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cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

cramer to bluepoint

Premium Member

to bluepoint

Re: How to lease SB6141?

Do you have a link or evidence that what your saying is TWC's position?

No, I do not have any TWC internal memos. I can only go on the word of many people across the internet who have dealt with TWC w.r.t. their own owned modem.

To the letter of the law, any DOCSIS 3 certified modem *should* work. However, we have ample evidence showing that testing an certification is almost useless... in the real world, any random modem on any random network could (and usually does) run into some sort of compatibility issues. ISPs test hundreds of modems -- different brands, models, and yes firmwares -- before putting them in customer hands. This is why you see many more modems in the "leased" box vs. the "allowed to be owned". Leased modems are much more closely controlled -- no matter how they come from the factory, they'll get the tested and approved for the local system firmware. They have no control over what version is on the retail modem at Frys.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't be an issue to reflash the customer owned modems. HOWEVER, there was a huge mess some years ago when they upgrade *all* the (buggy as hell to begin with) SB6120's. They bricked a lot of them -- their own, too. And generally just made the bugginess worse. Customers started *watching* the version on their modem and bitched when the ISP "upgraded" them. So now, we have TWC's apparent hands off policy. (there are plenty of posts right here of people getting the same "no" to upgrades. I don't understand why it's so hard for you to accept.)

The issue of allowing customer firmware upgrades was carved in stone MANY years ago. (in the original DOCSIS 1.0 specs?) Firmware updates MUST come from the HFC interface (as per the DOCSIS config file.) You are obviously too young to remember the era of uncapped cable modems... there were two ways of getting there... feed it a config file from the LAN side, or hack the f'ing firmware. And thus the rule was born.

(I'm not saying that rule is still relevant. Any modem that disobeys it's QoS rules should be quickly detectable by the headend.)

bluepoint
join:2001-03-24

bluepoint

Member

said by cramer:

Do you have a link or evidence that what your saying is TWC's position?

No, I do not have any TWC internal memos. I can only go on the word of many people across the internet who have dealt with TWC w.r.t. their own owned modem.

Your conviction seems to be strong on the basis of what you see in the internet.

Leased modems are much more closely controlled -- no matter how they come from the factory, they'll get the tested and approved for the local system firmware. They have no control over what version is on the retail modem at Frys.

They are all the same hardware from the same manufacturer, no difference in my opinion.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't be an issue to reflash the customer owned modems. HOWEVER, there was a huge mess some years ago when they upgrade *all* the (buggy as hell to begin with) SB6120's. They bricked a lot of them -- their own, too.

SB6120 isn't an old model that I will not see people complain TWC bricked their modem. You are making it look like TWC bricked many of this modem but I have not seen them here. Do you have a link? Maybe I missed them. I've seen people complain about being locked out of the modem but nothing else?
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC

cramer

Premium Member

No, I didn't bookmark them. (3-4years ago?) You seem to be unable to accept what anyone else says anyway, so what's it matter.

swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec

Premium Member

said by cramer:

No, I didn't bookmark them. (3-4years ago?) You seem to be unable to accept what anyone else says anyway, so what's it matter.

I seem to remember this being a charter problem, not TW...actually made DSL Reports front page.
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC

cramer

Premium Member

I found a single reference about a SB6120 and some Dlink with a few seconds of googling. Not that he'd believe anything off the internet.

bluepoint
join:2001-03-24

bluepoint to cramer

Member

to cramer
said by cramer:

No, I didn't bookmark them. (3-4years ago?) You seem to be unable to accept what anyone else says anyway, so what's it matter.

What matters is truthfulness. What you read without basis to show for will always not be accepted as fact.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

I don't recall TWC bricking any 6120 modems but we have not used that one in Hawaii so I suppose it is possible I missed this happening...unlikely though as I read this forum regularly and have since before I joined this site back in 2001.

You guys don't seem to realize that it is RARE for TWC to upgrade the firmware on any of their modems. In the almost 12 years I have had Road Runner, I have seen TWC upgrade the firmware on Surfboards TWO times only. The first time, I was responsible for forcing them to either upgrade the firmware on the SB 4100 due to a security problem or face lawsuits. Since every other cable ISP of reasonable size world wide had, a year or more earlier, upgraded the firmware to fix the security hole EXCEPT TWC which was still on the original factory issued firmware version, TWC didn't have much choice when I challenged them on it. They agreed to push a firmware upgrade across all divisions (not just Hawaii where my complaint started out) and agreed to start keeping timely firmware updates as Comcast and others were already doing.

They pushed the firmware update shortly afterwards. Their excuse for ignoring the security update for so long when other cable companies pushed it as soon as Motorola released it was that they had bricked some modems once with a firmware update...but that was many years ago...*long before the 6120) and a rather feeble excuse since other cable companies had updated the SB 4100 firmware multiple times with no ill effects. The other firmware update pushed by TWC between 2001-2013 was to make my SB 5100 DOCSIS 2 capable.

I got the SB6141 from Oceanic TWC when I upgraded to 20/2 recently. It was a brand new one still shrink wrapped and had notes with it in its factory box. It has the firmware from 2011 that you guys are griping about TWC not updating your personal bought ones that have that firmware. Why would TWC update yours when they have not updated their own? They won't push a firmware update unless absolutely necessary. TWC is notorious for this bad practice and they have not kept up that part of the agreement we reached many years ago.

