Vodafone’s Sure Signal upgrade
The Vodafone Sure Signal is a femtocell, which is a small cellular base station that you run at home/work to improve your Vodafone coverage (you must have Vodafone ADSL). I run one of these at home, as I have good coverage outside, but no coverage inside. The Sure Signal means I don't have to run outside at all hours, to make and receive calls.
About two weeks ago I received this email (I've shortened it somewhat):
Great news! You will soon receive a Sure Signal upgrade. This free upgrade means you'll enjoy the great mobile reception you're used to with Sure Signal in a sleek new device, plus it'll prepare you for quicker data speeds on your mobile with our next network upgrade in the new year.
The new device will be couriered out to you in the next couple of weeks. So keep an eye out for the courier and you'll soon be enjoying all the benefits of our new and improved Sure Signal service.
The courier pack arrived at the glorious hour of 8am this morning. The new Sure Signal is a much nicer looking, and a much smaller unit (new one on the left):
The new one is manufactured by Alcatel-Lucent (old one was Sagemcom), and has a Ethernet pass through port if you're not running a switch. The new one also doesn't sit upright, with the stand making it lean back slightly:
The unit was dispatched from Brightpoint, with a return courier back to send the old unit back.
The best thing about upgrading to the new Sure Signal is how quick and painless it was - unplug the old unit, plug in the new one: done. No port forwards on the router or any other configurations, the unit just works. Surprisingly, it works with my Draytek modem, even though it's not the standard Vodafone ADSL modem that was provided.
If you have one of the old Sure Signals, and haven't received a new one in a few weeks, it might pay to contact Vodafone - the cover letter indicated the old Sure Signals won't be supported past April 2012.
I'm a big fan of the Sure Signal, and have recommended them to friends and family who have coverage issues. The investment in one is not much, it uses very little power and the data it uses is zero rated.
Thanks Vodafone for the free upgrade!
Have a great break over Christmas/New Years everyone.
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Comment by Adam, on 27-Dec-2011 02:17
Nice you got at upgrade, but I would be asking myself why you need one at all. I know where you live ;) and I would most defintely expect reasonable coverage indoors where you are. I had the same issue (no indoor coverage) at the 2 places I lived in Auckland city, and changing to another network fully solved the problem. Vodafone in Auckland is heavily over subscribed and instead of them investing in better infrastructure, you're having to fork out your own cash to get coverage in your house, in the middle of NZs largest city. Vodafone may suit you for broadband also, but for many it doesn't and having to lock yourself to them for Internet just to get decent mobile coverage (at your own expense) is just salt in the wound. My 2 cents anyway.
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Comment by codyc1515, on 25-Dec-2011 21:32
So the benefit of this new one vs. the old one is that it offers a 14.4Mbps speed and has two ethernet ports?