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 :)