Possible fix for your poor connection with Virgin Mobile OverdrivePro BFD

IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT BUYING THIS DEVICE - DON'T!! IF YOU ARE CAPABLE OF RETURNING IT, DO SO IMMEDIATELY!! These jokers just tried to tell me making any changes to the settings is a violation of the TOS and will void the warranty!! Can you believe that, instead of providing tech support they try to brush off my technical matters, it took them 26 hours to come to this conclusion as well!

[EDIT 7.1.13: Over a week and they continue to ignore the technical issues with the service. When they do reply, they claim it is an issue with speed and continuously regurgitate the same bullshit about being "throttled" They claim that the issue will be resolved when I am no longer throttled, but I have yet to understand how throttling would cause packets to become fragmented.]

I hate it when a company does not properly provide support for their products and/or services. You expect a lack of support for free, or nearly free services, such as MagicJack, but when you are paying market rates, support should be part of the package.

Take the last day of back and fourth on Twitter and Email between me a Virgin Mobile trying to resolve Issues in my internet connection of my OverdrivePro BFD. While waiting forever for them to reply back to my initial contact with them I did what any person would do and took to searching Google, something that you probably did to land here! I found several things to attempt to test to tweak and optimize my connection. What I came up with was that my MTU setting was probably not optimized. Virgin Mobile support has so far been unable to assist me with ANYTHING, and I will be publishing a post on the entire mess that I had to endure dealing with them in the near future, but for now I would like to present some possible tweaks that you should be able to perform to get your device to stop pretending there is a DNS issue loading webpages, when such a DNS issue does not truly exist. 

Packet fragment test with 1500 bit size packet

What you are first going to do is open a command prompt window and type in the following command:

         ping 8.8.8.8 -f -l 1500   
(that is minus lowercase F and minus lowercase L) 

I used 8.8.8.8 but you could replace that with any IP out on the internet, or any domain name, such as google.com. You will likely see "Packet needed to be fragmented but DF set." This is NOT a good sign. We need to lower the number at the end until we reach the lowest packet size that is not fragmented, and then add 28 to get the optimal MTU size. 

Unable to test fragmented packets between 1017 bits and 1372 bits sized packets!

The problem that I encountered was that Any time I tried a number between 1017 and 1372 I got "Request timed out" This is where I have been attempting to get assistance from Virgin Mobile to help resolve, since I was able to identify the actual problem on my own, I am just attempting to optimize my settings now. 

An example of an unfragmented test with a 1016 bit sized packet,
However This setting is TOO low, and not optimal! 

You ideally want to find the highest size packet that you are able to send, however, since we are unable to test between 1017 and 1372 bit packet sizes, we really have no way of testing the optimal setting other than trial and error. 

Currently I have set my MTU at 1395 1300 (apparently still having issues at 1395, lowering to 1300 immediately solved page load problems)  which is probably too low, BUT since I have adjusted this setting I have not had any issues with false DNS issues or page load issues. [EDIT 11pm 6.24.13: supposedly there is a repair ticket open on my account, although no information is being passed to me, my connection failed, dropping MTU down to 1250 did not resolve the issue, so it is currently set to auto (by default it is set to optimized) let's see how long this lasts before I am hit with another false DNS error webpage]

If the test was successful then you know your optimal MTU setting, if it was not, which I believe it probably was not, then you will need to trial and error some values to find YOUR ideal MTU setting.

Now navigate to your OverdrivePro BFD web interface which should be found at http://192.168.0.1 If you need to log in the default password is password. Then we can click on the "Advanced Settings" tab highlighted in the following image:

First click the "Advanced Settings"

From this window we will want to click on the "Router" tab:

Then click "router" 

From here we will want to click on the "LAN" tab:

Then click "LAN"

And from here we can set the MTU to "Manual" and enter in the ideal MTU from the test before (if you were able to get decent results) or try lowering it from the default 1500. I would start at 1400, if successful you can try slowly increasing the value. If you still are experiencing problems than try slowly decreasing the value.

Now you can set MTU to "manual" and enter your MTU Value.

Please comment on your success rate, and what values you have tried with your device.

As for me, I will continue to wait for Virgin Mobile support to get back to me, although I think it is a helpless cause. Stay tuned for all of the details from my Twitter feed (which you can view yourself now if you want) and my Email exchanges with their customer service agents, all of which are women, and none of which have any technical or IT experience or knowledge.

Ooma Business Phone sysyem

Ooma has begun a promotion about their latest offering, the Ooma Business phone system, but is this system designed with YOUR business needs in mind?

Before I get started with this post, I want to make it clear up front that this is in no way a hands on review of the service, this is an outside looking in perspective of the publicized features and functionality of the Ooma Business phone system  from someone with nearly 15 years as a telecommunications technician.

The Ooma Business phone system compares better to a regular land line phone system than any of the other VoIP business solutions that are available on the market.

The device is LIMITED to 5 extensions (physical phones) and 15 virtual extensions (forwarding to cell phones or other telephone numbers.

The device is LIMITED to 10 "phone lines"

This means that your business is limited to having no more than 5 workers handle no more than 10 phone calls at any given time. This might suffice for many small businesses, or start ups. The problems do not end there however. Since regular land line phones are used, initial start up costs are kept to a minimum and any off the shelf telephone or cordless telephone can be used for each of your employees extensions, but that means that there are no special function buttons for the phones, such as hold, or transfer. All additional functions must be performed by memorizing the special codes to use these features.

