Today I asked myself as very valid question – “Should there be an age limit on someone using IT equipment?”
This was as a result of a combined call time of 1H 18M to the Silver Fox to get his Netgear TA612V VOIP adapter up and running after I unlocked and flashed it for him.
I was under the impression that I had already configured the Lan and Wan ports to match his subnet and what they needed to be, which would of made a remote session a doddle.
Unfortunately it would appear not! So I tried to add another subnet to his network card so that I could configure it that way but that didn’t want to work either!
Next I asked him to get his laptop out and plug a network cable in the back of the laptop and then in the Ethernet port of the TA612V, that’s the Ethernet port not the Internet port. After clarifying that point a couple more times we had it connected how we wanted it to be.
Things were made even more difficult as the laptop was on the floor and he was sat on the chair and every time he leant down to do something in the laptop he had his deaf ear pointing towards the phone! Could this get any worse?
I got him to check what IP the TA612V had given him, hoping to login and make some changes, only to find that the laptop had a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx IP address. So I get him to reset the device and wait for it to all come back up and settle down. This time he has the expected IP address, so I get him to logon to the web interface and click on the Wan settings.
I tell him what to put in and then save it. We then wait for it to reboot and then come back up. Next I tell him to go to the Lan interface and enter some more details and save again. I then tell him to plug it back into the network and turn it on.
I then connect to the Lan interface, log on and set up his VOIP connection, save and then let it reboot. It takes a few seconds to come back up and register the VOIP connection with Sipgate.
Great so its all working, I make a test call and the phone rings but there is no voice from me!? I log back in and check the settings. Correct ports entered and the settings match my TA612V that works fine. So I suggested a reboot again and see what it does. Up it comes and registered in a few seconds. I make another call to him and get the same problem.
I then, by pure fluke, click on the Wan settings only to find a few digits missing from the IP address and the Subnet Mask! I correct the errors, save and reboot. Once registered I make a call again and hey presto it all works ok.
I told him what was wrong, and I got in response “I put in exactly what you told me to put in. I would not of thought those being missed off would of caused a problem”
I left it at that, making a mental note to myself to check and double check what settings he puts in for me next time!