I am big fan of Tomato firmware (to be precise Tomato by Shibby) and in the past 4 years I used it together with one ASUS RT-N66U (located in Germany and having Kabel Deutschland as ISP) and two Linksys WRT54GL (located in Romania and having two ISP providers RCS & RDS and UPC). So, three locations, three IPS providers, three routers, Tomato firmware everywhere, having VPN site-2-site across these locations (using OpenVPN), PPTP server, Dynamic DNS, port forwarding, Quality of service (QoS) … – super awesome and reliable setup working all the time without issues.
Well, I recently decided to upgrade my internet connectivity for the place I have in Germany. My previous connectivity plan was 32 Mbit/s download and 2 Mbit/s upload. In combination with QoS was at the edge with my needs. For 5 additional EUR per month I upgraded to 100 Mbit/s download and 6 Mbit/s upload.
The upgrade procedure was simple – I changed the tariff plan through the KD Kundenportal. Because I was upgrading to a higher speed it was necessary to replace the existing ARRIS modem with a new one (capable to handle 100 Mbit/s). Kabel Deutschland sent me the new modem by DHL and it arrived two days after the initial request.
Now the frustrations!
The new device (Hitron CVE-30360) is a Wireless Cable Router, and is not just a simple modem how you normally would expect to receive for the basic setup. Despite the ugliness, the Hitron CVE-30360 also has the weakest administration interface and many missing features.
Allow me please to show how a Wireless Cable Router provided by Kabel Deutschland looks like in 2015.
1. Hitron CVE-30360 is ugly as hell! Just look how big piece of plastic is (compare it with the iPhone 4 placed on top of it). There is absolutely no reason to be in this size!
As comparison with the previous ARRIS TM602S modem.
2. Maybe you guys will say “Yes, but it does more than the ARRIS TM602S does”. The answer is NO!
Hitron CVE-30360 is wireless 802.11n / g / b / a capable, BUT you must pay additional 2 EUR per month to have the wireless functionality enabled.
Say what?!
So, I received from Kabel Deutschland (Vodafone) a large piece of “furniture” who is ugly and on top of that it also has restricted functionality for which I have to pay extra if I want it enabled? Really? Pay more just to have wireless functionality enabled?
3. The management interface of Hitron CVE-30360 is same as the exterior design – ugly! It also has lots of missing features (far from what a basic wireless router provides).
Couple of screenshots:
4. Wait! How can I make this big piece of plastic to act just as a modem and pass all the traffic to my ASUS RT-N66U router? I don’t want to keep my ASUS router connected behind the Hitron device. I am losing so many features Tomato provides because of this configuration. I want to setup the Hitron CVE-30360 in Bridged Mode.
OK, prepare for it … … … -> the bridged mode is not available by default in the management interface of the Hitron CVE-30360 device. It is necessary to connect to the Kabel Deutschland Kundenportal and perform the changes from there.
Say what?!
I received a device who can be managed via the ISP’s portal? Why??? Ohhh, I know why! Because Kabel Deutschland wants to be in control of what features are enabled on this device and charge additionally for basic functionality like wireless. How down is this?
So, connect to Kundenportal -> authenticate -> MeinKabel -> Einstellungen (section) -> Interneteinstellungen ->
Yes, it says something about an update and the necessity to wait … – all FALSE!
I called the support and I found out there is a problem with their Kundenportal. It has nothing to do with the device I received and it will be fixed in maybe couple of days.
At this moment I am in the “between” state. I need to return the previous modem (ARRIS TM602S) in the next 14 days, I still don’t have the Internet configuration I need to satisfy my needs, but I do have a much better connectivity. From all ISPs I ever had, Kabel Deutschland (Vodafone) is by far the one who provided the worst experience. Unfortunately I don’t have other options (Telekom is out of discussion also).
I really would like to have the device configured in the bridged mode, so I can pass all the traffic to my ASUS RT-N66U router. In this way I can hide this mini “Xbox” (Hitron CVE-30360) somewhere behind my wardrobe.
Update: I was gone from home for about 5 days and on my return I found the bridged mode enabled. What a release!