When I bought my RC9800i in December 2006, it worked just fine. Now it fails to connect to activation server and time server as well. The difference between back then and now is that I used to have Planet ADW4300 broadband router, but now I have Thompson SpeedTouch 780. And also not long after broadband router upgrade, my ever curious and non-English speaking dad happened to "accidentally" erase all configuration from it. Now I am not sure which is it that caused the error - router upgrade or the "erase all" function.
I tried WireShark to monitor network traffic, but there doesn't seem to be any that would indicate that the remote is trying to connect anything. Although there are some broadcast packets moving around and RC9800i responds to ping.