Originally posted by: teddy
Signed up for Sunrocket annual service on Feb. 7th, and received my gizmo and Uniden phones exactly one week later, on Feb. 14th. Incoming calls on both numbers were working the very next day after submitting an order - I checked it by forwarding calls to my POTS line. During sign up it indicated that service is unavailable for my current home phone number, even though SR provides phone numbers in my area code. I called them, and apparently it was because of E911 availability. They assured me that regular 911 is still gonna work, so I went ahead and signed up.
Setting up the gizmo was really easy. I plugged it BEFORE my Netgear router, only because I'm using some applications (remote administration, p2p, online gaming etc) that could generate heavy upload traffic from time to time, and would like to be able to utilize gizmo's QoS. I read on this forum, and on dslreports forum about decrease in download speed some people experienced when Gizmo is plugged in in front of the router, but apparently in my setup it didn't affect the speed a bit! I tested it with TestMy.net and SpeakEasy speed tests - and both up and down speeds were exactly the same - before and after installing the gizmo (~3000 down and 360 up). My firmware version as showed on gizmo's setup page is:
Application Code Version: SIP version 4.50 US (APP 27 )
Downloader Code Version: 4.50 US (LDR 27 )
CPU Hw Version: 20.
I set the gizmo to give static LAN IP to my router, so when gizmo reboots I will not loose my network connection. With gizmo before the router I also have to setup port forwarding for some apps to work properly on my computers. Since my router already has port forwarding set up the way it has to be, I just decided to make gizmo fully "transparent" for incoming requests, and forward all ports to the router. With exception of ports reserved for CPE (68, 5060, 16384-16399), gizmo allowed me to do that, but it didn't work - none of the ports were actually forwarded. Then I came across this thread, and found a few messages saying that port forwarding feature on the gizmo does not work at all! That was really disappointing, especially considering the fact that I need port forwarding for the same apps that were the reason to plug gizmo in front of the router in the first place. Well, I was ready to give up, and move the gizmo after the router, but after reading that SR uses port 80 to access your gizmo from outside for servicing purposes, I decided to try and exclude port 80 (and for the heck of it port 113 too, since gizmo responded to the port scan on this port) from the list of forwarded ports. Amazingly, it worked! So now I have all ports forwarded to my router, except CPE reserved ports, 80 and 113, all my apps work fine, and I can dynamic rate control (QoS) on the gizmo. I tested the call quality while uploading on full speed, and the voice quality was not affected at all. Surely, upload speed decreased from about 300 to 190 kbps while on the call.
Now, can anyone tell me exactly what are disadvatages of having gizmo before the router from the security point of view? Is it more vulnerable to outside attacks then a normal router? If so, is there any way to protect it, other then placing a router in front of it? BTW, I tried to change default password on the gizmo, and it worked for a while - until the gizmo rebooted itself. After rebooting it kept all the settings I changed, but the password was reset to default value again...
After testing the service for 2 days I'd say I'm pretty happy with it. Did not test yet if 911 works though. Made several local and interstate calls, including one another SR subscriber line, regular POTS lines and Vonage lines, and the quality was excellent every time on both ends. Next weekend I'm gonna make a couple of international calls, and if it also works good I will keep the service.
Also, the free Uniden 2.4 GHz phones from SR do not seem to interfere at all with my wireless 2.4 GHz network. I have my router set up to work on channel 11, and didn't notice any interference problems making calls and accessing network from my wireless clients at the same time.
The only issues I really want SunRocket to fix/improve asap are:
1) Message Waiting Indicator doesn't work. Not a big deal though considering that you can setup multiple different notifications when voicemail arrives;
2) Name on CallerID doesn't work most of the time - only works if you already entered this phone into your contact list, or the call is from another SR subscriber;
3) Call Log doesn't show duration of the calls - might be important if you make a lot of international calls;
4) Lack of functionality in Contact List - I need to enter and manage about 300 phone numbers, including internationals, and oh boy - I wish I could do it in more conveninent way...