3 and Website Issues

ablelocks

so we know that one can't view certain streams from rte.ie because of the ip address.

we've seen the error message from Google in the last few days :



for the last couple of days I've noticed that youtube videos are cut short when viewed using my 3 connection. The same videos work fine when viewed on my work connection.

Are three throttling youtube?

And if you've had problems viewing / using other websites, post them here.

(if a mod wishes to merge this with the general 3 problems thread, work away, I just thought it'd easier to collate website issues in a seperate thread)

Electric

Can't get onto Google. Last night it said that something about my IP address looked like a worm or something to that effect.

Pages keep timing out and having to be refreshed.

I know it's race week but I can get onto the paddypower website fine from other broadband connections. But when I'm using 3 it keeps saying that service is temporarily unavailable.

Has anyone else had this happen?

leffatus

This has been mentioned on the main problems with 3 thread.

Rather than assigning individual external IP addresses which most decent ISP do, 3 makes use all share on IP address.

The result is that the likelihood of that IP address getting abused are huge, and therefore the IP has been blacklisted by the the Composite Block List, which spamhaus use, and therefore you can use Eircom SMTP. Google has blacklisted it two days ago, so every time you log into Google, you will have to do manual validation.

The other problem is that this IP is a UK IP, so any website that us IP address to validate your country of origin, will think you are in the UK, and therefore RTE and others won't let you in.

3 must start distributing IP address per user, and not routing all traffic through one address. 3's approach is absolutely ridiculous. Apparently Vodafone have a static IP address per user, though most ISP have a range of address and hand them out as you connect.

As a lot of websites try to track abuse by recording your IP address, these website will only be able to find out that it is some 3 customer. May that is why it is blacklisted, as some spammers know this and are taking advantage of 3's service and spamming away, thinking they are anonymous.

bg

I have this problem using skype pro, it takes my location as being in the uk, so i can only make free calls to the uk... i got skype pro to make calls to ire free... bummer:mad: anyone know if they are going to resolve this???
Oh ya i have the google page being blocked now also..

I have had problems with speed of 3 broadband (its about 5kbps yes 5) in the evening. Three say that there is an upgrade on the network taking place currently and tghis is leading to the slow speeds. they say that in the next week or so the whole network will be 7.2mps not 3.6 anymore.. That would be great if we actually get anything near that..

thebman

They need to sort this out seriously. Looks like their whole network is falling apart and the sales team just keeping putting more people on it anyway.

Standard Irish BB nonsense except on a whole new level. Maybe we should have a 3 user from boards.ie help organise these 3 complaints into one place with a few others to lobby them into sorting this mess out.

Now that Ireland Offline ain't around, its upto 3 users to get themselves organised and submit a complaint against these fools who think they can abuse Irish consumers like this because of our useless regulator Comreg.

Need to get these complaints organised and alert news papers whoever will listen. Even just the opinion section of the Metro would help sort this out. If everyone keeps submitting these complaints to the opinion section, it'll be like a avoid 3 like the plague warning. The only thing they will understand is bad publicity and if this can occur in the media instead of just boards.ie then it'll get their attention even more.

aideng

Hi Guys,

I totally agree with you this 3 service is currently no better than Dial up when you want it (great at 4am I believe), I have been complaining to both the shop in galway where I bought the modem and the <quote> customer service team <unquote> for around 2 months.

I got a call from 3 today out of the blue, I gave up ringing anywhere but the shop over a month ago. They told me that the service will be upgraded in August (shop told me 5th) and when I asked whether it was a contention issue or a backhaul issue he said it was backhaul that was the problem and those issues are being sorted ASAP. I also mentioned that I was very unhappy with the service over the last couple of months and thought I should be compensated for a virtually unsuable service, he said he would mark it for customer service to arrange some sort of credit to my account. So there maybe some hope at the end of this very narrow *broadband* tunnel.

He also suggested I used the 3 accelerator (very skeptical) so I've loaded it up to see how it goes. Initial impression is that it has improved things. But will have to wait until big slowdown later on to see.

