Unlocking a DTA-310

My story is probably a lot like yours - I signed up for packet8 service way back when, used it for a while, moved on to playing with Asterisk, cancelled the packet8 service plan, and ended up with an utterly useless plastic brick. Well, fortunately, my story has a happy ending; I managed to unlock my DTA-310 and get it working with my asterisk box, and now I'm going to tell you how to do the same with yours.

BACKGROUND
The Packet8 DTA-310 is a now-discontinued customized voip terminal adapter manufactured for 8x8 Inc (Packet8's parent company). Although it physically resembles no other ATA on the market, it appears to be based on the Leadtek BVA-805x series of terminal adapters. This connection seems further reinforced by the fact that Packet8's current offering, the BPA-410, seems to be almost identical to the Leadtek BVA-8052.

UNLOCKING THE ATA
Unlocking this thing turned out to be shockingly easy. I used firmware for another Leadtek BVA-805x device, the SIPPhone.com Call-In-One. The firmware (version AR16/AR16O) is available for download on this page, although I've mirrored the version I used here. Leadtek has the AR15 firmware available on their site, although I haven't tried that one yet.

Step 1 - Reflash the terminal adapter
It might be a good idea to turn off any firewall software you have on your PC at this point.

• Download and, if necessary, unzip the firmware.
• Plug the DTA into your router and make sure it's turned on.
• Log into your router, take a look at the DHCP client table, and find the IP address of your terminal adapter.
• Open a web browser, go to the IP address of the terminal adapter, and click Download on the left side of the page.
• Click Browse, locate the firmware file, and click Start HTTP Download
• Wait patiently until you see Download Successful, then click Restart Main Application