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
Technicolor TC4400
Linksys EA6900

4 edits

1 recommendation

DocDrew to cramer

Premium Member

to cramer
Click for full size
It wasn't a modem firmware update that caused the problem. It was a CMTS software update to meet updated DOCSIS 3 specs that wasn't compatible with older 6120 firmware, specifically version 1.0.1.8.

The bigger problem was Motorola was still distributing version 1.0.1.8 in it's retail modems several months after the problem came to light (1.0.1.8 was over a year old at that point, the new firmware release on retail after Moto acknowledged the problem was 1.0.3.3). The 1.0.1.8 modems wouldn't sync on CMTSs with the newer software, but the modems weren't bricked. TWC or the other cable companies couldn't update them normally since they wouldn't sync. TWC had updated the 6120 modems on their network before the CMTS update. I'd guess this is why TWC doesn't officially support new customer owned 6120s on their network, since there are still ones with 1.0.1.8 new in the box wandering around. 6121s had newer firmware from the start.

This hit all the MSOs: Charter, Comcast, Cox, BrightHouse, Optimum, and TWC all had threads about the issue here on DSLR:
»[Connectivity] Motorola SB6120 doesn't work with CC-Resolved
»[AZ] SB6120 Provisioning
Many mistakenly thought it was a ISP modem firmware update failure since Motorola never said anything about it publicly. ISPs just had to deal with the fallout and old stock of 6120s ever since. Even Karl misreported it: »Firmware Update Cripples Some Motorola SB6120 DOC 3 Modems [49] comments

If anything, TWC learned to update customer owned modem firmware more often. As far as I know TWC does update customer modem firmware, when they update other modems of the same make and model. It's can't be requested from customer support, they can't do it, most don't even know how it's done so you get a bunch of odd and wrong answers about it. Modem firmware updates are pushed by an automated process initiated/scheduled by TWCs Engineers.

BTW, the majority of 6120 modems I've seen in my area on TWC are running firmware 1.0.6.3. Retail modems never shipped with that. It was released Aug 2011 by Moto and mid last year by TWC. Motorola has averaged a new firmware for the 6120 every 2-3 months for almost 4 years now, most ISPs are 3-6 months behind at best and none I've seen push every release. The latest I've seen is 1.0.6.10 released Dec 2012.

bluepoint
join:2001-03-24

1 edit

bluepoint

Member

Good info DocDrew See Profile, thanks.

If anything, TWC learned to update customer owned modem firmware more often. As far as I know TWC does update customer modem firmware, when they update other modems of the same make and model.

cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

cramer to DocDrew

Premium Member

to DocDrew
Am I the only engineer who read that tech note and thought, "well that's easy enough to fix." (not having used an Arris CMTS, I don't know how hard it is to remove that attr from it's response.) After all, why send a D3 attr to a D2 modem? (TWC's database does know what your modem is. myservices/myaccount shows the correct modem for my accounts.)

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
Technicolor TC4400
Linksys EA6900

3 edits

DocDrew

Premium Member

said by cramer:

Am I the only engineer who read that tech note and thought, "well that's easy enough to fix." (not having used an Arris CMTS, I don't know how hard it is to remove that attr from it's response.) After all, why send a D3 attr to a D2 modem? (TWC's database does know what your modem is. myservices/myaccount shows the correct modem for my accounts.)

Huh? The 6120 is a D3 modem.

I also don't think that TLV option is particular to D3, if I remember correctly it's a parameter used in "PowerBoost" configs. The problem was 1.0.1.8 firmware didn't handle that option properly and it was being sent whether or not it was configured on newer CMTS software due to changes in the D3 spec making it default in some way. Firmware before or after didn't have that problem. The vast majority of other modems didn't have an issue with it.

Motorola and their distributors made it worse by selling modems with old firmware for months, even after the problem was found.
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

cramer

Premium Member

Right. No sleep and no caffeine.

Either way, how hard is it to not send the TLV? On a Cisco, it's usually as easy as "no" in the right place to turn off a default. (maybe not to a specific subset of modems, 'tho)

As for "old stock"... I know first hand how much of a pain in the ass it is to get a new firmware image into the manufacturing processes. (granted, our products are trivial to fix in the field.)

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
Technicolor TC4400
Linksys EA6900

1 edit

DocDrew

Premium Member

said by cramer:

Either way, how hard is it to not send the TLV? On a Cisco, it's usually as easy as "no" in the right place to turn off a default. (maybe not to a specific subset of modems, 'tho)

It's possible, but I think it was made more complicated by the use of PowerBoost.

Some operators using Walled Garden setups changed their default config files for non-provisioned modems in specific ways to allow the modems to sync. That coupled with an automated firmware update system for those specific modems allowed them online. Obviously that meant some extra hoops to jump through for modems already authorized.

So between the failure, time to troubleshoot down to the modem firmware/CMTS software incompatibility, solution testing, and large scale solution deployment, it was several months. All for 1 model modem with 1 specific firmware version which frequently users didn't know had a problem until it was plugged in.

This sort of firmware incompatibility situation happens somewhat frequently with modems, usually not to the point of modems not syncing, but it was made magnitudes worse by the retail distribution of the 6120s and old firmware.