router connected no internet throughput

Anyone else experiencing annoying lack of internet throughput on ADSL?

I provide local IT support, which often involves hunting out broadband issues within the property. Its fairly rare to encounter a router that is in sync, has acquired an external IP address from the provider, the local devices both wired and wireless can communicate with the router, but unable to ping outside world or connect to internet (router can be pinged and logged into), SNR details don't seem to be particularly unusual.

In the last month I have experienced half a dozen of these. The usual troubleshooting has not resolved the issue. It is still present when connected to test socket, when filter changed, and spare router used.

It has happened across three different exchanges (the last couple of days I've had two on same exchange), it happens to BT retail product, talktalk llu and also to a provider called directsave.

As expected the customer support of the provider are not interested. Talktalk point blank refused to provide any support other than the standard troubleshooting. After two 45 minute conversations they offered to send a bright sparks engineer but it would take 12 days.

The two telephone calls to BT have not been particularly fruitful either. Despite me explaining all the steps taken, they insist on repeating the steps, and then blame the devices. Apparently all four / five devices that connected fine to the internet a few days ago have now simultaneously failed, and therefore not their problem.

Each telephone call takes the minimum of an hour.

I got the customer service rep to reluctantly forward the problem to tier two, who will not be able to phone back until the following day.

I can't be the only one encountering this.
Exchanges: Whitehaven, Carlisle, Hallbankgate

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Sep-14 15:05:30)

If router is getting an external IP address (as opposed to a classic failed allocation) how far does a tracert to an IP address with DNS resolution turned off on the trace get.

BT Wholesale when radius authentication has issues usually direct people to a landing page, but TalkTalk LLU has no authentication to worry about, so may be two very different things going on. Remember that whose hardware the line goes through in the exchange changes a lot.

DirectSave is probably just TalkTalk Wholesale LLU.

Another thing to do is using another device to lookup who 'owns' the IP address assigned, and whether you can trace router to it externally.

Certainly no landing page for any of the issues.

The customer support from talktalk was shocking, even by their low standards.

Tried another router just to be sure? That seems the most logical culprit to me.

Yeah. Always have an old dg834g netgear router in back of car. Exact same problem.

I would say it's an external issue as you have an IP address. I doubt much can be done and somebody somewhere is probably aware of it, just not the actual support desk in India.

In regards to usernames etc, TalkTalk will connect without this and so will BT so most routers will just work without much messing around. I don't see how it can be a router issue given that you've used the dg834g as well.

Have you checked the faults both here http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/service_status/a_...
and here http://www.talktalk.co.uk/servicestatus/

There was work carried out a few days ago in this area I wonder if it's related... Does this coincide with when the customers lines started going down?
http://status.zen.co.uk/broadband/maintenance-outage...

Checking who the IP address belongs to is important diagnostics, since if you get a TalkTalk IP when customer is BT, it points to a physical jumpering issue at the exchange or a migration that has not yet taken place for example.

the customer support refreshed the session to make sure we got a new ip address. There has been no transfers between providers.

And that IP address seen by the router was confirmed as belonging to the appropriate ISP?

Another option is a stale radius session, which used to be bigger issue a decade ago.

Edited by MrSaffron (Wed 24-Sep-14 11:51:46)

Strange, but an explanation closer to home is more likely.

Did you configure these connections and devices before or are they new to you?
You swapped the router, but did you check with a clean 'naked' test device and configuration?