Opening Ports in a EE Bright Box Router

Your EE Bright Box router comes equipped with a firewall that helps protect your home network from unwanted Internet access. The firewall does this by blocking all incoming and outgoing connections unless specified otherwise. In order to open some of these connections you need to create a port forward.

The basic process to open a port is to:

1. Setup a static IP address on either your computer or device that you want to forward a port to.
2. Login to your EE Bright Box router.
3. Navigate to the port forwarding section.
   • Click the Advanced Set-up button.
   • Click on NAT.
   • Click on Port Forwarding.
4. Create a port forward entry.

While these steps might seem difficult at first, we will walk you through every step for your EE Bright Box router.

We think that forwarding a port should be easy. That's why we created Network Utilities. Our software does everything that you need to forward a port.

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When you use Network Utilities you get your port forwarded right now!

Step 1

It is important to setup a static ip address in the device that you are forwarding a port to. This ensures that your ports will remain open even after your device reboots.

• Recommended - Our free Static IP Setter will set up a static IP address for you.
• Another way to get a permanent IP address is to set up a DHCP reservation.
• Or, manually create a static ip address with our Static IP Guides.

This step is important because you want a permanent IP address in your device. If you do not set up a permanent IP address in your device, then when you device reboots it may get a new IP address.

Use a VPN Instead

Have you considered using a VPN instead of forwarding a port? For most users, a VPN is a much simpler and more secure choice than forwarding a port.

We use and recommend NordVPN because not only is it the fastest VPN, it includes a new feature called Meshnet that makes forwarding a port no longer necessary for most applications. With NordVPN Meshnet, you can connect to your devices from anywhere in the world, completely secure, over a highly encrypted VPN tunnel.

Every time you click on one of our affiliate links, such as NordVPN, we get a little kickback for introducing you to the service. Think of us as your VPN wingman.

Write this static IP address down, you need it in Step 4.

Step 2

To login to the EE Bright Box router you need to use a web browser. It doesn't matter which browser you decide to use, we recommend picking one you are the most comfortable using such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Edge.

Open the web browser up and find the address bar. This is normally at the top of the page like this:

Above is an example of what a web browser address bar looks like. Find the address bar in your router and type in your router's IP address.

The default EE Bright Box router IP address is: 192.168.1.1

If you have changed the router's IP address in the past then enter that IP address in the address bar. If you don't remember what you changed it to or the above default address did not work, you need to find out what you changed it to. We recommend following the directions on this How To Find Your Router's IP Address page.

After entering the IP address of your router you can simply press enter. If all goes well you will sEE the following screen:

In this space you enter the username and password then press the login or Enter key to access the router's user interface.

• The Default EE Bright Box Router Username is: admin
• The Default EE Bright Box Router Password is: password

Can't Login?

This is a common place to get stuck. Here are a few things you can try if you find yourself here:

• First, we recommend trying other EE username and password combinations. If you have a slightly different firmware version of a EE router you may also have a different username password combination. Here is our list of the Default EE Router Passwords.
• If that did not work, it is likely you changed the username and/or password in the past and don't remember what you changed it to. You can do a couple things here. One - try and guess what you changed it to (chances are this will work). Two - Let us help by automating the process for you. Use our Find Password App. It guesses thousands of different combinations for you. Learn all about it on this Router Password Cracker page.
• Finally, and as a last resort, you may need to do a factory reset on the EE Bright Box router. A factory reset is a big step and everything you have ever changed is erased. If you use DSL you may also need to contact your ISP for the login information for them. Be aware that a factory reset requires a full reconfiguration of your network. If you need to reset the EE Bright Box router, learn how on this How to Reset a Router page.

Step 3

It is now time to find the port forwarding section of the EE Bright Box router. To help you with this we begin on the first page of the EE Bright Box router:

First, you are going to click the Advanced Set-up button at the top of the page.

Now look in the left sidebar. Click the option of NAT.

Under that, click the option of Port Forwarding.

Step 4

Here are the ports to forward for Xbox Live:

• TCP Ports: 3074
• UDP Ports: 3074

If you are looking for the ports for a different application you can find it by either:

• Browsing our List of Games
• Check out our our List of Games by Genre
• See our List of all Applications

Don't forget to sign up for NordVPN's promo deal before it's gone.

Enter the IP address that you are forwarding ports to in the LAN IP Address box. This is either the IP address of a computer or the IP address of another device on your network.

The protocol that you want to forward is selected from the Protocol Type box.

Enter the same port number to be forwarded into the LAN Port and the Public Port boxes.

Put a checkmark in the Enable checkbox.

Click the Save button when you are done.

Make sure to save when you are finished.

And that is it. Congratulations.

Testing the Port Forward

How do you tell if your port forward went through as it was suppose to. You need to test it. There are a lot of different port checkers on the Internet. Most use the application you are forwarding the ports for to check if your ports are open. That works great except if you don't have that application yet. If this happens you get a false reading from the port checker.

Our Open Port Checker doesn't work that way. We don't assume you have a certain application on your computer. Our Open Port Checker uses a local application on your computer to sEE if the ports are open guaranteeing no false readings.

More...

Don't forget you can always use our Port Forwarding Software. Our software makes port forwarding easy. We help you by troubleshooting, diagnosing and fixing all your port forwarding issues for you.

Check out our other networking and gaming guides here.

Need to setup your router? We can help make your router as secure as possible, check out our guides for your router at setuprouter.com.