Recently, my neighborhood was blessed with fiber-optic broadband by Turkey’s brand-new ISP Tellcom.
Providing download speeds up to 100 Mbps (which is what I signed up for), Tellcom’s QuikNet is a huge improvement over TTNet‘s lousy ADSL service, which is what most people in Turkey currently use.
Obviously, I was one of the earliest switchers, and after being a customer of probably one of the worst ISPs in the world for years simply because I had no other choice, I was almost glad to pay the $150 termination fee, and now I finally have a real broadband connection.
But there’s one drawback.
The QuikNet subscription package includes a Pirelli DRG A226G broadband router. Yes, it’s the same company who produces the Pirelli tires and publishes the famous Pirelli Calendar. Before opening the subscription pack, I had no idea Pirelli produced anything other than car tires, but apparently they have a whole business in broadband routers and cabling. They even make mobile phones!
It didn’t take me long to decide that the DRG A226 is the worst router I’ve ever used. Period.
The DNS server crashed constantly, requiring me to restart the router. The Wi-Fi connection almost never worked on the first try, and DHCP was, well, unpredictable at best. Oh, and the UPnP forwarded ports were never closed, not even after a restart.
I naively thought that maybe my router came with an old firmware, and a new version was available that fixed all this. The Pirelli Broadband website has absolutely no information about firmware updates. In fact, all the information available on the website about the router is limited to the 98x161px JPEG image you see above, and a PDF User’s Manual.
Then I found a “Firmware Upgrade” section in the router’s web interface, but it wasn’t very helpful, as you can see:
But on closer inspection, the interface revealed an URL which didn’t come up on any of my previous Google searches: update.pirelli-discus.com. It looked like an automatic update server, but apparently it wasn’t working.
I thought “hmm, maybe I can find firmware upgrades if I go to www.pirelli-discus.com.”
I was wrong. The domain had expired, and Pirelli didn’t even bother to renew it. I was not only frustrated, but also shocked. How can you forget to renew a domain which is responsible for distributing firmware upgrades to thousands of routers worldwide? Can you imagine Microsoft forgetting to renew the Windows Update domains? Or Kaspersky forgetting to renew the Kaspersky Anti-Virus Database update domains? The results could be disastrous.
These domains are responsible for distributing software updates, which are usually automatically installed onto users’ computers and executed, and unless the updates are digitally signed, anybody who acquires control of these domains can distribute executable code onto millions of computers without breaking a sweat.
Now I know Apple uses digital signatures for its software updates, and I can only hope that companies like Microsoft, Kaspersky and Symantec do the same. As for Pirelli, I highly doubt that they employ any form of cryptographic security.
I now own the pirelli-discus.com domain, and I wonder if I can distribute firmware upgrades using this domain. I never mean to use the actual paths of course, so Pirelli users need not worry, at least for now. But if it works, and if someday I do what Pirelli did and forget to renew this domain, then anybody can purchase it, and Pirelli users will be in trouble.
The best way to deal with such crappy hardware is to limit its capabilities. In this case I would definitely disable the wi-fi of the (so called) “router” and buy a new wi-fi router and use it as the main wireless router. Unfortunately in Turkey there is no router that you can connect through a ethernet cable to make the main router a wi-fi router in contrast to the cable system north america is using. Only way out is currently a time capsule
jayjay_21 on February 19, 2009 at 16:01The Pirelli router isn’t needed at all, since it’s only a router, not a modem. Therefore you can replace it with any router, it doesn’t matter where you live =)
On the other hand, the main problem is the automatic updates, and a non-existent domain. I don’t understand how disabling Wi-Fi would help.
Finally, last time I checked, RJ11 and RJ45 connectors were being used in North America (rather strangely) like the rest of the world. Am I missing something?
cbg on February 19, 2009 at 16:25if u still need an update, i can send it to you!
chris on March 4, 2009 at 11:14maybe its better to post the link directly:
download the Firmware Update Pirelli A226G
openrg-4.5.3.DWV_4.3.1.0026-DWV_96358.rmt at
http://www.file-upload.net/download-1499370/openrg-4.5.3.DWV_4.3.1.0026-DWV_96358.rmt.html
chris on March 4, 2009 at 11:17Very thank you
Hej Poland user Thank you on April 17, 2009 at 09:35Hi,
anyone now where I can find the original firmware, por the Pirelli DRG_A223G?
Thanks
Hélder on April 20, 2009 at 22:32I had a same problem… but that wasn’t because of a bad hardware but because of bad port forwarding settings. When that was set, everything work perfectly now… even wi-fi.
So, go to the security and open port forwarding. Add new entry. Add into a local host name of your computer and for protocol choose user defined. Name Service name for example TCP and add new. Choose protocol name TCP and leave any port. Double ok and Forward to port put 53. Same procedure do for UDP. It works fine on windows XP and Windows 7 over lan ports and wi-fi was tested on notebook with Windows 7. Note that port 53 can also be 8000 or 8080. Almost same procedure goes with torrent but destination port and port forwarding port goes on defined torrent port you choose in your torrent program. I hope that this will help you :)
mves on November 6, 2009 at 00:51I hope your problem is solved… I use DRG A226G, and it works perfectly, right from the start…WI-FI and everything…
Marko on March 11, 2010 at 02:01Very, very strange for me. A226 is one of the best RG’s I’ve ever seen or used (and there are a lot of :) ) I used it at home for more than 2 years.
