Ok I called ziggo a couple of times to try and get to the bottom of this.   
      
   At least the television section of ziggo was usefull, they will send a network   
   engineer to try and diagnose the problem when it comes to noisy signal.   
      
   The internet section/service/support of ziggo was a bit less helpfull, but   
   they try.   
      
   Questions asked by me:   
      
   1. Is a custom modem allowed, can I buy a custom mode:   
      
   Answer: no not allowed, it is "allowed" to have old cable modem :)   
      
   2. Is a screenshot from their settings on their end possible to be send to me ?   
      
   Answer: no not allowed.   
      
   3. Are they willing to perform some tests with me, with my own software, to   
   test if the cable modem and internet is working properly, port-wise and such.   
      
   Answer: I'll ask, and eventually no not allowed, to much risk to their systems.   
      
   I did suggest installing a virtual machine, they girl on the phone thought   
   that was neat.   
      
   Later I guess a superior/supervisor guy came on the phone claiming to be a   
   programmer himself, futher questions asked to these people and girls and such:   
      
      
   4. Does ziggo have a testing facility where they test all of their   
   combinations and such ?   
      
   Girl wasn't entirely sure, but yes such a division exists but nameless or she   
   didn't know.    
      
   5. Later I asked the guy do they test combinations of new gear with old gear.   
      
   Not really. They do claim they have this old ubee cable modem in stock, I   
   kinda doubt that a little bit but ok.   
      
   6. Does my cable modem upload settings to their servers ?   
      
   No, it does not, but yes they can see settings.   
      
   7. Is it technically possible for them to set back an older firmware version ?   
      
   No, not possible.   
      
   8. Is it possible for them to provide me with URLs of configuration screen,   
   perhaps I can access it that ? No this was not possible.   
      
   9. Finally the girl tried to reset the modem, by setting back default factory   
   settings. This disconnected the phone, unfortunately this did not help.   
      
   It did seem like the graphics of the button slightly changed, but this could   
   be a "stored htm" vs "loaded/active htm" not sure why Firefox would render it   
   differently.   
      
   At this point I called back just to inform them this did not help.   
      
   10. Have other customers reported not being able to access this cable modem   
   menu ?   
      
   Answer: No, most people don't do this or won't notice it, or have newer cable   
   modems.   
      
   11. Does ziggo have cable modems available without ventilators ?   
      
   Guy found this funny. I told him because of dust reasons, this could cause   
   overheat and noise.   
      
   12. Guy starts to tell me about wi-fi capabilities of new modems, this was a   
   reason for ziggo to allow "upgrades" of new modems... to replace them.   
      
   I listened to his story. I did find this funny and told him I find WI-FI a   
   security risk because of hackers and denial of service attacks/cyber attacks.   
      
   Funny enough he disagreed with this and said: "THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN"   
      
   At this point I started lolling on the inside. I hope he is right, but I don't   
   think he is LOL.   
      
   Someday the Russians gonna roll in and NUKE everybody's WI-FI LOL.   
      
   Anyway at this point we got disconnected, maybe he slapped the phone on the   
   hook or it was because it was 22:00 and service time is up.   
      
   Didn't mind that much though, I got what I wanted in answers.   
      
   He also went on about "hackers" would never attack me cause I would need to be   
   somebody important ?! Wow... wtf ?! LOL. So he kinda assuming that I am not   
   somebody important ?! LOL. This may be interpreted as a slight insult perhaps   
   maybe not... but it's    
   funny none-the-less ;)   
      
   He also told me a wrong IP of my modem according to him it's 192.168.178.1...   
   I said let me try that right now.. me re-configuring my PC.. and nope didn't   
   work... he started mubling about DHCP crap/reconfigs and so forth... he kinda   
   new this was all    
   bullshit etc... I told him I scanned my network pretty sure modem is at   
   192.168.1.1    
      
   I am even thinking of causing a IP conflict on purpose or using ms-dos and   
   ethernet packets just to do ARP manually and so forth.   
      
   Anyway I pulled out all the stops in trying to get this configuration menu to   
   work on my side, but nope.   
      
   They have their own special software to see modem settings.   
      
   I did suggest they try and connect up their ubee cable modem evm320b if they   
   actually still have one and try and connect to it via a webbrowser like I am   
   doing...   
      
   Also reported this strange DHCP error message, they had no idea about this...   
   maybe they'll forward it to the "test" department if they have such a thing ;)   
      
   I find it very interesting how this company will behave in the future, say 10   
   or 20 years from now ?!   
      
   What if their products become incompatible with older hardware. They might   
   even face the justice court if some lives are lost because of phones not   
   working.   
      
   For now this is not the case and all is working except modem configuration   
   issue.   
      
   I did ask girl what "network access: denied" ment... but she didn't see that   
   setting in her screen... which is kinda weird. For now I will assume this   
   later changes to allowed when the modem boots up. So this probably means   
   "access to ISP network".   
      
   I hope that any ISP boss that reads this understand that as new gear is   
   introduced their budget for the "testing department" will have to go up   
   because of the number of combinations that rises.   
      
   The number of combinations probably rises almost quadratic or for each new   
   device, every old device/combination has to be tested.   
      
   The girl did ask why I would want into this menu. To see error reports and see   
   if anything is wrongly configured.   
      
   The girl also noticed many drop packets.    
      
   Today was the first time in 20+ years or so that I was thinking that I may   
   have to switch internet providers if this situation degrades.   
      
   For now everything is basically fine, except tv signal. It's most other   
   computers on the internet behind NAT and such that is causing testing problems.   
      
   One idea might be to use port 80 tcp/http port to see if this might get   
   through to my PC from these Wi-Fi hotspots, by running some webserver or so on   
   my PC.   
      
   All this NAT out there is making it very hard to diagnose connection problems.   
   Now I am still not sure what the cause is of connection failures.   
      
   Team viewer found a way around this, I think they may be connecting computers   
   via their own servers.   
      
   This means Team Viewer may be spying on people's desktop activity ! ;)   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)