DOVADO UMR - 3G USB router (For use with O2, Three & Vodafone)

ow · 25-11-2008 11:51am

DOVADO wrote: »

Hi Oscar,

Kindly email us at support@dovado.com the following information:

- serial number/MAC address of your UMR (says on the bottom sticker 0016A6xxxxxx)
- USB modem you are running (as well as which operator SIM card)
- APN you are connecting with.
- Screenshots of the following pages: HOME, MODEM->MODEM STATUS, MODEM->MODEM SETTINGS.
- Firmware version you were running prior to upgrade to 2.1.

Thank you,

...
Hi Dovado,

I will sent the modem info to your support later.

The point is : the modem reboot every 20-30 seconds once powered up, I don't even have time to get my IP before it reboot !

There is no way I can get into the modem web pages to do anything now.

Any suggestions besides returning to the supplier.

Oscar
...

DOVADO · 10-12-2008 1:08pm

Hi folks,

There's more info now up on our support page.

http://www.dovado.com/support

We have some REALLY awesome ("cool" would be an understatement) unique features coming up in January and hope you'll stay tuned for that.

If we don't chat by then, then here's us wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009!

Thanks for 2008.

Team DOVADO

Owen · 05-01-2009 6:40pm

Any updates for us Dovado? You could call it a late Christmas present

DOVADO · 05-01-2009 11:22pm

ned78 wrote: »

Any updates for us Dovado? You could call it a late Christmas present

Hi Ned,

A new release is nigh. We are targeting end of January/sometime in February (depending on what else pops up). A very nice new load of bells and whistles already working in alpha stage. Quite impressive stuff. I cannot reveal much, but it will be VERY unique. You'll see a video or two in the coming firmware release notes, guaranteed.

STAY TUNED!

Wishing you the best in 2009!

tommiejoie · 08-01-2009 12:12am

I am considering purchasing one of these routers but I have a couple of questions before I go ahead: (FYI my BB package is 3 prepay)

(1) How does the router handle the 3G Broadband provider's connection GUI. Does it continue to operate in the same way but via the routers Wi-Fi link or is it simply bypassed altogether with a direct connection i.e. no need to manually connect to the service provider?

(2) Has anyone tried using this as a hub for external hard-drive connections? Does it work, could it work or is it just not possible?

Thanks.

DOVADO · 08-01-2009 12:35am

The UMR requires you to insert the 3G USB modem into it, along with what's called an APN (Access Point Name - of your mobile operator's network. A list is available on http://www.dovado.com/ie). You may also require your SIM card's PIN code.

After that, the UMR will automatically dial up to the internet from there, and share the single internet connection via the 4 LAN ports and/or the WLAN. The UMR serves two roles. First is to make sure it is always connected to the internet (it auto-redials in case of a drop), and the other is to share out that connection to your private network at home or office.

External hard-drive support via USB is not available (as of yet), however, you can always use an Ethernet-based chassi for such drives, which will actually provide you faster transfer speeds locally than a USB port would anyway.

Does that answer your questions?

tommiejoie · 08-01-2009 2:03am

DOVADO wrote: »

The UMR requires you to insert the 3G USB modem into it, along with what's called an APN (Access Point Name - of your mobile operator's network. A list is available on http://www.dovado.com/ie). You may also require your SIM card's PIN code.

After that, the UMR will automatically dial up to the internet from there, and share the single internet connection via the 4 LAN ports and/or the WLAN. The UMR serves two roles. First is to make sure it is always connected to the internet (it auto-redials in case of a drop), and the other is to share out that connection to your private network at home or office.

External hard-drive support via USB is not available (as of yet), however, you can always use an Ethernet-based chassi for such drives, which will actually provide you faster transfer speeds locally than a USB port would anyway.

Does that answer your questions?

Yes, that made it very clear. Thank you.

On the external hard-drive support, is there a plan to include this in the future? When might this happen?

watty · 08-01-2009 10:00am

For USB hard drives etc you are better getting a Router that supports OpenWRT or DDwrt. You then can download a variety of Linux packages and add almost anything subject to drivers for the variety of CPU (ARM, MIPS etc) and limit of available memory.

Several manufacturers have standard WiFi products with USB support for Storage dongle, USB SD card reader, USB HDD, USB printer etc.. Some can create a "virtual USB" port on your PC so you can use the PC driver. Others (most) require a Linux Driver built in and then provide the storage or Printer as a Network share.

Some of the PCMCIA only routers that take OpenWRT will run a PCMCIA to dual USB 2.0 adaptor thus allowing USB devices (assumeing Linux openWRT driver). This approach means no drivers need loaded on the PCs/Laptops as they see Storage or Printer shares or virtual remote Serial Ports.

tommiejoie · 08-01-2009 1:27pm

Just to clarify on the external hard drive; if I use a network connected HD (i.e. HD connected to the router via the ethernet ports), is it possible to then access the HD wirelessly?

