TPG Community

Anonymous · ‎12-01-2021

Welcome to the community!

We provide the modem for all our NBN plans as they are sold as an Internet & Home Phone Bundle,currently our supplied modem/router do not support the VPN feature, we will definitely take this into consideration for any future firmware upgrades. We'd like to set your expectation that we can no longer downgrade the modem/router from previous released firmware.

In the mean time if you wish to use VPN you have option to use a 3rd party modem/router or a VPN application supplied by VPN provider.

Regards,

I had a VPN set up. I don't use it often, but when I do it needs to work because I'm not at home to fix things.

I don't recall a notice from TPG saying that the VPN functionality was scheduled to be disabled.

I want to know, under the terms of my contract with TPG, who owns my modem? If I own it, then surely TPG should not be disabling functionality without asking me.

Your solution of using third-party VPN means that I need to buy additional hardware.

What do you have to say?

gbartlett28 · ‎14-01-2021

Thank you for the welcome @Anonymous.

When you say "currently our supplied modem/router do not support the VPN feature", you ignored that until very recently your supplied modem did support VPN. I had my VPN set up and working after I joined TPG. At some in the last month TPG removed that feature through an unannounced firmware change (I can't call this an upgrade).

There are two issues here:

Who owns this modem and where did I sign up to have functionality removed? It might be buried in the contract somewhere, so I'd appreciate it if you could point it out to me.
Will the modem allow me to install manufacturer firmware, or have TPG locked that out?
Under any sort of basic change control, TPG should notify users before turning off important functionality. Perhaps I missed the notification and you could point me to the relevant e-mail. - liek most people I don't read all e-mails closely.

From my point of view:

I contracted with TPG for an NBN service. At the time this service incuded VPN functionality I wanted
TPG supplied the NBN service and I used the supplied modem to set up a VPN.
TPG, apparently unannounced, took away the VPN and TPG's only remedy - I have not even seen the hint of an apology - is to tell me to buy a thrid-party device to replace teh VPN functionality I already had.

Shane, if you were in the position of myself and a number of TPG's customers, how would you feel about this issue and TPG's response so far? Is it addequate, have TPG aplogised for causing inconvenience, have TPG offered remedies that don't involve additional cost, have TPG commited to not takling away further functionality with a proper notification period?

Warm regards, Geoff

richard94 · ‎15-01-2021

This is ridiculous. It's not likely that anyone would accidentally enable the OpenVPN feature, and anyone who knows enough to enable it will understand the security risks of exposing VPN access to their network. If the feature was disabled because of a vulnerability in TP-Link's implementation of OpenVPN then the nature of that vulnerability should be disclosed and fixed instead of permanently disabling the functionality. Removing it has greatly inconvenienced me, and many others as shown in this thread.

Bayte · ‎02-02-2021

I have just found out through iinet support that VPN functionality has been removed from the Archer VR1600v router. When I signed up for the service, I specifically asked for the model of the router and then looked up the specs on the D-Link website to ensure it supported VPN, specifically VPN Passthrough. I am rather upset that I have been sold a product that doesnt meet the specs. As part of the installation I also purchased a Watchguard firewall as the VPN server to site behind the router.

Now I need to (reluctantly) purchase a router that will support VPN Passthrough. Before I do, can support tell this will work OK, or are you blocking ports as well.

gracile · ‎02-02-2021

@Bayte Yes, it stinks that they randomly remove something which you used to make an informed purchasing decision.

I can confirm that I have replaced the boat anchor, oops, I mean iiNet router, with another (Netgear NightHawk) and it works just fine! This includes OpenVPN functionality (which I use to manage resources behind the firwall). However, the new router allows me to choose some random ports for OpenVPN and therefore I cannot advise whether they block the "standard" OpenVPN ports (irrelevant to me). But the OpenVPN works just like it used to (better in fact as I can set up a TAP connection as well as TUN)....

Next step for me is to move to an improved proivder, one that stands by its sales offers.

Anonymous · ‎02-02-2021

Hi @gracile,

We appreciate you feedback, we will raise this to our Technical Team for additional details about our supplied modem/router.

Regards,

@Bayte Yes, it stinks that they randomly remove something which you used to make an informed purchasing decision.

I can confirm that I have replaced the boat anchor, oops, I mean iiNet router, with another (Netgear NightHawk) and it works just fine! This includes OpenVPN functionality (which I use to manage resources behind the firwall). However, the new router allows me to choose some random ports for OpenVPN and therefore I cannot advise whether they block the "standard" OpenVPN ports (irrelevant to me). But the OpenVPN works just like it used to (better in fact as I can set up a TAP connection as well as TUN)....

Next step for me is to move to an improved proivder, one that stands by its sales offers.

strepto42 · ‎02-02-2021

Just piggybacking onto the sentiment of this thread, after I tried to remote in to my home network today while away on business and discovered that the functionality had been removed.

Remotely. Without my prior knowledge or concent. From a device that *I PAID FOR AND OWN*.

This is seriously messed up. I will be voting with my feet, TPG have lost another customer.

Meanwhile, does anyone have access to the old firmware? Perhaps someone from TPG with half a brain could accidentally leak it somewhere...

Spastro · ‎03-03-2021

How does it affect your network and customer security by having this option enabled?

I would like to use it too rather then running it on all my devices constantly. It's still connected via your system regardless of where the connection is triggered.

Also all your doing is making people buy more hardware. I can still buy a second router that has this feature enabled and port my traffic through that and then the archer. Or even get rid of the archer completely and use another router so why make this an issue for your users ?

I've also checked the standard policy here

https://www.tpg.com.au/terms_conditions/standard

And here
https://www.tpg.com.au/terms_conditions/nbn

I see no mention on a standard router feature or even the use of VPN as disabled.

Can you point me to the correct terms where you mention the routers VPN functionality has been removed by TPG because they decided to do so?

I also see frequent comments from the moderators that the router doesn't support VPN. However there is more then enough proof here that it does support it.

The real answer you guys should be supplying is that TPG has actively chosen to disable a feature at their choosing without first notifying users of this change prior allowing time for users who chose to to be able to churn to another isp.

Why can't we just use the full firmware that TP-Link actually provide rather then this dumbed down version.

When can we expect an update to this issue.

noqualms · ‎01-04-2021

When are these god ** clowns going to fix MY modem they damaged? I paid for the ** thing?

Riezl · ‎01-04-2021

Hi @noqualms, please send us a private message with your TPG customer ID, username and complete address so we can pull up the account. Please also tell us more about your concern.

To send a PM, please refer to this link: How do I private message (PM) in the community

TPG Community

Missing VPN Setup on Archer VR1600v v2