Hi Everyone,

I thought it might be a good idea to share this out with the world.  So for those of you who are curious, Telus has a series of routers that it used to give out to people.  These routers can be toggled between DSL and Ethernet (Cable).  Making it easy to switch over to Shaw or another provider (albiet against Telus’ will).  The model I will discuss here is the:

2Wire Gateway 2700HG-E Router

For what its worth, its actually a fairly nice router!  By default it ships with the version 5.x firmware, which is a fairly nice firmware version.  It allows for some pretty heavy options, especially at the MDC level.  However, recently Telus ‘forced’ an update to all of the 2700’s to update the units to 6.x firmware.  Avoid this firmware verison at all costs.

Below, I will cover the access passwords and over-ride passwords for the different versions of the 2700.

Problems with the 6.x firmware update

The problem here, is this resets the MDC password, the login password, the SSID (Network Name for your Wireless), your WEP Key, all of your Firewall settings and forces your router to an MTU of about 500.

Now, why is this a bad thing?  Well, Xbox 360 requires a minimum MTU of about 1364 or so.  The MTU is your maximum transmission size, or the size of the data packet (ethernet frame) going from your Xbox 360 to the Xbox server.  In the internet world, a list of 1364 bytes can be broken down into two or three subgroups, so two packets of 682 or so.  (Its actually going to be larger than that, because it needs to add additional data – but you know what I mean).  Now Xbox has set a rule saying its packets cannot be broken up into smaller packets during transmission.  And your router will discard it if it can’t break it up, and it feels it needs to.

So, for the end-user your Xbox will simply fail to connect.  Now with the firmware 6.x, thanks to Telus, the MTU is ‘locked’ at about 500 Bytes or so, and is unchangable.  When the value is changed, it still (internally) resolves to about 500 bytes or so.

What this means is, you need to either find the 5.x firmware or purchase a unit running the 5.x firmware at all costs.  Now for those asking, I have not been able to find the 5.x firmware – which means I am shopping for a new router today.  Installing the 2700HG-G or 2700HGV firmware will not work.

Access Information

Below are the passwords and access information for most Telus 2Wire routers.

Firmware 5.x

Default password:  None

MDC password:  dr@cul@!

MDC URL:  gateway.2wire.net/mdc

Firmware 6.x

Default Password:  telus

MDC password: 1nd1go

MDC URL: http://gateway.2wire.net/xslt?PAGE=TECHLOGIN

Firmware Upgrade/Downgrade URL:  http://192.168.1.254/xslt?PAGE=UPGRADE1

(Needs a firmware package on your system)

Changing your Network Type

You can toggle from DSL only to automatic or Ethernet from inside the 2wire settings.  This is a must for people switching to Shaw.  To do this, you must first use your MDC logon (above).  Then, you have access to new options.  In the 5.x firmware, you will find this option near the top from the MDC control panel link.  In the 6.x firmware, you need to authenticate then access your Broadband Link section (http://gateway.2wire.net/xslt?PAGE=C_2_1).

Testing your MTU

For those of you interested in MTU’s, testing MTU’s and how to check.  First, connect straight to your shaw modem.  At command prompt type in:

ping -f -l 1450 www.google.ca

You should see a list of successful pings

Connect back through your router, make sure your internet works, etc.  Return to command prompt and use:

ping -f -l 1450 www.google.ca

If you see:  Packet needs to be fragmented by DF set.

This means, that the router has decided it needs to reduce the size of the packet by breaking it up.  But the packet is marked as Don’t Fragment, so the router will discard it.

In this case, it clearly shows that the MTU for the router is lower than the packet size you specified.  You can reduce the increments to narrow down the available MTU.

For those curious, the MTU can be changed in the Windows Registry for your specific PC – but this usually will not have an impact.  Typically, the MTU is limited at either the router (which should be configurable in most cases) or limited at the internet connection (for example, my Shaw Modem is limited to an MTU of 1470).

As a final note, in some cases the firmware update completely kills your Broadband.  In which case you may wish to reset your router to the factory settings.  This will resolve most issues without needing a firmware change.

-l