I’ve had some folks ask about the router’s administration pages. It has basically all of the typical router settings pages, like port-forwarding, wireless security, etc. In addition, it has two features that are specific to the telephone capabilities of the router.
Notice the 'Phone' link in the sub-navigation
While not really a ‘feature’, the above screen just shows you whether your SIM card(s) (there are slots for two in the router) are inserted and registered.
The one ‘feature’ related to the phone capabilities is the call log. You can see in the screenshot above the button to access it. This is what it looks like:
I crossed out the phone numbers I dialed....to protect the innocent!
Note that the call log gets cleared out anytime you reset the router. Today I did notice that the blue light on the router was not on. I have heard reports of this from others. I picked up the handset and had no dial tone, so I unplugged the router, waited a minute, then plugged it back in. After the router initialized, the blue light was back and service was back. I have no idea how long the service was down, but I estimate an hour or two. Hopefully Tmobile gets the kinks worked out. I’m still happy with the service, but I’m certainly glad I have a cell phone to fall back on, which all @Home customers would have to have or else they wouldn’t be able to get the service in the first place. So, for $10, it’s still a good deal even with the occasional hiccup.
23 Comments
By the way, in case you didn’t know already - you can see the screenshots/images in full size by clicking on them.
mark
Do you know if it is possible to have your cell phone SIM placed in the “phone2″ SIM port and make calls via the router, say if you have poor coverage at home… and want to make/receive calls from say your “business” cell phone # while @ home??? I did take the “home” phone SIM and place it in my cell phone and I was able to make calls using that line… but I can’t seem to get my cell phone SIM to register in the router… hoping there is a way to hack SIM cards to get this functionality… it would make this service that much more useful to me!!! (until then I guess I’ll just forward my business cell phone to my home phone while @ home)
douglass -
I’m not aware of this being a possibility. There’s a good chance that the folks at Tmobile were smart enough to disable this in order to force folks to purchase the optional HotSpot@Home service, which I believe does what you’re trying to do and costs an additional $10 a month. Might be worth it to you.
oh, I already purchased a “home” phone line via hotspot@home but seeing as how this thing is capable of having 2 SIM cards inserted, I would like to clone my business cell phone’s SIM and place it in the second SIM slot so that I can make/receive calls via the VoIP when @ home.
I was poking around the routers configuration interface and on the “Status” tab there is a “Voice” sub-option and on that page @ the bottom there are two buttons “call log” and “error list” if you click on “error list” it opens a pop-up with a drop-down option dialog with “line1″ and “line2″ with my cell phone’s SIM inserted into “line1″ the error text that appears is “failed to connect. location unkown”
So that tells me that there is a location file on the “home” phone’s SIM card. If we can somehow find that file and put it onto our cell phone’s SIM card, we would be able to use them in the router, I think.
haha… oops… I guess I must have “barely” skimmed your original post, because the page I’m referencing you have a screenshot of the page with the “error list” button I was referring to… LOLz…
My mom just bought the tmobile@home router and I set it up for her. I used the base station of her wireless set to hook up to the router. The base and the extra wireless handset that came with it worked perfectly. Here is the problem: NO OTHER PHONE IN THE HOUSE WORKS. She has two wired phones and another wireless set (base and handset not the same brand as the one connected to the router) and none of them work. Does she have to buy handsets that match the base brand? What if a wired phone is connected to the router; would that allow the jacks throughout the house to be used?
Najia,
If I’m understanding you correctly, then of course your wired phones won’t work - they aren’t connected to anything.
Some readers have reported, if I recall correctly, (check my other blog postings for the comments from others) that you can take a line out of the router and plug it into the wall jack and it’ll provide service to your landline phones. I haven’t tried it myself yet so I can’t confirm. I have a wired, attached-to-the-wall phone in my kitchen so I plan on trying it myself soon. My plan is to take the signal out of the tmobile router’s phone1 output and run that into a splitter, then run the one line out of the splitter to the wireless base and the other line out from the splitter to the wall, to power the wired jacks. Not sure if it will work though.
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Thanks for your answer, Mark. I guess her only option is to buy wireless handsets matching the base station brand. It ticks me off that they didn’t disclose this issue either. The cost of extra handsets is sufficient to merit at least a mention by the sales people. I don’t know anyone who does not have at least three phones in the house. In my 2-story plus furnished basement house with three kids, we need at least 8!!! I don’t think any wireless base supports 8 phones, so my t-moble router is going back to the store.