Ilya on March 17, 2010 at 07:24The router itself is very powerful (the most expensive and fast Broadcom home platform for 2008, AFAIR), the firmware abilities are endless. You can configure QoS and firewall rules which other home routers can not dream about them. This router can handle thousands of concurrent connections. It is stable and wifi work without problem (indeed it’s range is not the best, but absolutely acceptable).
The only thing which, indeed, exists is the described problem of port forwarding rules added by UPnP protocol. Indeed, this is a bug. Not critical, but a bug. Regardig all the rest – as I told before: very, very strange :(
PS
Excuse my English, I know it is very far from been perfect :)
hahahahaha greatz from Serbia, i got this router few months ago… now i know im not only one with crappy router… btw Telekom Serbia also sucks with those routers
krcha on August 30, 2010 at 02:59[...] Google) nukrapštysime dalį „update“ ir kreipsimės tiesiai į pirelli-discus.com, pateksime į labai juokingą tinklaraščio įrašą: „Kodėl padangų gamintojai neturėtų kurti maršrutizatorių“. Nepadėjo, bet prajuokino. [...]
Vietinis belaidis tinklas ir iPad problemos on November 4, 2010 at 13:11Tellcom’s (Superonline) fault. It’s like selling a Ferrari with 1.6 diesel engine.
mete on March 28, 2011 at 23:56It is 19:45. Superonline support guys have arrived. They will configure the Supercam service, which is actually a wireless IP webcam. Connect the cam. Configure. uPnP doesn’t work. Reset the modem to factory settings. Modem doesn’t get the configuration from the Superonline servers. No internet. Then after a couple of phone calls to the support service, internet is there again. The camera works with wired connection. The phone line works. Great! Now is the time to test the camera with wireless setup. You can imagine, it doesn’t work wireless. Maybe they have missed something. Let’s connect the cam to the wired port again…. Nop. Doesn’t work. uPnP fails. Manual port forwarding has no effect. Reset. No internet. No phone, no camera. 3 additional hours…. Internet is there finally, but no phone, no camera. Superonline support system/software/backoffice refuses to replace the modem. It is 23:45.
Koray on July 12, 2011 at 00:23P.S. Just try to play around the menus of the modem and you’ll see that the more you change something, the more web interface gets slower and eventually the modem becomes non-responsive. Guess what.. Reset.
This IS a shitty modem. Period.
Now I got everything under control. After two days of nightmare about port forwarding and configuration with the Pirelli modem, I’ve cloned the MAC address of the Pirelli to my Linksys WAG320N and after setting the first ethernet port to WAN, configuring it to use PPoE and entering the username and password, I am connected to the internet in 5 minutes. And guess what! I configured the port forwarding for the camera in 2 minutes and it actually works!!!
Koray on July 12, 2011 at 23:11Now, whoever says that the Pirelli is a nice modem, I challenge you double!!!
hi guys, i was looking for an update and i’m forwarded here, first of all i have a couple of questions there is a link at fourth comment for update is it secure?, and how can i connect my external hard drive to pirelli router? i wanna use my hard drive over home network, and the last question, when super online came and configured my internet at first time, they did not gave me the internet username and password, if i want to change my router, am i able to get my username and password?
secondly this modem is a piece of shit when i reach to admin panel to configure something i always get lost, the admin panels is too chaotic.
any help will be appreciated, thanks in advance.
yusuf on July 23, 2011 at 14:00Yusuf,
I haven’t tried the update in comment #4, so I cannot vouch for its security. This whole post is about how insecure the router is, so I’m not really sure if I would risk it myself. My recommendation, if it’s not clear from the post, is to avoid the Pirelli at all costs and buy another router.
You can get your PPPoE username and password from Superonline customer services. Make sure you configure your new router *before* making the WAN connection. I found out the hard way that if your PPPoE configuration is incorrect, they will block your port and you have to call customer services to get it working again.
cbg on July 23, 2011 at 14:14cbg, thanks for your help, i hope our routers are safe (dont sent any code to blow up our routers, please.).
yusuf on July 23, 2011 at 14:29When the guys arrived , I told them is this router needed or not, because I’ve already had one and they said yes, and now I’m left alone with this crappy router, thanks god no problem has appeared yet but I had to pay 150 turkish liras for this “thing”. How can I compensate this? Any ideas?
Mustafa on August 24, 2011 at 22:36Mustafa, I don’t remember paying for the router, but it’s been more than 3 years so I’m not entirely sure.
They probably won’t accept a return, but maybe you can convince them to replace the Pirelli with one of the Tilgin routers. I haven’t tested them myself, but it’s hard to make a router worse than the A226G. Also, I can confirm that at least one Tilgin model (not sure which) has great range: my neighbor has one and the signal is always strong in my apartment.
cbg on August 24, 2011 at 22:56