Wippies TechBlog

Hi,

I’m a terrible blogger it seems, but we have been developing the Sauna-29 software that will include several new features for the Homeboxes. These include:

- Huawei E169 and Icon 225 support
- Annex M support for the ADSL line (faster upstream if the operator supports that (+line is less than 1km long)
- Multicast enchancements:
a) The multicast stream dont kill the WLAN anymore
b) several Elisa/Saunalahti network related things that ease up the setup with SaunaVisio etc
- New webcam drivers (SPCA)
- Several smaller enchancements that make the box work better

The software is now under alpha-testing and you can request it from ircnet channel #wippies, it will be in beta-program within couple of weeks.

Also, there is a new feature in my.wippies pages: DynDNS. You can make your own host like “mysite.wippies.net” that is pointed to your modem (and you can make a port forward for example to your web server behind it.

We have launched now the new software version out to the public, the beta boxes will be upgraded during this week.

The features that I promissed in the last post are out (except for WDS), unfortunately the release of the software was delayed because of some upgrade problems that we encountered in bigger scale deployments.

Enjoy!

PS. Estonia is out NOW!

There is a lot happening in the Wippies-scene: Denmark has been launched and Norway+Estonia will be done in the near future!

There will be a lot of new things coming up for the Wippies CPE software too, like:

Homebox:

- 3G USB Dongle support (at least Huawei E220/E270)
- Bridging for the ethernet uplink
- PPPoE support for the ethernet uplink
- Compatibility enchancements (Some Nokia phones WLAN, Vista etc)
- Rsync (sync a USB disk directory to Big-G)
- WPS WLAN pairing (black box only)
- WDS (Wireless Distribution system) chaining support (already out for the grey box)

Wifibox:

- Bridging support
- PPPoE support
- Port forward support

These features will be available pretty soon, but unfortunately I can’ t promise any dates since there are quite a lot of variables in the upgrade process.

Also on the hardware side the 802.11n boxes are coming after a while (both Homebox+ and Wifibox+).

Here’s the test POI data for different GPS navigators, feedback to the forum is welcome!

http://www.wippies.com/poilocationdata?country=FIN&format=csv

http://www.wippies.com/poilocationdata?country=FIN&format=gpx

http://www.wippies.com/poilocationdata?country=FIN&format=kml

http://www.wippies.com/poilocationdata?country=FIN&format=ov2

/Jarkko TechWippie

Hi,

We started the upgrades to the new Sauna-19 software last thursday and hopefully we can upgrade rest of the beta tester’s boxes today. The feedback has been pretty positive though we have loads of new features, so this is excellent news We have to fix some internal things before we can start thinking about the new software and features, but hopefully this can be done soon!

/Jarkko TechWippie

We have reached the Beta status in the new firmware. The new feature list is pretty impressive:

- PPPoE/PPPoA
- VPI/VCI-value settings
- Bridging to Home LAN
- Ethernet-Uplink
- Support for Static IP
- WPA compatibility enchancement
- Firmware upload -tool in the local web pages
- VOIP fix for local numbers
- Webcam support
- Bandwidth limiting to visitor network
- Vista-compatible Samba

We’ll start by upgrading 100 boxes today and if everything goes OK during the weekend we’ll continue to other betatesters next week.

The new software means also that we’ll start shipping the Homeboxes to Sweden very soon!

/Jarkko

We are launching a serious number of new features for the Homebox in the next software release. The new features include bridging and ethernet uplink, so this update will be important for some customers and we are trying very hard to get everything working as expected. As always, we have to very careful with the upgrade procedure.

We have an alpha software ready (beta users get it later on), but unfortunately we noticed some problems with tests with test customers and we had to postpone the mass upgrade a bit.

Hopefully we can sort things out within a week and then we can start the upgrades to beta testers.

/Jarkko TechWippie

We have launched this week couple two new features:

- USB disk sharing for the home lan
- USB printer support for the home lan

These are just a couple of new things coming out in a while (some comments to a previous post):

- PPPoA/PPPoE support (in the lab being tested, works OK)
- VPI/VCI setting (small enchancements needed but ready in a couple of days)
- Enchanced ADSL compatibility (needs very thorough testing before even deploying to pilot users, we are doing this at the moment)
- Webcam support for the USB port (working already in the lab)
- Rate limiting to visitor WLAN (working already in the lab)
- Fixed the “local number” problem with the VOIP ATA (tested and works, will be integrated to the next F/W)
- 10Mbit support (support coming up pretty soon)

Bridging is a bit tricky, but we are going forwards with that too. The support will be integrated into the local web page of the modem.

