Couple of days ago it turned out at Finnish Wippies forums (in Finnish only) that Sauna27 firmware, which is the latest one for Homebox Grey, supports Huawei E180 too. That’s great news for users who have the older grey Homebox meaning that they can use that USB stick as a 3G modem as well.
Quote from Visa on WFRID72:
The 3G Uplink is now limited to about maximum of 60KB/s download speeds. This is quite a low speed in current GSM technology speed standards.
By implementing better support to 3G, Wippies Homebox could be an attractive solution (even with current price) compared to other “3G-routers” currently on the market.
Just to let you so don’t wonder if the 3G speed with Homebox isn’t as good as when connected directly to computer.
Solution: Buy an USB hub and connect your 3G dongle thru the hub since this appears to be a power issue. Friend of mine bought an USB hub with external power adapter. Download speed with 5M mobile broadband connection and Huawei E180 thru the USB hub was 300kB/s when without the hub the download speed was approx. 60kB/s.
Hi all, noticed few features that people frequently end up searching from here thru Google search results so I thought it would be a good idea to guide those visitors to correct tracks:
1) 3G Uplink and Port Forwarding
- Port forwardings doesn’t work thru 3G Uplink, this is a known limit not a bug. Let’s hope it will be possible to use port forwarding with 3G Uplink in future.
2) Wippies Dynamic DNS walkthrough
a) Enable from My Wippies > Device Settings > Misc. Settings > Dynamic DNS > check the checkbox Oman palvelimen nimi and enter the alias of your choice to the field and click Save.
b) After this, wait until the settings get updated and receive status Settings successfully updated on the device settings status page.
Note! Do not refresh the page with your browser’s refresh button or F5 after you’ve saved the settings since doing that will resubmit the form and you’re actually trying to apply the same changes/updates again. Relocate to the device settings page via Device Settings link for a refreshed view and then refresh the page normally with F5 etc. if needed.
c) After your settings have been updated, your_alias.wippies.net is now forwarded to the public IP address of your Homebox (you can check the IP from the local settings http://192.168.0.1). The DynDNS address is updated to Elisa/Saunalahti DNS servers almost instantly but with a short delay to other DNS servers so note this if you’re using other than Elisa’s or Saunalahti’s Internet Connection.
A great easy-to-use tool for checking if your DynDNS address is already updated to the world or not is Domain Dossier. Just enter your DynDNS and click Go (no need to check any checkboxes). If you get a canonical name line showing your DynDNS address for the address lookup, everything is cool. If you don’t, wait still and check again.
d) Now, depending on the target you want to use your Wippies Dynamic DNS for you also need a port forward from your public IP/Homebox to your LAN IP/computer for the port your service or software uses. Port forwardings are also done from My Wippies and Device Settings, under Port Settings.
e) Once you’ve forwarded the correct port and the port changes have been updated you need to allow traffic from any IP (or just from some specific IP or IP’s depending on what you’re up to) thru the port you added a port forward rule for from WAN to LAN/your computer in your local firewall. After this, you’re done! Whippii.
Possible problems with Wippies DynDNS
I had an issue that my new changed IP didn’t get updated to the DynDNS service when I kept my Homebox off for few days and switched it back on. For some reason my old IP was somehow stuck on my Homebox and it didn’t get clear from its memory not until I gave a 10 seconds reset for the box from the reset slot of the backpanel. I rebooted the box several times and disabled/enabled DynDNS from My Wippies again and again. Was using Sauna29 at that time.
So reset your Homebox in first place if you get into similar situation that your new IP doesn’t get updated to the DynDNS service and you’ll save time and your nerves. 
Ended up looking at Wippies General Terms and Conditions and noticed the new paid device contracts seem to be continuous and not fixed-term contracts as the older free device contracts are (12 months contract if ordered before July 1st 2008, 36 months contract if ordered between July 1st and October 7th 2008).
When thinking this continuous contract it makes sense since the user buys the device so the ownership of the device shifts to the user right away as well. Because of this, there’s no requirements for not keeping the device off of the network more than two weeks anymore either since you have bought the box and it’s your property.
Improved Huawei E169 support is starting to look good. Tested this today and the speed is about the same as if the 3G dongle would have been connected directly to the computer (or then the 3G network just wasn’t as busy as usually 
). What I’ve heard and read of on the forums etc., with earlier firmwares the speed has been somewhat slower when connected thru Homebox so this issue has been clearly addressed.
Annex M support kicks asses now too! Handshaking of Homebox Black with Sauna29 was approx. 2Mbit more downstream and 200Kbit more upstream when tested against Telewell TW-EA510v3 with Annex M enabled.
Open-minded Wippies can request Sauna29 firmware (for Homebox Black only) at Wippies IRC channel (#wippies / IRCNet). 3G dongle, Annex-M and multicast support has been improved again.
Hard to say how long this chance is out there since usually few alpha testers are enough but you can try your luck if you will.
Edit: See also the official post about the subject at Jarkko’s TechBlog.
Yesterday, October 10th, the Wippies DynDNS (your_name.wippies.net) was activated and confirmed to be working. You can find it from My Wippies (Device Settings > Misc. Settings > Dynamic DNS). It adds an A record to name services and to get some use of it you need to add port forward for the wanted port, whatever you might want to use it for.
For instance, if you’re running a web server behind your Homebox, forward port 80 (the pre-made HTTP port forward) to your web server LAN IP and then you’re able to access your home web server with your Wippies DynDNS address.