for the want of a lower case B...

...the kingdom was lost

or something like that

A few days in: Things seem fairly solid. Not perfect, but so much faster than my old 15/1 ADSL.

I've been uploading online backups to my new Office 365 account, which comes with 5TB of space. I had to throttle OneDrive to 10 Mb/s to retain some headroom. But 150 GB in a couple of days seems decent.

But what I'm finding is the throughput suddely dropping to zero from time to time. When this happens, after a bit my Billion router log shows:

Aug 7 11:59:44 daemon info kernel: cdc_ncm: usb0: network connection: disconnected
Aug 7 11:59:45 user info syslog: --->link down; need to restart the wan again
Aug 7 11:59:45 user info syslog: 3gfunc restart3gwan
Aug 7 11:59:48 daemon info syslog: Received SIGTERM
Aug 7 11:59:55 daemon info syslog: udhcp client (v0.9.6) started
Aug 7 12:00:03 user info syslog: keep_tmsec:59 keep_ip:9.9.9.9
Aug 7 12:00:03 daemon info kernel: cdc_ncm: usb0: 150 mbit/s downlink 150 mbit/s uplink
Aug 7 12:00:03 daemon info kernel: cdc_ncm: usb0: network connection: connected
Aug 7 12:00:04 daemon info syslog: Lease of 92.41.129.128 obtained, lease time 518400

Edited by richi (Wed 07-Aug-19 12:44:37)

Could be the device getting 'overloaded' and soft restarting? I used to get this randomly on my Netgear Aircard, don't think it was powerful enough to keep up with demand. I have not noticed this happening on my Huawei B525.

Maybe it's the device changing bands, and/or dropping down to 3G which even though should be seemless - isn't always.

Yes and that "overload" symptom is possibly heat-related. The dongle does seem to get pretty toasty.

I've removed the slide-off cover and opened the two antenna/SDcard covers. Hope that'll add some ventilation.

My Broadband Ping

I set up a BQM this morning, in case anyone's interested. Overall, very happy with that.

At about 1pm, I started uploading a load more online backup stuff at 10 mb/s. And at about 3pm the connection dropped and I lost my IP.

Yes, RF is weird: Tiny changes in position and orientation make an enormous difference.

Part of the problem seems to be sidechannel interference from my wi-fi antennae. So there are too many variables to keep track of.

But I've now found a spot with the dongle taped to the wall where I get a solid 50/30 (peaking higher). It's a timber-frame exterior wall, filled with glass-fibre and clad with Marley fibre slates.

This morning, after having moved the dongle yesterday:

My Broadband Ping

First thing, I was downloading several GB of software ISO at 50+ Mb/s. After about 2:30, I added a load more files to the online backup.

Earlier today, I went researching the current state of play with the Novel Food Catalogue, and whether it has any bearing on sales of CBD products (a legal hemp extract).

Following a link to the results of legal analysis, I found the DNS search for the domain timing out. Odd, as I've always found IBM's 9.9.9.9 service to be very reliable.

Doubly odd: 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 had the same problem, but Opera's VPN loaded the site just fine.

It turns out that Three is intercepting DNS lookups and blocking ones for domains it deems "naughty". And if you use encrypted DNS, it still intercepts connections to "naughty" sites (even via https/TLS).

The link I was trying to follow was http://britishcannabis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/0...

I recalled that blocked.org.uk tracks the state of ISP blocking, so I took a look at the recent unblock requests to Three, to try and work out what the "rule" is. Looks to me like their attitude is bizarre and inconsistent, to put it mildly. Apart from the obvious illegal/court-ordered/"adult" sites, Three censors these categories:

- CBD and other legal hemp products
- Paintballing (applied inconsistently)
- Marital aids
- VPNs and proxies (applied inconsistently)
- Gay dating (but not L/B/T/Q)

Your supplied link worked from an EE phone ..... just to add grist to your mill.

In reply to a post by richi:

Earlier today, I went researching the current state of play with the Novel Food Catalogue, and whether it has any bearing on sales of CBD products (a legal hemp extract).

Following a link to the results of legal analysis, I found the DNS search for the domain timing out. Odd, as I've always found IBM's 9.9.9.9 service to be very reliable.

Doubly odd: 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 had the same problem, but Opera's VPN loaded the site just fine.

It turns out that Three is intercepting DNS lookups and blocking ones for domains it deems "naughty". And if you use encrypted DNS, it still intercepts connections to "naughty" sites (even via https/TLS).

The link I was trying to follow was http://britishcannabis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/0...

I recalled that blocked.org.uk tracks the state of ISP blocking, so I took a look at the recent unblock requests to Three, to try and work out what the "rule" is. Looks to me like their attitude is bizarre and inconsistent, to put it mildly. Apart from the obvious illegal/court-ordered/"adult" sites, Three censors these categories:

- CBD and other legal hemp products
- Paintballing (applied inconsistently)
- Marital aids
- VPNs and proxies (applied inconsistently)
- Gay dating (but not L/B/T/Q)

For me this just shows as that I've got adult filtering turned on.
They DO block access to a number of sites "silently" just by returning a page not found error rather than the site showing the content filter.
I'm a bit cheesed off about this as even when I force all DNS lookups through my pihole and set it all to encrypted sure enough they're blocking access to the site via IP.
I've obviously set VPN rules to work around this but its a bit rubbish that they're blocking stuff silently rather than saying "naughty naughty" etc.