Beware - Three's 5G service is CGNAT'd

What the title says.

Ordered their 5G service this week to potentially replace my VM 350Mbps connection, since I live an area with great coverage.

Unfortunately, the hub they send (the Huawei CPE Pro 5G) comes with a locked down version that allows zero changes to any network settings, and so, the old trick of changing APN to '3internet' to avoid CGNAT does not apply here...

It is very unfortunate since I am able to get 600-650Mbps and latency is pretty good. But oh well. Anybody tried to do anything about this? I will cancel my contract soon.

Buy a new router that is the only way currently.

I'd be happy to be corrected.

Edited by epyon (Thu 27-Feb-20 10:10:38)

I know a lot of people don't like CGNAT, but in your case does it actually stop you doing what you want to do?

Yes - Gaming is the big one really...

I'd be happy to do that if they were not in the range of £300 (which is almost the same amount as the value of the contract itself)...

And you know what's funny? They have some sort of nonsense campaign going on with Activision about modern warfare being better with 5G or whatever. The irony.

In reply to a post by nidstigator:

Yes - Gaming is the big one really...

Some people talk about using a VPN to overcome the CGNAT for gaming, would that help you?

Can't you use IPv6 instead? I'd like to think a brand new 5g network uses it as standard......

Even if it does, that by no means guarantees the service you�re trying to use does.

whats the issue with gaming? i've played a few games on threes 4G and not had any problems.

Interesting read here:

www.sidn.nl/en/news-and-blogs/game-over-for-IPv4

Makes you wonder why any ISP would see it as beneficial in any way whatsoever to use CGNAT........

Also, can you do a facepalm emoji on here??

http://www.three.co.uk/hub/5g-gaming-welcome-to-the-...

"If you ever wanted a unique immersive 5G gaming experience, then take a look at this. And, believe us, it really doesn�t get much better.

We teamed up with one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®, to create a 5G-fuelled, haptic-charged, sensory-overloaded home entertainment experience. Think lighting effects, image projection, and spatial audio transporting you to another dimension of gaming.

Forget 4D, this is more like an �oh-my-days�, hyper-immersive, 5G reality that kicks online gaming into the next dimension. Fuelled by Three�s Real 5G speed, low latency and capacity, you�d literally feel those helicopter blades overhead.

So, with the potential to create the ultimate, online gaming and home entertainment environment, and amazing mixed-reality gaming on the bus, in the street, or down the park, our Real 5G is the future of hyper-immersive gameplay."

Edited by deleted (Thu 27-Feb-20 16:06:03)

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by nidstigator:

Yes - Gaming is the big one really...

Some people talk about using a VPN to overcome the CGNAT for gaming, would that help you?

Yeah I have seen that but that also assumes:
- VPN supports port forwarding (usually that costs extra per month)
- VPN speeds/latency aren't bad enough to hinder the whole experience

My experience with VPNs is that they barely work for geoblocking and are unreliable as solutions for most other problems

In reply to a post by epyon:

whats the issue with gaming? i've played a few games on threes 4G and not had any problems.

Double NAT with closed ports generally cause a poor matchmaking experience and party chat issues (voice chat in Xbox live)

In reply to a post by buggerlugs:

Can't you use IPv6 instead? I'd like to think a brand new 5g network uses it as standard......

I've complained to Three and their '2nd line support' has yet to get back to me. I was promised 24hrs but now it is 48hrs for some reason

There are no IPV4/IPV6 settings on my end to control since all that is hidden by the router

In reply to a post by buggerlugs:

Interesting read here:

www.sidn.nl/en/news-and-blogs/game-over-for-IPv4

Makes you wonder why any ISP would see it as beneficial in any way whatsoever to use CGNAT........

Also, can you do a facepalm emoji on here??

http://www.three.co.uk/hub/5g-gaming-welcome-to-the-...

"If you ever wanted a unique immersive 5G gaming experience, then take a look at this. And, believe us, it really doesn�t get much better.

We teamed up with one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®, to create a 5G-fuelled, haptic-charged, sensory-overloaded home entertainment experience. Think lighting effects, image projection, and spatial audio transporting you to another dimension of gaming.

Forget 4D, this is more like an �oh-my-days�, hyper-immersive, 5G reality that kicks online gaming into the next dimension. Fuelled by Three�s Real 5G speed, low latency and capacity, you�d literally feel those helicopter blades overhead.

So, with the potential to create the ultimate, online gaming and home entertainment environment, and amazing mixed-reality gaming on the bus, in the street, or down the park, our Real 5G is the future of hyper-immersive gameplay."

That is what I mentioned in a reply to a previous post!! They literally have a campaign with Activision. Hilarious.

So the new 5g router doesn't let you modify any settings........and they've rolled out 5g with CGNAT....

"We teamed up with one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®, to create a 5G-fuelled, haptic-charged, sensory-overloaded home entertainment experience..."

Is the haptic-charged sensory overload what happens when new 5g customers can't play the game online?

Could it be those games are working over IPv6 so don't have an issue?

I think that's highly unlikely, most hardware is preconfigured to use IPv4 and would take some know how to set up to use IPv6, and whilst the PC and Xbone can use IPv6, the PS4 is still flaky in that area and not many ISP's actually offer it.

Most hardware these days are dual stack. All my Android phones and Windows PCs have been using IPv6 for a while if they see it. No configuration was required on the devices themselves, they come already enabled for IPv6.

As for ISP support this is getting better and saying "not many" is perhaps painting a worse picture than it is (https://ipv6-test.com/stats/country/GB), besides I was only referring to Three and their 5G service and bundled hardware, it wasn't a sweeping statement about the whole industry supporting IPv6. I just wondered if they do have it enabled for IPv6 on their 5G platform and that is what they are referring to when they list games that work well with 5G, they work because they go via IPv6 rather than CGNAT. I'm not familiar with the PS4 so can't make any comment about it's support of IPv6.

Info here about Three's support of IPv6 https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/11/some-t...

I use 4G and modern warfare and have had no issues with party chat at all tbh and I'm triple nat'd! (mikrotik->mikrotik lte->cgnat)