What information do we collect during compatibility testing and why?

The purpose of running the compatibility test on the mobile application is to pre-check if the WEPN Pod would be able to automatically perform port forwarding on your router so that outside (incoming) Internet traffic can be handed over to it directly. 

Imagine going through the hassle of obtaining a WEPN Pod and attempting to set it up and only to realize then that your home network does not have the capability to work seamlessly with WEPN Pod.

To ensure smoother on-boarding and setup experience, we highly recommend running compatibility tests on WEPN Android and iOS mobile applications before attempting to obtain and install a WEPN Pod.

But how does the compatibility test on mobile apps ensure that, you may ask. Basically the WEPN mobile app mimics the device behavior and procedure performed to perform port forwarding. 

WEPN Pod uses a standard protocol implemented in most home routers called UPnP.  This mechanism is commonly used by many gaming devices such as Xbox, and understood by many WiFi equipment manufacturers (such as Plume and Motorola among others) and ISP providers (such as Google Fiber and XFinity) Using UPnP, the Pod speaks with the home router and sends commands to it to perform port forwarding. In absence of such automatic procedure, the Pod owners have to forward ports manually through the router admin dashboard (such as what AT&T instructs).

In certain cases, this procedure may not successfully complete. To better understand the cause of failure and better support providers, we attempt to collect some basic information including:

• Router manufacturer name
• Router model name 
• Router friendly name
• Public IP address
• WAN IP address of the router
• Errors that occur during interfacing with router
• Mapped port numbers

In essence, the above router information helps us ensure the router itself supports certain UPnP capabilities. The WAP IP helps us understand the existence of a double-NAT (network inside a network). To better understand the issue of double NAT, you can take a look at the following support article. 

In essence, the router information helps us ensure the router itself supports certain UPnP capabilities. The WAP IP helps us understand the existence of a double-NAT (network inside a network). During this process, we do not collect any personal identifiable information (PII) and only generic network data as outlined above. You do not even need to sign up for an account to perform the compatibility test.