zaterdag 10 december 2011

UPC Thomson TWG870 modem :(


With the upgrade to 120Mbit I also received a new modem, the Thomson TWG870. It's DOCSIS 3.0, with very decent WiFi, and a couple of issues.

It's an 'end user' device, where end user should be read as dumb-ass-I-need-not-one-change-nor-control-over-my-own-network kinda user. Ok, one can set the SSID, and password and even the WiFi compatibility, but that is about it. Want the device in bridge mode? Forget it, disabled by your friendly provider! You would like to assign fixed leases for particular device in your wired/wifi network? Forget it, just not possible.

"IP Flood Detection" slows the box down to a crawl, just turn it off. FTP can cause issues, but then again, this is a protocol that is about as clean as SMNP is secure. And while at it, the updating of the firmware has been disabled, so all UPC customers will proberbly never update, till they order a new modem.

And the whole interface is just... so incredible 1.0 it should really be used in the-greatest-design-fuckups-ever contest.

So now I'd need to switch back to the reliable Cisco EPC3000. There is absolutely nothing fancy about this modem, except maybe the USB port. For the rest it is simply a useable bridge. I'll do my nat'ing and what have you not myself, thanks UPC!