AlmightyCushion

The problem with the network is the fact that the modems are selling like hot cakes and the network can't cope unless they start putting up a lot more masts.
You wouldn't believe how quickly these things are selling. I was in the store on henry street last night and the guy there told me they only had one left that he had to keep for the swords branch. If it wasn't collected in an hour, he was going to sell it anyways. They were getting ten more in today and he said they would be gone in no time. Their network is being crippled.

aideng

AlmightyCushion wrote:

The problem with the network is the fact that the modems are selling like hot cakes and the network can't cope unless they start putting up a lot more masts.
You wouldn't believe how quickly these things are selling. I was in the store on henry street last night and the guy there told me they only had one left that he had to keep for the swords branch. If it wasn't collected in an hour, he was going to sell it anyways. They were getting ten more in today and he said they would be gone in no time. Their network is being crippled.

I always thought contention was a big part of the issue on a shared media but 3 wouldn't lie to me would they :-) I'll just have to play the waiting game as backhaul from the mast may be a bigger part.

Any 3 engineers out there that are brave enough to give us the inside track?

thebman

aideng wrote:

I always thought contention was a big part of the issue on a shared media but 3 wouldn't lie to me would they :-) I'll just have to play the waiting game as backhaul from the mast may be a bigger part.

Any 3 engineers out there that are brave enough to give us the inside track?

3 use Ompa Lompas (disclaimer: spelling might be wrong) to prevent their engineers from posting on sites like Boards.ie and giving us the facts.

ChuckProphet

AlmightyCushion wrote:

The problem with the network is the fact that the modems are selling like hot cakes and the network can't cope unless they start putting up a lot more masts.
You wouldn't believe how quickly these things are selling. I was in the store on henry street last night and the guy there told me they only had one left that he had to keep for the swords branch. If it wasn't collected in an hour, he was going to sell it anyways. They were getting ten more in today and he said they would be gone in no time. Their network is being crippled.

returned mine today. 2 people came in during the 5 mins. or so i was there looking to sign up but they were all sold out!! i'm just happy to be out of it.

milkerman

Yep, all the problems you describe are commonplace. I have phoned & written to 3 firstly to complain and secondly to cancel my contract.
The only response to date has been to send me my usual monthly invoice. They have two hopes of getting me to pay for that sh*te.
Simple answer guys, if you are happy to pay €24 per month for 5kbps (or zero sometimes), 3 will continue to ride you and not waste the KY jelly. Simply stop paying, write to them and tell them what you are doing. Tell them you intend to cancel their contract for not delivering the service.

There have been plenty of negative reports about 3 on this forum. The company is aware of this and continue to sell to new customers completely swamping the system. Why? Simple answer €129 + spurious €50 'deposit' + €24 pm - it's great money for nothing.
Fine, give them some negative publicity but under no circumstances give them any more money until they deliver the service as advertised.

leffatus

This thread has gone a bit off topic. There is loads of complaining about the speed etc of the service in a very active thread here, which should keep you all happy

This thread was started to discuss problems accessing particular websites using 3's service.

ablelocks

leffatus wrote:

This thread has gone a bit off topic. There is loads of complaining about the speed etc of the service in a very active thread here, which should keep you all happy

This thread was started to discuss problems accessing particular websites using 3's service.

exactly. website issues only.

altho', Google worked fine for me last night.

Electric

It worked fine at around 8-9pm but I tried it again around 11pm and it was blocked again.

Could it have something to do with peak times?

Electric

I'm having problem getting into my online bank account. It takes so long to load the page that I automatically get kicked out for being inactive! Grrrrr

thebman

Electric wrote:

It worked fine at around 8-9pm but I tried it again around 11pm and it was blocked again.

Could it have something to do with peak times?

I doubt. Peak times are usually after work. 11PM isn't really a peak time I don't think.

I'd say 3 contacted Google and asked them to unblock it or else Google have a system that automatically unblocks after a certain period of time. Either way the number of users from the same IP again, triggered the blocking again so the IP address was black listed again.