BR; Jarkko

I will try to demonstrate the networking ideology behind the Wippies HomeBox and see how it differs from other WLAN boxes out there.

Wippies HomeBox is truely a multiservice gateway which is able to do many different things including:

- ADSL 2+ (up to 24M)
- Three SSIDs (Home, Mobile VOIP, Wippies Visitors)
- 2 ethernet switch ports for the Home Lan (Home WLAN is attached to this LAN)
- USB ports
- Saunalahti VOIP calls directly from the box
- etc etc

You never have to worry about your box configuration or software upgrades again, this all is done absolutely automatic. The parameters that you want to set yourself (like home WLAN name, password and type of security) can be done directly from http://my.wippies.com. For example to attach a Saunalahti VOIP number to your box you just have to know the number and password, everything will be configured for you automatically.

When it comes to the the traffic and security I hope that the attached picture tells more than words. The visitor traffic is truely separated from the customer’s traffic, so you don’t have to worry about somebody using your IP numbers to make nasty things. This is very different from our competition!

/Jarkko

Hi,

The summer vacations are over (at least for me) and we are pushing new features out for both HomeBox and Wifibox!:

Homebox:

- PPPoA/PPPoE support
- VPI/VCI setting
- Enchanced ADSL compatibility
- Webcam support for the USB port
- Rate limiting to visitor WLAN
- Fixed the “local number” problem with the VOIP ATA

Wifibox:

- Rate limiting to visitor WLAN

There are of course other new features around the corner, but these ones are being released in couple of weeks.

/Jarkko

I will be on vacation on july, so the blog will be sleeping.

Thanks to everyone who have been involved with Wippies so far!

/Jarkko

Just to show that there is new development in the HomeBox once again, we have received the samples of the new batch of HomeBoxes. It looks amazing and has also new Infineon chipset (Danube V1.3 psb50702) in it and extra 2 ethernet ports.

The services will remain the same for the previous model of HomeBox, so the first HomeBox users can rest easy…You don’t really need the new box for anything else than looks (and maybe in some cases for the ethernet ports).

GSM-phone quality pics:

HomeBox front

HomeBox back

Almost 1000 Wifiboxes have been sent out to the customers and the first impressions have been good. I have got a lot of positive comments about it and everything seems to work pretty well. It’s a nice little box and the performance is pretty good.

The good thing about the WifiBox for Wippies is that the ethernet interface is a lot more “standard” than ADSL, so there are not compatibility problems with that. A lot of ADSL operators have old DSLAM equipment and even with the newest DSLAMs there are compatibility issues (with other modems also).

We will probably learn a lot more about the WifiBoxes within next couple of weeks, but so far so good

We have been doing the first upgrade for the HomeBoxes since the Wippies-service started and most of the boxes have already been updated.

Since this was the first time that we are doing the upgrade, we have been extra carefull so that nothing unexpected happens. Hopefully all the boxes will be updated at the start of the week, so we can open up the port forward possibility in https://my.wippies.com.

There are a lot of new things in the new firmware, including:

- better ADSL-compatibility
- better WLAN-compatibility
- VOIP enhancements
- Home network firewall fix
- Internal Web page for the ADSL modulation modification
- A security bug fix
- Portforward support

The first shipment of WifiBoxes has arrived to Finland and we are testing them so that we can send them out to the customers as soon as possible. Everything seems promissing, but we have to be sure that the process of sending and the box itself works OK.

If everything goes well, the first users should have the boxes already this week

Wlan boxes

We have made the Homebox software a lot better during the last month and we are in the process of upgrading the software to the customers. There is a lot of new features like:

- Better ADSL drivers
- Better WiFi drivers
- Better VOIP
- Web based ADSL modulation configuration in the CPE
- Small bug fixes

The upgrades will be done automatically, the customers don’t have to do anything. The timetable for the upgrade will be next week, the first customers have been already upgraded. The reason for this is that we need to have feedback about the upgrade. We have of course tested the firmware thoroughly, but there are a lot of different environments where the HomeBoxes are installed.