DOVADO · 08-01-2009 2:00pm

What kind of access are you asking about? You mean locally? Yes certainly. Shouldn't be any issue there.

tommiejoie · 08-01-2009 3:02pm

DOVADO wrote: »

What kind of access are you asking about? You mean locally? Yes certainly. Shouldn't be any issue there.

I think that answers all my questions, but one thing; what exactly do you mean by "locally"?

DOVADO · 08-01-2009 3:17pm

"locally" within your Local Area Network at home

tommiejoie · 08-01-2009 9:30pm

Thanks for your answers.

heinz57g · 13-01-2009 5:27pm

question: have things kind of died down on the DOVADO webpage?
no updates on possible modems for almost two months. the HUAWEI
E169G mentioned, but the newer and quite different E169 is not
- although it is very much the same as the VODAFONE K3520
mentioned a few lines below.

the ZTE MF626 is showing up all over europe, any change of it being
checked and included soon?

am i missing something, or looking at the wrong list?

greetings - heinz -

DOVADO · 13-01-2009 6:10pm

Heinz,

We mentioned our plans further up. As for modems, the work we do is not just adding in new modems, but also cool new features, which you will see plenty of in the coming release.

As there are now what seems like scores/hundreds of different models of modems out there, many do not make a presence outside their limited geography in terms of market presence. This is at times a problem for us as we aren't able to attain such a device which is sold as part of a subscriber package in a country we have no presence in. We do our best, even if it means resorting to buying a sample out on Ebay. Believe us when we say we do our utmost to add as many modems as possible as we are now synonymous with that capability. At the same time, we do not limit ourselves to just new modems, but as mentioned, new features. We have many innovative ideas that are now realizing themselves.

In regards to Huawei modems, the general rule of thumb with the 3G variants is that they are pretty much all the same from a software-support perspective. There are only minor differences, if any. The E169G does not have a Micro-SD card, but the E169 does. The closest match to the E169 is the E180, which has this slot, and we support the E180 very well. FYI, it is a personal fave.

You an always sign up for a firmware update on http://www.dovado.com/umrfirmware

Stay tuned.

PS: We took a merry long Christmas holiday....we needed it, I assure you!

heinz57g · 13-01-2009 6:46pm

hey, it was not really complaining. just wondering if it actually was ME who was not
looking at the right pages. and having one modem there on the list that is shown in
the branded version, but not in its (more important) native version, looked strange.

question: can it damage anything, in the UMR or in the modem, if one just tries out
supposedly "unsupported" models? like all those HUAWEIs? and ZTEs?

well, keep up the good works. as it sounds, you and your chinese friends will be up
to quite some surprises.

hope you had the holiday you wanted - i myself am also just returning to real life.
just ... and slowly.

greetings - heinz -

DOVADO · 13-01-2009 9:47pm

NO WORRIES! I didn't receive it as complaining.

The UMR won't mess up your unsupported modem. There's nothing there that can ruin it electrically as it complies with the USB power standards.

There's a higher chance of a Huawei modem working even if it's not listed on our site, however, it might not always be the case.

As for ZTE, each model requires individual insertion in the coding we do. We can look into this model you mention. Which operator in which country has deployed it?

Holiday was good fun, but I was sick most of the time! Go figure!

heinz57g · 13-01-2009 10:24pm

>> Holiday was good fun, but I was sick most of the time! Go figure!

fun but sick? that sounds at least like good company.

the ZTE MF626 is introduced all over europe, major providers in holland (KPN), poland, bulgaria,
greece and macedonia (Cosmofon) use it as their 'prime' model. also australia (Telstra), very
popular there. these are just the countries i myself have come across them, actually and
advertised - i am sure there are many others. want me to get one and mail it to you? would
have to find an unlocked version first.

greetings - heinz -

DOVADO · 14-01-2009 10:38am

Hi Heinz!

Just sent you an email.

Take a look.

:-)

DOVADO · 19-01-2009 10:24am

Hello Irishmen!

The day may come when THREE Ireland introduces a new modem which has been introduced in the UK, called the Huawei E156G. What's unique with this modem is that not only does it have a Micro-SD slot, but it also has an external antenna port for those of you with signal issues.

The modem is 3.6Mbps downlink and 384kbps uplink capable. We have bought one such unlocked modem (Ebay) for testing with the UMR, and it worked straight out of the box without any firmware upgrading. SMS works as well.

We've put it up now on our evergrowing list of supported modems: http://www.dovado.com/modems

PS: If anyone knows of any APN at THREE Ireland that hands out public IP addresses, it would be most welcome!

All the best and many thanks,

Team DOVADO

DOVADO · 19-01-2009 11:55am

Hi all (again)!

