Huawei B593

Sorin was kind enough to comment my article about Telia's firmware. He found a firmware from 3 Denmark for B593. Naturally I had to try that as soon as I could.

My previous articles about B593 are:

• Telia firmware not having SMS-functionality in it, Saunalahti firmware link
  
• DMZ-setting
• Dropping to 2G EDGE occasionally
  

The download link for 3's firmware is: http://www.3.dk/Privat/Kundeservice/Hjaelp-til-mobilt-bredbaand/Routere/Huawei-B593/#Firmware_opgradering

You will find a .zip-file, which will contain the firmware file with name hi3g_r+m+h+s.tar.bz2 in it. The file is dated 20th Nov 2012. After the firmware upgrade, a software version of V100R001C26SP054 will be installed:

The previously used Saunalahti firmware has software version of V100R001C260SP055, so the difference is C26 SP054 vs. C260 SP055. It is a known fact that telcos get a firmware modification kit from Huawei and can enable/disable features and add their own skins (see previous posts).

For all of us not fluent in Danish, there is a language selection in the login-screen. Beware: after the upgrade was done, I didn't have any connectivity. See:

The lack of connectivity was for the reason, that during update the APN-settings were set for 3 Denmark. Naturally they didn't work for me. This firmware has the VoIP-functionality enabled, thus, there is need for 2 separate APNs. Finnish telco's don't have the VoIP, so I cannot test that. But that does make the APN-setting -screen quirky. You cannot edit/delete an APN which is in use, either as data connection or VoIP-connection. There is no visual feedback about that, so I had to investigate the setting screen -logic for a while.

I did confirm that SMS-send/receive functionality is there and works. No issues on my tests. Also I confirmed my DMZ-forwarding, it still works as expected.

One fact that Sorin mentioned in his comment was, that he experienced lot of dropped connections with Saunalahti-firmware. His experience is that this firmware is more robust.

I'll update here if something surprising appears.

My 4G-router drops to 2G EDGE after running couple of weeks. It's a really weird thing, since it does not do it always. Also the total on-line time is really weird. I hardly think that the on-line time can be 9 years or so.

I could not find any other remedy to fix this, but to reboot. After that it does a scan for connections and finds 4G/3G/2G and chooses the fastest one like it should do.

This is just a nuisance. I'd expect the box to be a little bit more robust.

The on-line time calculator -thing is a really weird one. It seems to jump 200 days during 8 hours when it feels like doing it. Apparently the entire calculator is busted.