Any reason why a d-link router's firmware upgrade can't be used outside a specific country ?

Michel S. hath wroth:

US Site:

Canadian Site:

It's possible because one of the changes in 2.70 is listed as "improves performance" which is a catch all line for "we made a zillion fixes that we don't want to admit needed fixing".

I can see how it will void the warranty, but it should not do anything to the functionality of the router. The hardware is the same world wide. There may be some contrivance in the firmware update proceedure that refuses to upload new firmware if the country has changed. I've never had this problem so I don't know. There's also a possiblity that you may not be able to downgrade back to 2.53 if the 2.70 firmware fails. Again, I've never tried this, so I don't know.

Baloney. The PPPoE, PPPoA, and DHCP standards are similar enough these days that unless your ISP's DSL system is truely ancient, it should work. I couldn't determine your ISP from the article header. Who's your ISP?

US WAN settings:

Canadian WAN settings: Well, the US page has P2PTP, which is missing from the Canadian page. Both pages may be from older firmware so it's difficult to tell for sure.

Good idea. That's what I was going to do next. Going through the various pages of the online DI-624 emulator:

could find no place where it specified the country. It's the DI-624+ that's intended for international distribution. See: select DI-624+ and it sends you to the various international sites. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Canada and the US "harmonized" their FCC/DoC intentional radiation standards years ago. of curiousity, does your Canadian DI-624 serial number sticker have the FCC ID, DoC approval ID, or both?

You went over his knowledge threshold forcing him to think. That blew a fuse somewhere. Don't worry. He'll recover to do it again to someone else.

Maybe. Some firmware installers (old Linksys WAP11) do not allow revision downgrades. However, Google couldn't find anyone complaining about this, so I guess you're safe. I would say that it's worth a try if your ISP uses static IP, DHCP, or PPPoE. I'm not so sure if the ISP uses something else (tunneling, PPPoA, etc).

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:33:38 -0400, Michel S. wrote in :

The differences are in wireless frequencies and maximum transmit power

-- different countries have different wireless regulations. However, the USA and Canada use the same frequencies, so there's no issue (other than regulatory approval) in using USA firmware in Canada. See

Thanks for your answers.. See my comments inserted below.

Jeff Liebermann a présenté l'énoncé suivant :

Is this what is called "supporting evidence" ? lol

This is what I expressed to the d-Link support guy, but in my own words ! ;-)

My ISP is a well established provider using PPPoE. ;o)

The page on the canadian site is incorrect (in fact, I believe it's not even from a DI-624 because of the missing "Wireless" button on the left). My page is identical to the US site one.

I just did the same operation between the US 2.70 vs the France 2.70 versions, and they are different: the French one is 127Kb smaller.

Unfortunately, 2.70 is the only one availiable on the french site - I wish I could make the same with 2.53.

The sticker is identical to the following (the third on the page) except for the number 0560 at the right of the CE logo (which is blank on mine):

Does the missing number means it's missing an approval ?

The sad part is that he will surely do it again.. :/

I had a very bad experience with that guy.. He was only providing express "prefab" answers (ex: reinstall the drivers and call us back if it doesn't work) looking like he was on a hurry to close the call.

I suspect that the broken line (hook up in the middle of a sentence) was not accidental.

Thanks again !

Dans son message précédent, John Navas a écrit :

Thanks for your input.

As I answered to Jeff, my unit bears the FCC and CE logos (among others), but I wonder if a missing number besides the CE logo means a missing approval (see my answer to Jeff for details).

If not, I guess I will try the US firmware - anyway, it hardly can be worse than it is now !

Thanks again !

Michel S. hath wroth:

Nope. Just a subtle hint that you should have posted the URL's. If anyone is going to answer your question, they're going to need those two URL's as a starting point. Might as well make it easy for them. Incidentally, thanks for supplying the hardware details. Very few people bother to do that.

Well, there were some creative implimentation of PPPoE that required updates to router firmware. I had a few old BEFW11s4 routers that would not connect using PPPoE after some manner of PBI/SBC/at&t upgrade. However, that was about 2 years ago, so I think it safe to assume that it's fixed in both 2.53 and 2.70.

I have no idea what the 0560 after the CE means.

FCC ID page for the DI-624 rev C1: KA2DI624VC2 Is that the FCC ID number on your serial number tag?

'KA2DI624VC2'Unfortunately, clicking on anything on that page returns a "not found" error message. Way to go FCC. Actually clicking on anything for any device seems to return the "not found" error. Lovely, the web pile is dead. Maybe later. Incidentally, try a search for KA2DI624 (without the VC2) which returns 5 different models. Search to find the manufacturer of an electronic product by using the FCC data base.

Question: If Dlink had a 2nd line of support people with a clue, but you may have to wait 30-60 minutes to talk to one of them, would you wait?

Incidentally, you're the 2nd person who has reported in this newsgroup that Dlink support hung up on them.

Let us know how it works for you.

Jeff Liebermann a émis l'idée suivante :

Exactly.

I prefer to wait to get the right answer instead of being guided by a clueless tech who will waste my time.

BTW, I did wait 30 minutes on line before my call was answered by that "expert".

I can understand that they receive calls from newbies, people who don't RTFM or even see a difference between a phone jack and a RJ-45 cable. But they should know how to take care of more litterate customers - like transferring them to an upper level support line.

I'm not surprised..

Promised ! :)

Michel S. hath wroth:

Thanks. Part of the theory behind outsourcing support is that perhaps

90% of user questions revolve around basic setup and configuration issues. These can easily be answered by a moderately competent support person reading from a script. What surveys have shown is that what customers really want are fast answers. Getting stuck on hold is a great way of ruining a company's reputation. So, the emphasis is on fast support (kinda like fast food). Unfortunately, this does nothing for dealing with more complex issues, bugs, multi-vendor compatibility problems, or those questions that require an experienced support person.

So much for the fast answer theory. I didn't realize that DLink's delay was that long.

To the best of my limited knowledge, none of the bottom of the line wireless vendors have a 2nd line of support beyond their outsourced support pool. I might be wrong, but I often have to ask if there is anyone else available that knows more about whatever inspired my call. The usual answer is no. When the average wireless router has perhaps $5-10 profit margin per unit, there's not much available to fund a proper support structure.

The real problem with phone support is that the support people never seem to get their hands dirty. It's not easy to answer questions if the support person has never actually used the product, or is limited to training consisting of a few minutes tinkering with the box. Even the design engineers suffer somewhat from this limited experience. In the case of bottom of the line wireless, the engineers work for the OEM vendor, which is usually in China, Taiwan, etc.