Najia,
Why Tmobile doesn’t at least sell extra handsets for the VTECH set they sell I have no idea. As of a month ago the ONLY place to purchase extra handsets was direct from VTECH, with of course the inflated shipping/handling charge. That said, I wouldn’t cancel the service over this issue as I said before - read the comments from the readers to my other blog posts on Tmobile@Home and you’ll see that people have come up with workarounds so that you won’t have to buy any wireless phone at all.
mark
You can plug the phone cable directly to your home phone wiring but disconnect the phone company wires outside first. I got the service the first day it was available. It worked for 2 weeks then quit. After hours of T-Mobile support and more hours of Linksys support, they got it working. About 3 weeks later, it stopped again. T-Mobile could not make it work and Linksys could not make it work. They sent me a new router. T-Mobile could not make it work nor could Linksys - again. Now, I am on the 3rd router which still does not work. Linksys says it’s T-Mobiles problem and T-Mo says it is Linksys. 2 days ago T-Mo gave me a support ticket for “off site tech support” and said I should here from them in about a week! They never checked the sim card - still the same one after 3 routers. However, I get no internet and no phone with the T-Mo router. Internet works perfect through my old router and with a direct modem connection to Comcast internet. I also tried r0uters from work and they all work fine. It is definitely some issue with the T-Mo/Linksys router or the sim card. I did pull the sim card and tried it in my T-Mo cell - nothing more than a screen saying only 911 was available. The sim does not work in my cell phone. Still waiting for response from T-Mo.
On my T-Mobile router the SIM slots don’t match the Line1 and Line2 labels. They are messed up. After 2 days of unsuccessful support from T-Mobile, I tried switching the phone line from Line1 to Line2 myself just to check, while leaving the SIM card inserted in Line1 - and it worked! T-Mobile did not know that. The problem is now fixed. It’s the router’s text labels on the phone ports that were messed up. I am not sending it back.
When I re-boot (un-plug the power) on my T-Mobile@Home Linksys router I can access the router’s web server. However, after I close the browser I can’t access the server again until I re-boot. I get the message “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”. This will also occur after several minutes of inactivity. The router is operating normally during this time but has to be re-booted everytime I want to access the administration pages. Any ideas?
Hi Rick,
When the router is unplugged you can’t ‘really’ access the router’s web server. What you’re seeing is the cached version of the page, that’s all.
It takes a minute for the router to reboot itself. I would give it a minute or two and then try. If the router *is* really operating normally (ie, power is applied and a minute for the ‘boot’ process to occur has passed) then you should be able to access the admin server.
mark
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Mark,
I am not trying to access the router when it’s unplugged. Read my email more closely. This is not a caching problem.
Rick
Rick, you said in your original comment:
“When I re-boot (un-plug the power) on my T-Mobile@Home Linksys router I can access the router’s web server.”
Well, guess what? Trust me, you ain’t accessing the routers admin server when it’s unplugged. If you see the page then I guarantee you it’s a cached version.
I have never heard of a router’s internal server going down intermittently, yet the router itself keeps functioning. If that is truly happening and the “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” is not a result of you trying to access it previously before it was ready to serve up the admin panel, and then IE (the worst browser available, by the way….I highly recommend Firefox or Opera instead), then it’s a defective firmware or router and I would call LinkSys Tech Support.
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I didn’t say that I was trying to access the router with it unplugged. I said that I reset the router by unplugging it. Of course I plugged it back in again.
This may be a problem where I didn’t log out of the router and it won’t let me back in again. I don’t see any screen to log out from.
You shouldn’t need to log out of it. You couldn’t if you tried as there isn’t a manual logout. The ’session’ will time out after a certain preset amount of time.
Did you try clearing your browser history?
Marks last blog post..Captivate vs. Camtasia - No Contest…
any way to block callers that have called on the router? With VOIP from earthlink I was able to and kind of hoping to be able to do the same with the TMO router.
Make sure you install the latest Firmware Version : v1.00.09. I had trouble with my first router and this is one of the troubleshooting steps they had me go through.
i have this tmobile setting set up at my house everything works fine along with the router i was just wondering if there is some sorta of password default to acces my router thats not blank(blank username blank password) or admin, admin or any combos with those words i havent come aross anything and im a little frustated not being able to find the password to access the router should i just call tmobile and ask?
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jonas,
It’s been a while so I can’t remember but I know for sure that the default username is ‘admin’ and my guess is the default password is just a blank. Then, once in, click on the Administration tab and you’ll be able to set your own password.
This isn’t something that you should call T-Mobile about - it should be in the LinkSys documentation since it’s not specific to T-Mobile and has nothing to do with the VOIP service.
mark
Marks last blog post..T-Mobile@Home Monthly Bill - How Much It Really Costs (Me)
The default user name is “admin” and the password is “admin”. This is written on the bottom of the router.
I still can’t access the web server in the router unless I power cycle it. T-Mobile sent me a new router but it does the same thing.
My callers also still occasionally hear a touch tone which lasts for about one second.
Rick,
The odds of you getting two bad routers is extremely slim. If you did, then I’d go play the lottery immediately : )
Seriously though - I’m sure it is something with your pc. I would make sure firewall/antivirus is shut off, etc and then try. If that doesn’t work, then see if it isn’t a browser issue. Maybe download firefox or opera and try a different browser?
mark
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