Marlow

I was up in Tuam on wednesday and at peak time, no webpages did answer whatsoever. Well, they answered, but timed out. These problems are not down to blocking, as some of the websites i tried to get to are hosted by ourselfes.

IRC and IM's worked ok'ish. Connect was instant. I'd say they have huge problems in the backbone.

Talking about contention, if the backbone isn't capable of passing the traffic required, that is contention, too.

/Marlow

emigre

sent this to customer.services.ie@3mail.com this morning although as i've contacted 3 several times already without getting a response i'm not holding my breath.
*************************
i am unable to access certain websites this morning using the 3 data modem.
for instance www.advfn.com
www.natweststockbrokers.co.uk
error is:

Network Error (tcp_error)

A communication error occurred: ""
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

i CAN access these sites using my landline dial-up account so it is not a problem with the sites themselves.

i have tried turning off my firewall.

(i tried sending this via the website email form but it is not working today)

thanks

freddiew

I have exactly the same problem, keep in touch on this please, otherwise how do you find 3G.

Electric

As of this morning I can't get into Ebay, my email, my online bank account, or O2 online.

All of them come up as being:

Network Error (tcp_error)

A communication error occurred: ""
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Ebay in particular has been like this for days! Can anyone get into it?

caoimhinb

Since yesterday I've had problems with secure sites in particular, such as yahoo mail, bank accounts, paypal etc. Getting that exact same network communication error. I called three and they told me everything was fine with their network, and I should contact my computer manufacturer. What a cop-out.

Today the problem is with almost every site. I have to click on a link several times before it loads, and pretty much no forms will submit for me. If this one gets through I'll be lucky.

FTP uploads are all failing out, its as if the connection is dropping every couple of seconds, but the signal is at 4 bars.

leffatus

This is due to the change of ISP yesterday, and there inability to set things up properly!

Initially this thread seemed to more about problems due to have a UK ISP. Now that we an Irish ISP, but it is misconfigured.

Lots of people are complaining in the main "problems with 3 BB" thread.

It has been well over 24 hours since the switchover and they still can't get things right. Most operators test changes properly in a test system before exposing the changes to all their customers. Obviously 3 don't believe in that.

philstar

can someone please explain in laymans english this ip address thingy,

why are 3 not allocating each user their own ip address, are they cutting corners or something??

caoimhinb

I just spoke with tech support and he confirmed that they are in the middle of a nationwide upgrade, that these problems will be gone 'in a day or two'. Presumably they wont be working on this over the weekend so it will be monday or tuesday at least before things start working properly. Dial up, here I come.

It does seem that this all went wrong as soon as they switched networks to an Irish location. Before, you would go to google.com and it thought you were in the UK, and if you saw any ads they were all targeted at UK visitors. Now, that has changed and Three is Irish, and suddenly you have the network problems. Before, things were bad in the evenings (from about 5:30 onwards) but now its all day.

On a side note, all of my sent mails in the past day have disappeared, never arrived at the recipients. Doubtless this is part of the same problem.

thebman

philstar wrote:

can someone please explain in laymans english this ip address thingy,

why are 3 not allocating each user their own ip address, are they cutting corners or something??

I'd say initially the network guys were put under a lot of pressure to get it setup as quickly as possible and the single ip was only ever a temporary solution.

Sales and marketing deciding when it should be rolled out instead of the technical team would be my guess.

leffatus

caoimhinb wrote:

Presumably they wont be working on this over the weekend so it will be monday or tuesday at least before things start working properly.

For a normal telco, they definitely would be working all weekend on it, but then again this is 3....

freddiew

Hipee, I can get into everything as of now and fast as well, let me know if anyone else can get in etc

Duiske

freddiew wrote:

Hipee, I can get into everything as of now and fast as well, let me know if anyone else can get in etc

Nope. Still the same as yesterday. Can't sign into ebay etc. But have to say, the sites I can view are opening very fast.

caoimhinb

Still the same problems today by the looks of it. Doing any kind of form submission (like sending/deleting messages in yahoo mail) times out then causes the usual network error message.