Use a proxy, such as http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/

In reply to a post by JonRennie:

Trace the route :

tracert www.tracfone.com

This will tell you how far it gets and potentially who is blocking it.

Thanks for that excellent suggestion. This is what I found:

C:\Windows\System32>tracert www.tracfone.com

Tracing route to www.tracfone.com [67.107.122.136]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 85 ms 99 ms 99 ms 192.168.1.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 30 ms 24 ms 24 ms 10.1.2.85
4 26 ms 25 ms 26 ms 10.1.2.169
5 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms xe-9-1-0.edge3.London1.Level3.net [212.113.15.65
]
6 26 ms 25 ms 25 ms ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.97]
7 100 ms 100 ms 100 ms ae-41-41.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.137.66]

8 115 ms 104 ms 103 ms ae-10-10.ebr2.Washington12.Level3.net [4.69.148.
50]
9 102 ms 101 ms 101 ms ae-5-5.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.143.221
]
10 100 ms 99 ms 100 ms ae-82-82.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
54]
11 106 ms 106 ms 106 ms ae-41-80.car1.Washington3.Level3.net [4.69.149.1
40]
12 116 ms 105 ms 105 ms XO-COMMUNIC.car1.Washington3.Level3.net [4.71.20
4.26]
13 105 ms 105 ms 104 ms 207.88.14.162.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.162]
14 142 ms 132 ms 132 ms te-3-0-0.rar3.atlanta-ga.us.xo.net [207.88.12.9]

15 129 ms 130 ms 139 ms ae0d0.mcr2.miami-fl.us.xo.net [216.156.0.230]
16 134 ms 142 ms 133 ms ae1d0.mcr1.miami-fl.us.xo.net [216.156.1.113]
17 138 ms 127 ms 127 ms 207.239.154.74
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

207.239.154.74 is XO Communications, who host Tracfone (and, I think, own it). I wonder what I've done to upset them?

Any ideas as to what I could try next?

regards,

Felix

In reply to a post by john2007:

Use a proxy, such as http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/

Many thanks. Worked a treat. Great suggestion.

Regards,

Felix

It works fine for me using an O2 connection and O2 DNS.

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Don't O2 use dynamic IPs?

Could be he's been clobbered for someone else's naughtiness.

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Don't O2 use dynamic IPs?

Extremely sticky. As in only when you change router does the IP address change.

Could be he's been clobbered for someone else's naughtiness.

Almost exactly my suggestion. It is common for admins to block IP address ranges with a * in the final or last two (IPV4) triplets.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Doesn't work on my BE connection either.

Traceroute very similar to the one above.

I'm a 78.x.x.x address and static IP

Home page comes up from 91.xxx.xxx.xxx

Thanks, everybody, for trying the connection for me. What is most annoying is that when I was in the US I had no trouble at all connecting to the site using the same laptop - only the ISP was different. As far as I can remember, I accessed the site from 3 different places (with different ISPs and IP addresses) so it cannot be a change of one of these.

I have rebooted everything in sight, cleared every cache and even changed my underpants and nothing has made any difference (to the connection, anyway ).

The whole thing is a complete mystery, but I have a work-around, thanks to John2007. I don't need to contact them for a while anyway. I might try it from a friend's connection (also O2) just for a laugh.

Again, thanks for trying.

Regards,

Felix