Router Discrimination

There are multiple ways.

Things like DSL modems actually have different line speeds that you can select between when subscribing to the service.

Things like cable modems combine different channels and different numbers of channels to make different aggregate bandwidth. The system controlling a CMTS node tells cable modems what channels they can use when. They simply tell your modem to use fewer channels if you subscribe to a lower speed.

It's possible to rate limit people on the router without any knowledge of the connection technology. This is done by keeping a counter of how much traffic each IP address has sent in the last second / minute / hour / day / week / month, and use that counter to decide if the next packet to or from that IP should be allowed through. If you're under your speed limit, the packet goes through. If you're at or over your speed limit, the packet doesn't go through (yet).

They don't need to know where your signal is. They likely want to not deal with that. They only care about where to send the monthly bill to.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe not in the way that you're thinking.

A router you own or a router they own? If the latter, you could tailor it based on MAC address.

But, nobody is doing this. Nobody is making your connection slower than your wife/roomate/whatever's connection.

I'm always amused when some person thinks they're so special that the employee of some ISP is going to risk prison just to f*ck with them a little bit.

It's FAAAAAR more likely that your two devices have different capabilities. Take WiFi for example.. In the very early days of WiFi, we had the 802.11b specification. That spec afforded a maximum speed of

11 megabits per second over a "WiFi" connection.

Any device that was manufactured during that time, can only do 11 megabits per second over a wifi connection even today. And, that's only if your fancy new router has the capability to make fall back connections to old protocols, in the first place.

If your router will talk to it it doesn't matter one shit that you have a gigabit connection. Your device is going to communicate at 11mbps period. Any devices manufactured during the 802.11a/g eras will be able to chat at 54mbps. And so on and so forth.

It's also quite possible that you'll get worse speeds if your standing on the other side of a wall that is packed with foil-backed insulation. You might also be standing more closely to your neighbor's router that is broadcasting on the same damn channel. Maybe your device has a signal level of -70dbi and a noise floor of -80dbi. You aren't gonna get awesome speeds out of a SNR (signal to noise ratio) of -10dbi.

You take two brand new iPhones, connect them to the same router, and then stick one on the other side of metal foil backed insulation and you sure-as-shit aren't gonna see the same download speeds. Same goes for two iPhones with different signal qualities. The one seeing the router at -50dbi is going to get vastly better speeds than one that sees it at

-75dbi.

hohum snipped-for-privacy@outlook.com wrote in news:XnsAA751A0B2D4A6notmeyoueqwe9sadfvc7@46.165.242.91:

I am on a wireless connection so anything is possible, but I have seen them firewalling blocking my access to NNTP servers,where it is obvious the data is being immediately blocked by firewall rule somewhere. They frequently stall my connection right at the time a critical data transfer is to be made or hijack my DNS lookups. When I change my MAC address I get the connection back. I have run multiple AV scans both online and off using the top rated av scanners and I find nothing, but it's possible I could be trojaned by corrupt OS files. I have not had these problems with other ISPs, only Globe Philippines. The router is very flaky and pings to public DNS servers are up one minute and down the next.

Would running a IDS program help trace the cause of these interferences? Snort or other?

Is this internet you pay for? Or are you "borrowing" someone else's connection?

Why would your ISP (assuming you are paying one) turn around and f*ck with the connection they are selling you? To what end?

And uh, an IDS won't tell you shit if the blockage is external to your computer. In IDS, the I is key. I=Intrusion. A blockage is not internal and it's not an intrusion.

How is it obvious you are being blocked by a firewall rule? Is it possible that the source of your internet is simply a shitty ISP with an unreliable connection itself?

Is it possible that changing your MAC address causes your connection to reset? (it's actually more than possible, it's mandatory) Resetting your connection may be what is resulting in it working again. It's entirely possible you have a flaky wifi chip. I had one go out on my HP laptop. My connection became increasingly unreliable until one day it failed all together. Once I replaced the wifi assembly, I never had a problem again.

Comcast used to send TCP resets when they saw something they didn't like. There was publicity and they stopped. Sample link:

As recently as a month ago, I helped troubleshoot a situation on Cable One in Mississippi where connections were being reset after a significant amount of data usage between the local user and a single remote endpoint. Using tcpdump and Wireshark, we could see the TCP resets, but it wasn't until we did a test where we controlled both ends of the connection that we could see TCP resets arriving at both the source and the destination simultaneously, each looking like it was issued by the other end. In some of their literature, Cable One mentions something called 'active network management', so we figure that's where the resets were coming from. Talking with Tier 2 support, he confirmed that while there is no overall data cap (at this particular service tier), there *is* a cap on usage to/from a single endpoint. Explaining that these large file transfers were work related, he showed no sympathy so the customer switched to at&t UVerse. So far, so good. Higher speeds, (390/390 versus 300/25), nearly the same monthly cost ($60 versus $55), but it's at&t so it's probably no one's first choice.

Johann Beretta snipped-for-privacy@nun-ya-bizness.com wrote in news:qehqrg$sos$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I pay for it, it's my landlords connection and she knows it.

Johann Beretta snipped-for-privacy@nun-ya-bizness.com wrote in news:qehr4l$uee$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I already tried resetting without changing mac, it does not work.

Lately When I exit sleep mode on the laptop, and previously had disconnected the connection to the ISP, I see the connection as been made immediately after I exit sleep mode. Can they download data when the computer is at sleep and the connection has been terminated? Did not think that was possible. Lately I have resorted to d/c the cable so it's impossible to activate a connection while the computer is at sleep.

