/~/what-settings-should-i-use-to-set-up-home-phone-plus-on-my-personal-modem%3F

By all indications, the userid (phone number with leading 0) and password appear to be tied to specific servers. If you are registered on connect2.plus.snap.net.nz you cannot login using connect1.plus.snap.net.nz. So 2D needs to unify that server structure and credentials system or you need to be able provide us through the portal definitively which server our phone numbers are registered to.

Honestly, someone probably should really consider putting a link to this post into the post pinned at the top of this forum by NickMack about configuring HomePhonePlus for 2Degrees in a BYOD scenario (https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=239919)

Finally, if anyone from 2Degrees does read this, it sure would be a nice gesture of good will if you could credit my account for a month or two of service. Let's call it a bug bounty prize. ;)

I spent well over 10 hours debugging this entire situation and uncovered multiple bugs and failures in the homephoneplus network. Were it not for my ability to troubleshoot this and teach myself how to decrypt encrypted credentials from a working 2D Fritzbox file, I don't know if anyone would have been able to figure out where things were failing since there are 3 significant break-downs / obstacles to getting this working properly.

At the moment I'm experience a strange confluence of relief and pride at having fixed this and having my phones working again and on the other hand I'm exhausted and depressed because I spent all Friday night, about 6 hours on Saturday and 3 hours today trying to get my phone working when the entire problem was 2Degrees was unable to provide me the accurate and working SIP password for my account.

spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2133707 25-Nov-2018 10:54

Oh - final note *just* in case someone from 2Degrees sees this. Maybe it would be a good idea to just build some provisioning profiles and/or detailed directions for using a Cisco SPA112 or similar SIP devices. There are *always* going to be users like me who need to do a BYOD setup. It really wouldn't take long for someone to write up good detailed directions for 2 or 3 of the major SIP devices and make that available on your site. You can still say that we are on our own and you can't support BYOD SIP and Router setups - but you'll certainly save yourselves and everyone else a heap of time by posting up some better and more detailed information.

RunningMan

7074 posts

Uber Geek

#2133709 25-Nov-2018 11:05

Perhaps @NickMack could see that your feedback gets through to the right place.

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#2133714 25-Nov-2018 11:44

ORRRR..... sign up to 2talk, port your number, win.

There we go, just saved you 9.5 hours!

I seriously don't get why people persist with these unsupported set ups. All the providers that do managed SIP make it super clear they don't want you to do that, so why bother?! As has been demonstrated, it's pushing piss up hill with a rake.

choccers

64 posts

Master Geek

#2133720 25-Nov-2018 12:32

Only go to 2talk if you dont mind losing your sms service and are not fussed by support that does not support you.

From your experience it would appear that even if 2degrees system is buggy at least there is someone to try and help you. You will not get that from 2talk.

I am going to see a 2degrees person tomorrow thanks to 2talk's loss of sms service and their complete inability to offer me any support or help to find out why this has happened.

spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2133732 25-Nov-2018 12:55

chevrolux:

ORRRR..... sign up to 2talk, port your number, win.

There we go, just saved you 9.5 hours!

I seriously don't get why people persist with these unsupported set ups. All the providers that do managed SIP make it super clear they don't want you to do that, so why bother?! As has been demonstrated, it's pushing piss up hill with a rake.

Yeah, well, it's all little too late for that now... ;)

Had I known that 2Degrees would have such problems issuing a correct password, I would have perhaps ported over my number. However, the setup is actually not that hard at all if you get the correct password ;) Had I been issued the correct password and server, I would have been up and running in about 90 seconds.

Once the order for fiber happened and my copper based numbers were provisioned/ported to 2Degrees SIP systems, I was pretty committed as I would have to then find a provider, pay to port the phone numbers, and wait several more days before I could have a working phone again. I don't mind 2Degrees service and haven't had any real issues with my family who uses it. When it works it's good enough I don't need much from it other than local calling and to allow my alarm system to call home.

NickMack

872 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2133734 25-Nov-2018 12:57

spacedog:

Oh - final note *just* in case someone from 2Degrees sees this. Maybe it would be a good idea to just build some provisioning profiles and/or detailed directions for using a Cisco SPA112 or similar SIP devices. There are *always* going to be users like me who need to do a BYOD setup. It really wouldn't take long for someone to write up good detailed directions for 2 or 3 of the major SIP devices and make that available on your site. You can still say that we are on our own and you can't support BYOD SIP and Router setups - but you'll certainly save yourselves and everyone else a heap of time by posting up some better and more detailed information.