The service does come with an IVR, but you would need to record and set up the IVR system yourself. They do not provide professional voice actors to record, nor do they perform the set up of your IVR menu functions. Again, for a small or home based business this may not be a negative factor. Some smaller businesses want to appear accessible to their customers and do not mind recording their own IVR prompts, but do you really want to learn how to, and then set up all of your ring groups, and phone system functions on your own?

Once you get your phone system up and running, and decide that you want additional functionality such as an overhead paging system, or a door phone intercom connected to your phone system there is NO way to accomplish connecting these additional systems to your Ooma Phone system, so you are going to have to start over again.

While I commend Ooma for trying to break into the Business phone market, I think that a device like this would have worked much better as a stop gap many years ago as a transitional service to the more robust functionality that many of the hosted PBX telecom providers now offer, such as Telebroad (which employs me)

While there is a place for the Ooma Business phone system in the market, I believe that it is a very small niche market of small start up businesses that do not have much aspirations for growing their companies beyond several employees, and have no future plans for adding additional features to their communications system.

They do mention the device will do faxes, but I believe this to be fax over VoIP, which I would never recommend, hopefully it is FoIP, which the device actually caches the fax and transmits it similar to how an efax would be transmitted. If you plan on using this device for faxing, make sure to ask the questions - and I would highly recommend live testing the faxing functions before porting over your fax number to them.

All in all, if you feel that this system will meet your communications needs, you can go here http://www.ooma.com/business/refer-a-friend?referral_code=VEF3711 to order.

"small" 11 jack network.

Basement and 1st floor 11 new wires and jacks needed to be installed. Surprisingly fast. Had wires installed, and hardware installed (router, switch and 12 IP phones) within 2 days from start to finish. The shortcut? I did not test or label any of the jacks, which would have taken at least an extra few hours.

Patch panel, 16 port PoE switch and linksys E2500 installed by me,
everything else existed prior.

double network 12 runs each with patch panel and rack.

Let's try something different this time. I took a bunch of photos for this network. I am going to start with the final product and work my way backwards this time...

Closeup of the finished rack.
The camera was crooked not the rack!

Each location has a total of 2 jacks each. One for the VoIP network, and one for the PC data network. An 8U rack was installed, and 2-24 port patch panels were installed. I also ran an RG6 from the cable tap in the hallway to the rack so that the cable modem could easily be installed when ready. 

Completed rack, finally!

This job was given to me, like all other jobs - with incomplete, or inaccurate information. I was told that this was a job for "5 double runs" or a total of about "15 runs". Either someone does not know math (5x2=10, not 15) or they were just guestimating what the customer needed based solely on information provided by the customer over the phone or email, and not surveying the job, or the requirements of the customer.

Rack mounted, patch panels all punched down ready to be installed.

The first day I arrived on site to survey and begin work I was severely lacking enough materials to complete the job, but I was able to get "5 double runs" from where my rack was going to be mounted, and down the walls at the desk locations.  

Rack all assembled, and toggle bolts connected,
ready to be mounted to the wall.

After finding out what time my supplier closed, and phoning in an order it was time to depart. I had exhausted the materials that I had brought with me, and it was a long trip back to the supplier before they closed. 

Both patch panels punched in.

After 2 local service calls in the morning, it was back to finish up the wiring. I had all the materials and was ready to go. All wires were finally able to get pulled from the location where I decided to place the rack and snaked down the walls. Unfortunately due to the service calls in the morning, this meant that I only had half-day, but was at least able to pull all the cables down the walls.

Wires brought down wall behind where rack will be installed.
VoIP and PC network wiring separated.

Day 3 I was able to get the all of the wires punched down, all of the face plates installed, and all the jacks labeled and tested. Unfortunately after labeling the first jack my label machine started smoking and no longer would function, so all other jacks had to be hand labeled with a marker. I also was able to get the wires run down the wall behind my rack location, install the RG6 wire for the cable modem, and run a CAT5 loop for additional door phones, which unfortunately the model that the customer currently has is discontinued, so no hardware could be installed.

Wires snaked inside wall behind rack's location. 

With EVERYTHING completed it was time to mount the rack. But, guess what? The box that I had brought from inventory that was in the box that an 8u rack comes in was not a rack! Someone had reused the box, and taped it up, so when I opened the tape to get to my rack, it was an old piece of networking equipment  and not a rack. 

Yes that wood beam is as deep as it looks, it has to be at least 4 or 5 inches thick!

With nothing left to do, I called the supply house once again, and put in an order for a rack, since I knew I would be arriving there just as they were closing. I was able to get the rack, and jump start my day with an hour long drive for the 15 minute task of mounting the rack to the wall! 

Old phone from old tenant.
Many of the old low voltage brackets were used for my jacks,
and many of the old wires were used to snake my wire down the walls. 

Finally, after 2 half days, 1 full day, and 15 minutes the job was finally completed! 

Now lets just hope whoever patches in the network equipment does a neat job with the patch cords, and mounting the router and switches.  

Wire run to one of the jack locations,
waiting to be snaked down the wall. 

Sorry for the blury image.
This was the only 2 labels I was able to make
before my label machine started smoking. 

All additional jacks were hand labeled with a marker.

The only "mistake" in the job,
on this jack only the voice is blue and data is white.
Both pass, so no need to stress out redoing the jacks.