Comments on: Belgacom’s BBox 2 is brain dead

By: 3mmanuel

3mmanuel — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:36:30 +0000

Lorenzo — I’m on EDPnet, have a normal landline, and no TV. So haven’t tried any of these options. Time to experiment!

By: Lorenzo

Lorenzo — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:33:44 +0000

Hi 3mmanuel,

Have you tried to make BGC Voip work with the cisco 887V? And what about BGC TV?

Thanks

By: OSmeest

OSmeest — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:21:29 +0000

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for those very interesting pages on the BBox2. It allows to recover part of the power of those artificially limited routers.

I tried the Static DNS entries trick on my Sagem F@ast3464 (coming from EDPnet). The rg_conf_set commands are all accepted. rg_conf_print shows the inserted entries. However, I cannot get the DNS to resolve the added hostnames. Any idea ? (I’m using FW version 60R10A-60A046.)

Thanks in advance,

Olivier

By: Boshus

Boshus — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:37:31 +0000

Great, thanks. I’ll need to downgrade the firmware on my box and then give it a try. I’ll confirm if I get it working (also on EDPnet) but might be a couple of weeks before I get time.

By: 3mmanuel

3mmanuel — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:07:32 +0000

@Boshus: Posted the configuration here: http://plainjunk.blogspot.com/2011/09/cisco-887v-or-887va-on-belgacom-vdsl2.html @Patrick: Works well over v6 using http://ipv6.vande-walle.eu. @Alberto: the VA model was introduced after 15.0M and is supported starting 15.1(2)T. I'm having success with 15.2(1)T.

By: Jerome

Jerome — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:54:40 +0000

Alberto,
for the VA version it should work no issue with more recent IOS, I had working fine with 151-3.T

By: Boshus

Boshus — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:27:32 +0000

@3mmanuel: Hi, any chance you could post the config commands for the 887V, please? I urgently need to configure for an EDP VDSL2 connection. Many thanks in advance!

By: Alberto Costa

Alberto Costa — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:55:08 +0000

HI Jerome,
according to 3mmanuel’s comment:

He used 15.0(1)M5.
However, if you have (like me) an 887VA, that won’t work (of course, the router won’t load with that IOS as is for the 887V only). I am now trying with the M train for the VA model, will let you know.

By: Alberto

Alberto — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:51:59 +0000

HI 3mmanuel,
too bad there is not such IOS for 887VA model.
I am now trying to have it working with 15.0(1)$M, let’s keep the fingers crossed…

By: Patrick Vande Walle

Patrick Vande Walle — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:31:16 +0000

@3mmanuel

Thank you for this useful report about the Cisco box.

As for IPv6 connectivity, try maybe http://ipv6.vande-walle.eu. This one does not have a corresponding IPv4 address. I suspect this is mostly a client-side issue. Some OSes (like MacOSX) fall back to IPv4 if they feel IPv6 is too slow, in order to improve “user experience”.

By: 3mmanuel

3mmanuel — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:03:09 +0000

Just for information, I was able to use a Cisco 887V router for VDSL2 connection. The trick was to use IOS version 15.0(1)M5. Any newer release does not work on Belgacom, and this will be hopefully fixed in the future.

I am on EDPnet, but I don’t think that any different if you’re with someone else.

PS: as of now, I cannot reach this website using IPv6. Connectivity works fine, and I can telnet to port 80, but the content of the page is empty. Works fine over IPv4.

By: nobody

nobody — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:11:21 +0000

Please be also informed that the BBOX from Belgacom
have a SERIOUS problem , when a public address in ending on a zero ( example 195.217.10.0 ( fake address) ) the internal fireware is blocking the address as he is thinking that it is a network address….
Belgacom & Sagem have confirmed that there is a problem and that they didn’t know that there was a problem , BUT they don’t communicate to the public…..

By: Alain

Alain — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:38:33 +0000

Hey dudes,
i had several disco’s per day (3-7, mostely at evening). So i changed modem, i checked my connections, and so on…
Since i changed the wifi channel to 11 (from 1) it seems, that this was the right solution.
Maybe it helps. I know how annoying that box can be. I was one step before getting a fritzbox!.
BTW, i have those NAT BLOCKED OUT failures also…im not happy about them, but i just ignored them.
cruZ,
Alain

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:55:34 +0000

HI, not sure if anyone hit this already, however while trying to upgrade the fw of my sagem F@st 3464, it seems something went wrong, and i am afraid that i hit a modem brick.
Any advices to recover it, other than bying a new one from Dommel (140 euro)?
It seems i forgot the basic IT rule: if it works, don’t touch it!

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:56:57 +0000

Slow Intranet through B-Box

I am a customer of Belgacom using their supplied B-Box. My desktop computer and laptop computer both dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.10 but Ubuntu is mainly used. Both computers are connected to the B-Box wirelessly and can download files from the internet at speeds up to 1,200 kbps in either Windows or Ubuntu. However, when I try to send files from one computer to the other using the intranet wirelessly (going through the B-Box) through either Windows or Ubuntu the transfer rate is a very slow 150 kbps. I am inclined to think that the operating systems and wireless hardwares are set up fine and the B-Box is to blame for my slow intranet speeds.

Does anyone know how to troubleshoot or correct such a problem?

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:23:43 +0000

Thanks for the quick reply. This is as designed. It is downloading the configuration to minimize end user configuration. They do not let us configure the router at all, and that is the irritating thing. I have a VOIP box that cannot get incoming calls and a web server that I cannot get port s forwarded to. I can go buy my own DSL router and put it up, I suppose. The ISP gave me the ATM info, but I was hoping to get this into my control.

Thanks,
Rick

By: Patrick Vande Walle

Patrick Vande Walle — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:14:07 +0000

I cannot really comment. Sagem is an OEM for several telcos. It also manufactures the Livebox for France Télécom. While many use a common firmware base, they are heavily customized to the telcos’ needs. So, the unsupported javascript commands can vary from one model to another.

Anyway, it is not a normal behaviour for the modem to download a new firmware image every time. I suggest you get in touch with your ISPs service desk. Maybe they can either fix it or replace it.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:37:15 +0000

Hi All,
I have a Sagem Homebox from my ISP TDC here in Denmark. The router downloads a configuration from the ISP everytime the DSL cable is connected. It disables the login web and telnet. I want to stop this if possible. I can get a lot of the pages to come up using the javascript mimic commands, but 730 and 70 do not work. Is there any way to get the configu file to come up?
Or is there a sub page that I can change so that it stops getting the config from the ISP?

Thank you for any assistance.
Rick

By: Patrick Vande Walle

Patrick Vande Walle — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:39:41 +0000

As several of you subcribe to the comments on this post, I thought it may be interesting to let you know about a new post I wrote on the new modem I bought to replace my BBox-2. It is here. The corollary of this is, of course, that I do no more have a BBox-2 in active service. Hence, my capacity to help will be reduced. But please feel free to keep this thread alive.

By: Patrick Vande Walle

Patrick Vande Walle — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:14:35 +0000

@Jerôme,

Well, this post is indeed starting to look like the forum thread that is missing on Belgacom’s own forums.

I don’t know the specifics about the Cisco router. This other forum thread might get you in the right direction. This is mostly a question of tweaking the VDSL paramaters. For example, I have been using a AVM Fritz!Box 7390 on Belgcom’s VDSL for two weeks, and noticed that I had to select the “Annex-B” mode, although I have a plain PSTN line (aka Annex-A).