Optus Speedstream 4200 reset & firewall

[OnOptusAndy]

Here's something which is probably quite obvious to the experts but kept me firewalled from the network for a frustrating period.

My Speedstream 4200 hung up after a power spike and would not connect at all so I had to factory reset it and configure from a previously printed copy of 'how to manually configure' from the Optus site.

After re-configuration I had a functional browser but firewalled Limewire (Frostwire).

**

If you are trying to find the manual process on the Optus website and you end up at this link..

Optus myZOO DSL Help - Siemens SpeedStream 4200 Ethernet: Windows XP

It misses out one piece of critical information which is at this link ..

Optus myZOO DSL Help - Siemens SpeedStream 4200 : Optus DSL Broadband Supplied Modem

Being that you have to configure the modem for Optus Bridge under the Setup -> Mode menu item.

**

[Lord of the Rings]

I know nothing about NAPT (Network Address and Port Translation) & how it compared to NAT (Network Address Translation). So I needed to investigate the difference. The difference between nat and napt is that NAT is based on IP and NAPT is based on port. Difference between NAT & NAPT

I am not sure why in step 10 of 16 of your instructions they recommend disabling UPnP. I'd suggest you try enabling it to see if it fixes the problem. Remember you will need to save the settings & restart the device/connection.
UPnP allows LW (FW) to communicate directly with the device to open the ports it requires. With UPnP disabled, I'm not sure whether NAPT will act as a firewall or not, & if yes, FW would probably not be able to find an open port ... at least as it is set at since it's UPnP messages would be ignored.

[OnOptusAndy]

I also suffer from the desire to know & understand all - which keeps me on this thing far too long - but I will check your link !!

Just for follow up info.

I wondered about the uPNP config as it implies that it is the easiest way to set up the router and avoid all of this manual port forwarding and IP fixing stuff. So..

I deleted all the manual port forwarding I had setup.
Configured for uPNP and did the same in Frostwire.
Restarted everything and it worked flawlessly - even for torrents without a problem.
I also notice that Frostwire starts up much faster like this - maybe just coincidence.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback - I notice you really provide some valued support to this forum it is really appreciated.

[Lord of the Rings]

Thank you very much & for letting us know. I am glad the issue is solved.

Oh btw Port Forwarding is based on ip. So if using NAPT, that may well affect it I'm not sure. I'm rather ignorant of NAPT. But NAT definitely results in firewalling btw.