Vivaciti (entanet) and Usenet

Not sure if its appropriate to post this here but for the last couple of days I can no longer access News Groups through Vivaciti. I've tried Astraweb, Tweaknews and NewsHosting all without luck. In fact I can't even access the Astraweb website.
However, when I teher my phone to the computer no problems at all - everything running as it should.
Just want to ask if this scenario does point to Vivaciti blocking certain ports?

Been with them for over two years and not had any problems until now.

can you get to their web sites and news servers now its off peak ?

Yes I can but it's all a bit haphazard. It's not traffic shaping, its more than that, they are actually blocking the websites themselves. Vivaciti deny this but it seems strange that if I tether my phone to the computer the websites are mysteriously accessible again!!

Did this start the last time you reconencted your router to the internet, and have you done a disconnection and reconnection since?

I'm wondering if you are on a Dynamic IP address and have picked up one that those sites have banned for misuse by a previous user. Have you done such a reconnection since, rather than just tethering the computer to a different ISP?

I have reconnected since because I even tried another router and the outcome was the same. The ISP seems to be completely blocking me.

Does your phone use different DNS servers to the router/computer?

Maybe it is related to Enta - I am on O-bit with Vivaciti and tried the Astraweb Site you mentioned and had no problems, nor with the Tweaknews or Newshosiing sites.

Thats because they appear to be blocking the ports and Astraweb web pages completely during so called peak times. If you try it say mid morning on Monday you'll see what I mean - not throttling but completely blocking. Feel that this is wrong when I haven't even used my 30g allowance for the month!

I have had this problem twice in the last year, it took them time to find it but in the end it was a problem with my user name. They changed that and everything back to normal.
Be warned though if you cannot provide evidence that this happening you will face an up hill battle with Enta to get them to change it for you.
The easiest way to prove it is to start downloading a file such as linuxmint-14-cinnamon-dvd-64bit just before off peak finishes and let it run until a couple of minutes after peak starts, that way you will be able to take a screen shot of the download speeds, you should also do this for when peak finishes and off peak starts again so you can see the speed going back up again.

Mike.

Interesting it's only just started for you - I'm with ukfsn 21cn adsl and have seen this for some time - though pure time based blocking is more recent.

I've just posted about it here - Link