Vodafone suresignal & mobile broadband

whenIretire

Hi all. I'm looking at getting rid of my bt landline and broadband and just having mobile broadband with three as I rarely use the landline. The download speeds on my laptop are faster when connected through my three mobile phone than through my fixed bt broadband.

However, my other half is with Vodafone for his business mobile and the reception is not great at home but it does work well with the suresignal box connected to the home bt broadband. He cannot change provider so we are stuck with the suresignal box being hooked up to the broadband.

Does anyone know if the suresignal box would work through 3G mobile broadband or does it have to be a fixed broadband line?

Many thanks

Figment

Sure Signal’s a small box that creates a 3G signal around your home by using your home broadband. It’s ideal if you're in a basement flat, have really thick walls or live out in the countryside.

Typically the signal reaches about 30 metres - plenty for most homes.

You can use Sure Signal if you'er a Pay monthly, Pay as you go, or business customer. But first you'll need:

Home broadband: a fixed-line home broadband connection with a minimum speed of 4.58 Mbps (depending on which Sure Signal version you have, this allows up to eight devices to use it at the same time). Sure Signal works with pretty much all routers and broadband providers.
Sure Signal box: you can buy a Sure Signal device from us with a one-off payment.
Your device: A Vodafone 3G mobile phone, tablet or internet dongle.

whenIretire

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing then that I won't be able to run the sure signal box from a mobile broadband connection and will have to keep the landline just for a fixed broadband connection for the box.

hiz_2

Hows about asking his business to cover the cost of the suresignal/broadband or move his phone to another provider or if they really do need to call him at home, get them to pay for you to move house! Ha.

I think its well worth trying the suresignal on a 3 broadband connection however if it works today I wouldn't be sure they dont block it tomorrow.

Vodafone

whenIretire wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing then that I won't be able to run the sure signal box from a mobile broadband connection and will have to keep the landline just for a fixed broadband connection for the box.

Hi whenIretire,

Just to confirm that you won't be able to use our Sure Signal unit via your mobile broadband connection.

Thanks,

Lee

Web Relations Team

Vodafone UK

InsideInsurance

Vodafone_company_representative wrote: »

Just to confirm that you won't be able to use our Sure Signal unit via your mobile broadband connection.

From a technical view point why not?

If you have a full mobile router (rather than just a dongle or mifi type device) then the Sure Signal unit would not know what method the router is connecting to the internet by.

My guess would be that if it is blocked it isnt a technical block but simply a business decision that Vodafone blocks it if it comes across a competitors mobile network.

whenIretire

Hi All

Vodafone Company Representative - thank you for the confirmation.

InsideInsurance - yes, I'm wondering why too? I had, as you have stated, intended on using a full router with a compatible port for the suresignal box.

kwikbreaks

It may be because all mobile networks operate with your network behind their NAT - ie it isn't possible to route back to your device from the internet. For instance you wouldn't be able to operate a public webcam on a mobile network.

It could also be down to the high latency you see with all mobile internet services.

I doubt it would be Vodafone blocking it.

Of course it could also be that the Vodafone rep has it wrong. As the OP has both devices the simplest way to find out would be to try it...

securityguy

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It may be because all mobile networks operate with your network behind their NAT

The suresignal device has to be able to do NAT traversal, because it will normally be behind a home router that acts as a NAT boundary. It's more than likely, however, that rather than using a full solution with a Session Border Controller, which would work via a mobile network that did NAT (ie, with the home router also doing NAT, you have double NAT), the SureSignal box just uses UPnP to allow tincoming connections.

UPnP is where a client device (here the Suresignal) says to the local router "hey, if you get any packets coming in to port 1234, they're for me, so send 'em over" --- it's a means of running servers behind a NAT boundary without pre-configuration, and it's how things like "Back to my Mac" work. It doesn't work if there's a further NAT boundary, as there is on a mobile network.

whenIretire

Thanks guys, think I understand why now - had never heard of NAT before. Every day is a learning day!

mr_fishbulb

Hmmmm I wonder if it would work if you plugged the ethernet cable into one of these 3g routers: