Port forwarding on the HomeHub 3000

[Remmy]

I have attempted to open a port in the HomeHub 3000 settings.

I believe everything is set up correctly and the settings have been saved.

When a device (inside or outside my network) attempts to connect via the allegedly opened port, it fails to connect

3rd party portforwarding testing services (dnschecker.org, canyouseeme.org, getyoursignal.com) say the port is still closed, or that the attempted connection was "timed out"

I have tried several ports, in case bell was blocking some for some reason.

I called tech support and the first guy didnt seem to know what port forwarding was and hung up on me, the second guy said that help with port forwarding was "outside their scope" even though it is literally a service bell is pretending it provides.

Help would be greatly appreciated,  thank you

[Vanadiel · Accepted solution]

It will only be open for connections that originated from your LAN. That is why external testing sites will show the port closed, since that connection did not originate from your LAN.

It's done to prevent users from running servers on their network.

[Remmy]

so all external port forwarding is blocked? is there someplace in the terms of server that states this as a policy?

what if i want to run a small server with very limited private traffic? why would this be disallowed?

[dks]

Servers have always not been allowed on Bell internet. That does not mean people don’t run then, but it is at their own risk. 

[Remmy]

i cant find this as a rule listed anywhere, is this just some unspoken thing that everyone knows?

[dks]

I believe it is in the Terms of Use document. Or it has been. 

[dks · Accepted solution]

The Terms of Service can be found here  . See SCHEDULE B: RESPONSIBLE USE OF BELL SERVICES on page 14.

I am not a lawyer and don't pretend to be. While servers are not mentioned any more, prohibited services include "using any Bell Service for anything other than private, personal, family or household use (such as reselling, remarketing, transferring, sharing or receiving any charge or other benefit for the use of any Bell Service);"

Bell also does have the right to restrict any traffic which affects their network. 

I can't say what anyone should or should not do. But knowing what you agreed to when you signed up for Bell services is a good beginning for every customer. 

[Remmy]

yes so, having read that same document,

as you point out, servers (and remote access broadly) does not appear to be against the TOS

as you could absolutely have a server that is strictly for "pvt, personal, family or household use" and is not used to "resell, remarket, transfer, share or receive any charge or other benefit for the use of any Bell Service"

so I would be interested to know if the claim that bell expressly blocks external port forwarding is valid and it substantiated anywhere in writing (and isnt just something users have gathered from their personal experience)

if in my own error, I agreed to a term I would not like in hindsight then that would be fair and that would be on me. 

At this point I am still unsure if my issue is just the service functioning as intended or if it is a bug from a firmware update or something

and oddly Bell has yet to make the answer clear on their end

[Canadian By-Tor]

If your HH3000 is wireless Internet as opposed to fibre, then Bell has a double NAT going on (one in your HH, and one upstream from you), so while you can port forward on your HH, this is ineffective because you won't get any WAN traffic to you anyhow as your HH itself is behind a NAT. This differs from fibre experience where your router has no upstream NAT, I've tested this on other networks (Rogers fibre, ViaNet fibre, both port forward just fine because there's no upstream NAT).