Hey Broadband Issue

I have had Hey Broadband 1Gbit for about 9 months and in general it has been pretty good.

One issue I have noticed occasionally is that some websites being visited think I am outside the UK (when I am not).

Examples include

Unable to order flowers at M&S because it was thought I was ordering from Spain
Unable to book tickets at local theatre because it was thought I was outside the UK
International sites defaulting to German or Dutch currency and language
A UK business rejecting all access with a 503 error

Wonder if anyone with Hey Broadband could try something for me.

This is a UK business that sells airbrushes (for painting), would you check whether you can access it

https://barwellbodyworks-shop.com/

I just get blocked with a 503 message saying that this UK based website does not accept connections from my country.

This happens with any device that use Hey Broadband, so a variety of hardware, operating systems, browsers, WiFi, ethernet - the common factor is Hey Broadband.

If I don’t use Hey Broadband (use my 4G phone hotspot) on any of these devices I get through to the site without issue.

The common factor is Hey Broadband.

So am very interested to see if other Hey Broadband customers see the same issue.

I get the same error with a different ISP.

It could be a problem with the server web host or maybe Apple's Safari privacy/anti tracking not reporting the origin of the request correctly?

I know it wasn't directly the question but I have tested from EE mobile, BT Retail and a Janet connection and it works from all of those. It is likely they either don't have their IP database up to date or they are using a geo-location service that is poor.

I get this issue with 4G on Three from time to time, its when they use a data centre in Southern Ireland. Get your assigned IP and check on who.is for location and see if it is in UK or not.

In reply to a post by kommando:

I get this issue with 4G on Three from time to time, its when they use a data centre in Southern Ireland. Get your assigned IP and check on who.is for location and see if it is in UK or not.

Sorry I should have said, I have already done a geo check on the IP and it shows as UK-based even down to the correct location within the UK.

In reply to a post by Fishbed:

One issue I have noticed occasionally is that some websites being visited think I am outside the UK (when I am not).

With the lack of IPv4 addresses lots of address blocks are being bought and sold around the world. As a new & growing ISP it is possible that Hey have had to buy a block previously used outside the UK.

Websites that regional block to IP ranges are going to suffer loss of business until they realise this.

This is not yours or Hey's fault, this is the website not keeping up with the internet industry and using an old assumption.

Do you think the IP blocks that HB have purchased are from a (previously assigned) foreign ISP that when they are looked up still show the original/previous ownership details? Sounds very much like it me, rather than a geo-lookup based on transits….

Check what IP address you are using at these sites:

http://ip6.me
http://ip4.me

If they show the same, then you have only IPv4. If they are different, then you have both IPv4 and IPv6, and you'll need to check the geo location information of both.

The address(es) you get may change over time, as either your broadband connection re-establishes, or if Hey are doing CGNAT, then you'll get whatever IP address and port is free at the time.

In general: there are multiple geo location services and databases out there. When Hey Broadband bought their addresses from somewhere else, it may take some time for those databases to be updated.

I suggest you report this directly to Hey Broadband, giving:
- the example URL where you get an error (and a screenshot showing the error)
- the external IP address(es) you had at the time this happened, from ip6.me and ip4.me

This may help them to get the right databases updated.

In the short term, you can get around this problem by using a VPN service.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Check what IP address you are using at these sites:

http://ip6.me
http://ip4.me

If they show the same, then you have only IPv4. If they are different, then you have both IPv4 and IPv6, and you'll need to check the geo location information of both.

The address(es) you get may change over time, as either your broadband connection re-establishes, or if Hey are doing CGNAT, then you'll get whatever IP address and port is free at the time.

In general: there are multiple geo location services and databases out there. When Hey Broadband bought their addresses from somewhere else, it may take some time for those databases to be updated.

I suggest you report this directly to Hey Broadband, giving:
- the example URL where you get an error (and a screenshot showing the error)
- the external IP address(es) you had at the time this happened, from ip6.me and ip4.me

This may help them to get the right databases updated.

In the short term, you can get around this problem by using a VPN service.

They are both the same which suggests that I only have IP4.

What does that mean? Is it that the site I am trying to access requires IP6 and as I don’t appear to have it my connection is being rejected?

Cheers,

Nigel

I was just ruling something out.

Not having IPv6 isn't the problem you're seeing. There are no sites (worth talking about) that connect only over IPv6. You are successfully connecting over IPv4; the site is looking at your IPv4 address, and deciding (wrongly) that you are not in the UK.

Ideally, all ISPs would provide IPv6 - and especially those ISPs that use CGNAT. There's plenty of IPv6 space to go around, so they would obtain their blocks directly from the registry, there would be no need to go to secondary marketplaces to obtain them, and no problem with wrong geo-location data.

But most websites these days only accept connections over IPv4, and the remainder accept both IPv4 and IPv6. In the latter case, the choice is made automatically, you don't have to know this is going on.

In reply to a post by PhilipSmith72:

I get the same error with a different ISP.

Works from Scotland via Zen!

I see the error if I connect from a server in the States:

Text
1 23 4	<h1>Barwell UK Airbrush Supplies</h1> <h2><span>503</span> Overloaded</h2><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="https://barwellbodyworks-shop.com/img/barwell-bodyworks-logo-1547089452.jpg" alt="logo" /></p> <p>You cannot access this store from your country. We apologize for the inconvenience.</p>

This confirms that it's a problem with geoIP lookup for Hey addresses.

Whether that's because Hey haven't published the geo info for their address block, or because this website hasn't updated its geo database, we don't know. But Hey would be the people to look into this for you, since you're their customer.

They must surely have larger than a /24….

https://bgp.he.net/AS212426#_prefixes

Need to see what F&W have got….

So most websites will use a geoip database to work this out, most likely from maxmind.com as they are the predominant provider of this.

https://www.maxmind.com/en/home

I've checked your IP on there and it shows as GB successfully. The IP block most likely was used in Germany before this, hence the issues you are facing. The IP block allocation was created in 2020, and updated in may 2021. It's not clear when the country information was last updated, but it could be that anyone using a database before that will see you as not in the UK. People don't often update these that often as they are normally provided by the operating system so might not get updated for years.

There isn't really anything Hey Broadband can do about this unless they can change your IP to a block that has always been in the UK, but they may not have a pool that they can do this from.

john

Edited by john (Fri 17-Dec-21 14:17:36)

https://bgp.he.net/AS207645#_prefixes

In reply to a post by candlerb:

But Hey would be the people to look into this for you, since you're their customer.

In previous cases of this with other ISPs it was confirmed the ISP has almost nothing they can do, assuming their RIPE (or equivalent) registration is correctly stating use in the UK.

It is wholly the fault of the geo-blocked website to resolve, and be aware of how the internet works, and changes over time!

👍

Thank you for this detailed reply

Fellow HB customer. have the same problem. Some GeoIP services think I'm in Russia. Some, not all. When I go to AliExpress for example it defaults to the Russian language with the currency in Rubles.

I raised it with HB, they said nothing they could do and to talk to the GeoIP services. Some of them responded and said they see the IP block as in the UK (look ups on their website still say Russia however), the others never responded.

Its got a hell of a lot better than it was when I first joined HB so things have been changing slowly.

Edited by nofappingway (Fri 17-Dec-21 16:06:32)