History¶

In October 2018, a group of Canadian software developers began collaborating on the Bell Canada sub-forum of the now-defunct DSLReports. Due to the forum's restrictive policies regarding reverse engineering and its disdain for "hacker" culture, the group migrated to a Slack workspace dubbed "BELLY-UP."

The community initially focused on the "cat-and-mouse" game of rooting Bell Canada’s Sagemcom gateways (the Home Hub 3000 and 4000). Interest quickly shifted towards developing support for 2.5Gbps network hardware based on Broadcom WarpCore and Marvell ARMADA architectures. These efforts enabled users to extract the ISP-provided SFP+ GPON ONTs (such as the Huawei MA5671A, Alcatel-Lucent G-010S-P, or Nokia G-010S-A) and use them in their own equipment, effectively bypassing the restrictive ISP gateway.

As interest in the Broadcom WarpCore patches surged and the community outgrew Slack’s free-tier limitations. In September 2021, "BELLY-UP" transitioned to Discord, rebranding as the 8311 community. This move allowed the group to serve a growing global audience of bypass enthusiasts, fostering a space where individuals from all walks of life can collaborate to achieve networking independence at the edge.