We will have a interface in http://my.wippies.com where the customers can sign in as first level beta testers, but this is still under development. This way the most enthusiastic customers can enjoy the new features as soon as possible.

There has been significant development with both the WifiBox and the HomeBox solutions. The WifiBox software has been validated and the the boxes are now being produced and later on shipped to Finland. The different functionalities have been confirmed and everything looks pretty promissing. We will get the first patch of boxes somewhere in the middle of may, so we are a week or so late but that’s not very critical since we want to be sure that everything works when we ship the boxes to the customers. The Wifibox has a web page where the customer can configure the static IPs, so you can use it in various network environments (there is of course a DHCP client too). The network visitor’s traffic is again forwarded to Wippies VPN, so you are not letting anyone into your home network.

With the HomeBox there is also a new software version that fixes the HomeLan communication problem and includes enhancements in ADSL, WLAN and VOIP drivers&support. There is also a web page for configuring the ADSL modulation so that everyone can get their link up for configuration&software upgrades. We have to test this software out in the lab and with a couple of customers first before a mass upgrade.

We have now received +1000 new Homeboxes that we can send out to the customers, but there are a couple of small things that we have to do first. We have implemented a small web interface for the box, so that the customers can modify the ADSL modulation type for their uplink. This is because in some cases the “multimode” ADSL has not been able to negotiate the link up with different operators. This has happened typically with old DSLAMs or DSLAM software versions. One other thing is that the HomeLan problem that has not permitted communication inside the network has been corrected.

The development with WifiBox has been pretty fast, the vendor has corrected many minor bugs and it seems that we are on time with deliveries starting at the beginning of may.

/Jarkko

We have received the first WifiBoxes to the office and I have been playing around with the hardware and software. There’s still a few small software issues to be solved before we can launch it, but everything is looking pretty good. The Wifibox has 4 ethernet ports for the home lan and the management will be done from https://my.wippies.com the same way as with Homebox.

Basically the functionality of WLAN and the network design in general will be very similar to the HomeBox, the difference being that the WifiBox doesn’t have integrated ADSL, USB ports or VOIP . The chipset is Atheros AR531X (Homebox is based on Centillium Palladia 400). Operating system is both boxes Linux (of course).

I will be on vacation for the next week but things will keep on going forwards. See you soon!

Since everybody seems to be pretty interested in the casing design of the HomeBox, here’s the “second phase” design.

HomeBox NextGen

The physical size of the box will be pretty similar to the original HomeBox and there will be four ethernet ports instead of 2. As you might notice, there’s two antennas which will probably make the radio coverage a bit better. We will have a Wippies logo or something on top of the blank design.

These boxes will be out in a couple of months, but the functionality will be the same as the current one. Please note that there will be some changes from the picture to the shipping product, for example the other antenna will be internal.

The Wippies CPEs are managed from https://my.wippies.com, which is integrated to Wippies intranet and billing system. The whole idea is of course to make life easier for everyone:

- The customers can very easily modify their settings from the web
- Software updates are done automatically
- The box configures itself and you don’t have to worry about security
- etc

…and everything is of course done securely.

The remote management is done through TR069, which is a dsl-forum specification for CPE WAN management. The whole ACS system has been developed from scratch at Saunalahti/Wippies, so that way we can easily integrate it with our existing environment.

You can read about the TR-069 here http://www.dslforum.org/techwork/tr/TR-069.pdf.

Here’s “GSM-quality” pics about the HomeBox and the WifiBox. We will have proper pictures in the Wippies pages very soon:

HomeBox.jpg

HomeBoxBack.jpg

WifiBox.jpg

/Jarkko

Wippies TechBlog is meant for people that are interested in how Wippies actually works!

Since Wippies is an open community, we will open most of the technical info to the people that are interested in the concept. By sharing information with you, we hope that we will get REAL development input for the community services and loads of feedback.

I will be posting new stuff here very soon, so please stay tuned!

/Jarkko

Welcome to the revolution!