So, here is the rundown of my last 2 days. I call Sunrise Telecom several times yesterday and leave messages. Well, our buddy Flavio calls me back. He informs me that my cm500ip meter is too old and will not work with RealGate. I am going to have to send it in to get it updated. He says I can send it in and pay $1100.00 to "upgrade" it because the hardware is too old. I told him that I have a 1000v2 module in it and he says that is too old also. I can either pay the $1100 to upgrade the "hardware components" or just pay $1500 and get the CM1000.
On a whim, I remember downloading the "newest" firmware which is 4.31 from Sunrise website. The upgrade instructions say to make a backup of the CF card before the flash so that if the flash doesn't work, you can put the old files back on the CF card and it will downgrade the firmware.
Suddenlink tells me that the newest firmware they have is 6.01 (or something like that). But Sunrise says the newest is 4.31. Also, Sunrise says Realgate WILL NOT WORK on the CM500, but we have some CM500's in the system that are running Realgate.
At this point I determine that Sunrise is full of crap. Lets try something. I copied all the files from a CF card from a CM1000. Backed up my CF card from my CM500 that had Firmware 4.31. Put the 1000 files on that card and put it in my meter. After the powerup, it says "updating module". It had a moving bar that went to 100% and said successful, power cycle meter. I did that and booted just fine. Shift + options brings up the...ooh wait...the RealGate option!! You know, the option I can not get without sending this thing to Sunrise and spending $1100 for the "hardware upgrade"
OOh, also after doing this upgrade, it now has the VoIP test enabled that was not enabled before.
I am going to go play with it when I get in the system tomorrow and can post back the results. As of now though, it all looks good. Thank you Sunrise for the easy to use firmware upgrade tutorial to 4.31. OOH, and thank you for reminding me to back up my old firmware incase the upgrade did not work. And letting me know that if the firmware upgrade did not work, I can always put the old firmware back on there and my meter will not brick
Have a wonderful day everyone. Good luck with adding "options" to your own meters like I did.