Hiya,

Just reading through this thread, I guess there's a few things to consider. BYOD is always going to potentially bring it's set of challenges for both parties - it's determined by the skillset/experience of the individual as well as the technology being deployed. For Fritzboxes (and a few other devices we use for SME/Enterprise customers) we have a swag of testing / test plans we perform when firmware releases come out etc. For our SME/Enterprise customers we supply, test and deploy these end point devices, or provide connectivity via SIP trunks for termination to customer devices (PBX's, SBC's etc).

I guess it's a question of where do you draw the line in terms of support (and accountability) for each segment of clients. For our SME and Enterprise customers we provide more detail and alternative support options. There is also this great community that plays another support function, many people here share their time, skills and experiences.

If you experience issues with connectivity (Yes there is a separate account for radius to get online, and a separate one for accessing voice services), please do call our residential care on 0800 022 022. Protecting our customers and providing excellent services is at the forefront of what we do. A huge risk to us and ultimately our voice customers with BYOD is the exposure that some may unknowingly expose themselves to toll fraud, depending on what is being used to connect to voices services, weak passwords can be an expensive lesson.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#2134118 26-Nov-2018 08:10

spacedog:

Oh - final note *just* in case someone from 2Degrees sees this. Maybe it would be a good idea to just build some provisioning profiles and/or detailed directions for using a Cisco SPA112 or similar SIP devices. There are *always* going to be users like me who need to do a BYOD setup. It really wouldn't take long for someone to write up good detailed directions for 2 or 3 of the major SIP devices and make that available on your site. You can still say that we are on our own and you can't support BYOD SIP and Router setups - but you'll certainly save yourselves and everyone else a heap of time by posting up some better and more detailed information.

I disagree.

2degrees support their own router. They do not support 3rd party devices. I'm not aware of any other medium to large provider in NZ who provides any support for 3rd party hardware either.

The minute you start providing even limited support you open up a whole can of worms and create significant support issues as well as interoperability testing. I'm not aware of any other provider even providing basic settings for 3rd party hardware - the goal of a fully end to end managed VoIP solution is to deliver something that is guaranteed to work when people pick up the phone.

VoIP is not simple and just because something supports SIP does not mean it will be 100% compatible with all SIP providers. If you think it's simple you can have my job - because after 8 years of running a large voice network I still learn things all the time.

There are many threads from people on here over the years who configure their own hardware and find things don't work, ranging from calling certain numbers down to not being able to call 111.

In all seriousness if you're unhappy with 2degress for voice and insist you haver to use your own hardware (simply putting the Fritz! behind a normal router for voice is a much simpler solution that avoids all the issues you're encountering) then I suggest you look elsewhere for a 3rd party voice provider. You certainly fall into a very small minority wanting to use your own hardware for a residential offering.

spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2134121 26-Nov-2018 08:19

@sbiddle @nickmack - that's fine if you disagree with providing support or basic information on how to configure. I disagree with that as there are plenty of SIP providers around the world that offer this kind of service and configuration help. That's fine, we don't have to agree on that perspective :)

However, with all due respect, this thread is now getting derailed. The entire issue here is the fact that 2Degrees could not provide an accurate userid/password. I kind of feel like your comments are ignoring this critical fact and that is what created this entire issue. I would have been up and running in 90 seconds if I was supplied correct credentials and/or if the portal that claims to change the SIP password wasn't broken. So let's focus on that because that is the real problem here and where users are going to suffer. There is no excuse for providing broken portals and false credentials. I'm unhappy with 2Degrees not because they didn't provide me support for SIP configuration on 3rd party hardware and I don't insist that they do (I merely suggested it).

I do insist that if they tell me I updated my password or they provide me a password that it is the actual password.

NickMack

872 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2134174 26-Nov-2018 09:50

spacedog:

@sbiddle @nickmack - that's fine if you disagree with providing support or basic information on how to configure. I disagree with that as there are plenty of SIP providers around the world that offer this kind of service and configuration help. That's fine, we don't have to agree on that perspective :)

However, with all due respect, this thread is now getting derailed. The entire issue here is the fact that 2Degrees could not provide an accurate userid/password. I kind of feel like your comments are ignoring this critical fact and that is what created this entire issue. I would have been up and running in 90 seconds if I was supplied correct credentials and/or if the portal that claims to change the SIP password wasn't broken. So let's focus on that because that is the real problem here and where users are going to suffer. There is no excuse for providing broken portals and false credentials. I'm unhappy with 2Degrees not because they didn't provide me support for SIP configuration on 3rd party hardware and I don't insist that they do (I merely suggested it).

I do insist that if they tell me I updated my password or they provide me a password that it is the actual password.

Hiya,

I appreciate that you may have had a bad experience with your call into 2degrees, happy to follow up with this with Customer Care if you PM me your account details etc.