Here's a really good link, must say....

It provides you all the ports you need to open for all the various applications and games when using the DOVADO UMR:

http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/DOVADO/UMR_Broadband/UMR_Broadbandindex.htm

Enjoy,

Team DOVADO

Ahoy · 19-01-2009 7:39pm

I was interested in getting one of these.
The supplier here in Ireland is seems to be Subnet Zero.
At 99 euros the price seemed ok.
But the website is kinda like Ryanyair
The further you go the more expensive it gets
First it's €99
then the add tax 21.29 (is it not illegal to display price without tax in Ireland?)
Then they add the shipping - €22.48 - it must be a very heavy unit for shipping to be that expensive!

Now I see loads of people have problems.
And I see aditional adaptors are very expensive too.

And the unit comes in at €147.76 - at least as far as I went - maybe they'll want to charge extra for using a credit card but I didn't bother going any further.
- or maybe there is a bagage charge too!
At 147.76 this unit is too expensive.

Anyway as a matter of principle the way this website is arranged,
I will not be buying one of these.
With all the problems, seems like a Billion's BiPAC 3G router is a better buy!

Here are the figures from the website:
Dovado UMR 3G Router Version 2 DOVP8v2 ∞ €99.00 €99.00
- Remove Item Subtotal: €99.00
Tax: €21.29
Shipping: Flat Rate (€22.48)
Basket Total: €142.76

DOVADO · 20-01-2009 10:30am

Ahoy wrote: »

Now I see loads of people have problems.

Ahoy,

What problems are you referring to? The purpose of this forum is so that the Irish public can raise their questions and provide general/specific feedback to us. It allows us to further improve the product and plan for coming firmware releases. It also provides users a sense of what's to come. We handle each support case with utmost priority. I am confident that there are many out there who will vouch to that.

Our value is in the features we continue to provide via firmware upgrades and our commitment to provide best possible knowledge transfer of new features to all the markets we sell into. A bad product is something you put out only once and do not further continue to develop on or support. After all, a product is only as good as the support it's given, is it not?

I am not sure if the other router you mention is a cheaper buy after having searched for prices, but the question is: Will it be something you can still enjoy later?

There will be more retail options for the UMR very soon in Ireland.

Owen · 20-01-2009 10:48am

I've moved house recently Dovado, and my weak signal issues seem ot have disappeared, I wonder if there was something in the construction of the old house that affected it.

The bad news I have for you is that the connection tracker does not appear to be functioning in my unit. More often than not when I loose connection, the router doesn't reboot itself after the customary 3 attempts to connect, I have to manually log in and choose the restart option. Then it's fine. Has anyone else reported this to you?

DOVADO · 20-01-2009 10:53am

Hi Ned78,

No, that's news to us. Please send us an email with the issue to support@dovado.com so we can gladly follow up on the case. From all the tests we've conducted and the feedback we've gotten, the Connection Tracker has done it's job well. It might be an issue with the modem, but we won't know until we've checked your setup and log.

We await your email.

Many thanks,

Team DOVADO

heinz57g · 20-01-2009 11:06pm

>> At 99 euros the price seemed ok.
>> website is kinda like Ryanyair
>> The further you go the more expensive it gets
>> First it's €99
>> then the add tax 21.29
>> is it not illegal to display price without tax in Ireland?
>> Then they add the shipping - €22.48 -
>> And the unit comes in at €147.76

dovado, give AHOY a chance, pls. you do have an excellent product, and it deserves an
excellent distribution system too.

he is right, it is illegal to provide VAT-less prices in online shops that sell to end-users. and
a shipping charge of 22.48 EUR (within ireland?) might be legal, but is simply out of range.

there are plenty of stores online that sell the unit for 100-120 EUR all in, taxes and shipping.
dont know what country AHOY needs the unit to be shipped to, but i am sure he could do
better than 150 EUR - and still become a happy UMR owner.

isnt that the most important thing? he will then find out that here on the board a lot of issues
are discussed, but hardly any real complaints.

greetings - heinz -

DOVADO · 20-01-2009 11:13pm

Here's all the (known) retailers out there who sell the UMR today. We update the list as often as possible, but they all buy from our distributors:

http://www.dovado.com/UMR_retailers.html

You will however find the UMR retailed as a brand new product on Ebay as well. We do not have contact with such retailers.

heinz57g · 21-01-2009 9:38am

great, and many tks. i am sure this helps AHOY and others.

greetings - heinz -

DOVADO · 21-01-2009 10:45am

your welcome!

DOVADO · 22-01-2009 11:30pm

Hello all,

As promised, a new shopping alternative for you in Ireland.

Further stock is on its way to them from us next week.

http://www.commsoft.ie/shop/dovado.php

DOVADO UMR - 3G USB router (For use with O2, Three & Vodafone)

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