The way I know it's a firewall block is because firewall blocks act IMMEDIATELY. You can tell that the blockage is immediate/fast, indicates a firewall block by ruleset.

Johann Beretta snipped-for-privacy@nun-ya-bizness.com wrote in news:qehqrg$sos$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I am either being hacked by the ISP or someone on the network.

Lately I have had to change the mac address AND the user account to get back ability to ping the router reliably.

Very funny that changing the user account reestablishes my connectivity even after I have changed the mac address.

The globe routers have NEVER been any good. Have no idea why their system is so screwed up. I will have to go to DSL cable and do a hard reset of the router, but I am not sure I will not have problems with resetting all the parameters in the router. I hate to have to call these jackasses to come help me.

Really sucky ISP, everyone hates it and the online reviews are atrocious.

Right. The first step to solving a problem is to blame someone.

I'm dealing with a similar problem that I can't seem to fix. It's an Arris SB-6141 cable modem and an Asus RT-AC66Uv1 router. There are about 6 assorted Thinkpad/Lenovo laptops all connected via Wi-Fi. Some new, some old. Only the Thinkpad/Lenovo laptops running Windoze 10 all have the same problem. If the Comcast or the modem loses internet connectivity, the Wi-Fi will disconnect, and remain disconnected even if connectivity is restored to the modem. Wi-Fi connectivity can be temporarily restored by changing the MAC address or rebooting the laptop or router. ipconfig release/renew doesn't restore wi-fi connectivity. Running "network reset" and playing with various power saving settings do not help. Temporarily switching to a different router doesn't fix the problem. No problems with other machines running Windoze 7, XP, Android, ChromeOS, etc. My initial guess(tm) is either a Windoze 10 problem, or a bad Wi-Fi driver. I'll post something when I visit the site in about 2 weeks.

Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

connectivity

forgot to mention I am running win7 not 10

So much for that great idea. The customer with the aformentioned problem has several Win 7 machines. Only the Win 10 machines drop the wi-fi connection when the cable modem drops the internet connection. The Win 7 machines continue to work normally when the cable modem reconnects.

Problem solved and the problem had nothing to do with Windoze 10 or a bad Wi-Fi driver. So much for my initial guess(tm).

I did a Comcast internet service call Saturday that was rather unusual. I've been working on this customers computers for probably 15 years, ever since he moved to Bonny Doon. His Comcast internet had always been unreliable and subject to erratic short term outages. Comcast has looked at his problem many times. There were visits by installers, but since the cabling was installed quite nicely, nothing was changed. Last time I was there (about

6 months ago), I found an intermittent F connector, which I replaced. In the last few weeks, the erratic outages became more frequent to the point where the customer was sufficiently desperate to have me work on it on a weekend and in rather hot weather.

I spent 4 hrs systematically replacing everything possible to see what happens. The SB6141 was upgraded to an SB6183, which improved the download speed to about 75 Mbits/sec, but didn't do anything for the erratic drop outs. I was down to my laptop plugged directly into the SB6183 and it still screwed up. The Rigol DSA815 spectrum analyzer showed nothing unusual and the SNR and signal levels in the modem diagnostics were well with acceptable limits. Nothing interesting in the modem logs. Yet, every 5 to 20 minutes, the error rate dramatically increased, stayed there for about 5 minutes, and then returned to normal. Several times, I thought I had fix it, only to have it crap out by simply waiting a few minutes. Maximum frustration for me.

A quick check of the neighbors showed that none were having any manner of similar problems with their Comcast internet. So, the problem was somewhere on the customers property or in his equipment or computahs.

I was about to give up when I looked more carefully at what was inside the cable box. The cable entered the box via some F barrel connectors, and then went to a -6dB tap. It continued through the tap via RG-6/u which eventually went to the TV and the rest of the house. I had that branch of the cable disconnected and replaced with a 75 ohm termination, so I knew it wasn't in that part of the house cabling. Connected to the -6dB tap was a

-8dB attenuator which continued to about 20ft of RG6/u coax to the cable modem.

It was at this point that I was getting desperate. Despite the good readings on both the modem and spectrum analyzer, something didn't seem right with this arrangement. I had never seen that much attenuation in front of a cable modem. -6dB was about right for the tap, but the -8dB attenuator was far too much attenuation. I removed the attenuator from the system, and immediately things started to look much better.

The first thing I noticed was that all the download speed tests had stabilized to a solid 90 Mbit/sec, which indicated that it could go much faster, but was being rate limited either at the CMTS or my 100baseT ethernet cable. We tested it every way I could think of and the dropouts seemed to be gone. The mysterious wi-fi disconnects also disappeared. So, the extra attenuator that had been in the system for at least 10 years was the apparent culprit.

Of course, not everything went perfectly. I forgot to take photos. I forgot to close the lid on my fishing box full of coax connectors and dumped half the contents on the ground. Dinner at a local restaurant was awful. It was much too hot and I was dead tired.

Unfortunately, two questions remain un-answered for the now. Why was the modem signal levels and SNR normal, when it was obviously having a difficult time dealing with the low signal levels? That's

4 different modems that I tested (3ea SB6141 and 1ea SB6183). There were some errors appearing in the statistics pages, but nothing unusual. After removing the attenuator from the system, the SB6183 still showed some errors, but not as many as with the attenuator. I need to take a closer look at the numbers and the effects of excessive attenuation in front of the cable modem. Also, why did excessive packet loss and errors cause only the Lenovo Win 10 wi-fi driver to disconnect and not automatically reconnect? Yet another project.

Don't know how relevant this is, but I have a lenovo laptop and its a piece of junk. Very unreliable, weird acting and unstable. I will never buy Lenovo product.

Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

connectivity