The best way to receive support for resetting passwords (if there are issues) is to call 0800 022 022 and talk to a Customer Care agent. There are potentially three accounts that residential customers may need help with - 1. Radius account for authentication for your router (getting online), 2. for Voice services (VOIP) 3. Email.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

eapperley

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2137756 1-Dec-2018 13:54

Nick,

I raised this same issue of the confusing User Interface on the portal quite some months ago. I think it was June or earlier. I went through exactly the same frustration as Spacedog with trying to reset a password on the Home Phone Portal because I couldn't make it work after multiple Customer Service calls. It was a complete waste of many hours of my time to achieve a simple connection to the 2Degrees VoIP system when it should have been a 2 minute configuration exercise (as it was with a test 2Talk account). I'd initially tried an SPA122 device successfully with 2Talk, but when I tried a connection to my 2Degrees account got totally messed about with passwords and in particular that deficient user interface on the Home Phone.

What's really annoying about all this is that rather than raise hell publicly about this I actually tried to help 2Degrees in a positive way by sending a "continuous improvement" suggestion about the issue with the Home Phone Portal. I even received a "thank you very much" reply from the Customer Services employee shortly thereafter and was led to believe that the issue would be dealt with. The support person said that they would raise this with management. Clearly management (or further down the chain) decided that they didn't want to spend any money sorting out the user interface design issues and the instructions on the web.

What on earth is going on?? That's very slack and creates bad customer relations! Yes, I accept that the BYOD segment is small, and yes I accept that the ideal solution is to daisychain the FrityzBox off the back-end of an Interface on the BYOD router, but sometimes there's a very good reason for not using the FritzBox. The reality is that in addition to frustrating customers with technical nowse, 2Degrees is incurring unnecessary additional support calls. Fix the user interface on the Portal and improve the instructions - its not rocket science!

noexani

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2139494 5-Dec-2018 05:00

spacedog:

Oh my god 2Degrees.....ok...this is 100% a problem with their password system. 2Degrees has proven to be completely incapable of sending or issuing me the ACTUAL registered SIP password and that is the entire reason I am having a problem.

Here's how I figured this out - my family is using a FritzBox 7490 and 2Degrees HomePhonePlus and I have management authority on their account. Sooo...I called 2Degrees support and asked them to give me the current SIP password to their working phone number. They texted it to me and I tried those credentials on my fibre account and it didn't work as I noted above.

But it also wouldn't work on their Fritzbox either....so after some sleuthing I found a tool that allows me to decrypt the encrypted text in a fritzbox backup config file. Once I decrypted it I could see the *actual* password that their fritz was using to authenticate on their homephoneplus account and strangely it was similar to what 2Degrees texted me but there were some differing issues with the special characters - I've altered the digits in the passwords below with '*' to keep it secure and left only the characters that differ between what 2Degrees provided and what is ACTUALLY in the working Fritz config

SIP Password WORKING in Fritz Config
***[**}+]*

SIP Password that 2Degrees support sent to me:
***<**)+>*

So they swapped the [ for <, the } for ), and the ] for >

Sooo...yeah, I'm not going to have any luck getting these passwords to work or ever getting my phone working if they can't provide me the *ACTUAL* password needed.

So now that I was able to recoved the SIP password from my families Frtiz config file, I plugged those credentials into my SPA112 on my Fiber connection and, voila, it connects straight away and I can receive and make outgoing calls.

I have spent 6+ hours on this problem and I gotta be honest, I am furious that 2Degrees has sent me down this path because they can't seem to properly reset or issue to me my actual SIP password.

The question is, how, in the name of all that is good, do I get my REAL SIP password from 2Degrees. I've logged 2+ hours on the phone with 2D support and have been telling them the whole time that I am 99% sure this is a password credentials issue and they have thrown their hands up and said it's because you aren't using a FritzBox.

That I had to go this far to prove that it is a password issue maddening.

I would be quite interested to learn how you got the password out of the Fritz...

That sounds like it could save me a hell of a lot of time.

spacedog

408 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2139517 5-Dec-2018 08:01

noexani:

I would be quite interested to learn how you got the password out of the Fritz...

That sounds like it could save me a hell of a lot of time.

Download the Fritzbox config file and use this tool in conjunction with the password you used to encrypt the fritz config file

http://www.mengelke.de/Projekte/FritzBoxJSTool

Please note - you are uploading your configuration file to a 3rd party site which theoretically could expose your passwords if you use the link above. They offer an offline version here - http://www.mengelke.de/Projekte/FritzBoxJSTool.html so I recommend you download that locally and run it without an internet connection and/or in a sandboxed/restricted environment so you have confidence your decrypted information is not intercepted/transmitted.

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