UPC: IP Changing

DublinC

Hi,

I'm curious to know if any of you have experience with changing your IP address. I'm fairly certain most (If not all) UPC connections are static, thus your IP won't change. I spoke with a member of their Tech Support.. And was rather shocked to learn it's possible, but you have to call their Premium support service. I've tried spoofing my MAC address through the router, but to no avail.

If anyone can give some insight, I'm more than happy to listen and give anything a shot.

Cheers,

C

mrbrown69

DublinC wrote: »

Hi,

I'm curious to know if any of you have experience with changing your IP address. I'm fairly certain most (If not all) UPC connections are static, thus your IP won't change. I spoke with a member of their Tech Support.. And was rather shocked to learn it's possible, but you have to call their Premium support service. I've tried spoofing my MAC address through the router, but to no avail.

If anyone can give some insight, I'm more than happy to listen and give anything a shot.

Cheers,

C

Believe it's in fact the opposite, but very rarely change

ED E

They arent static, but the way the system renews them they rarely change.

If you really wanted to change, leave your router off for 24hrs and somebody else will probably pick up yours, giving you a new one.


If this is for gambling reasons as in another thread, dont be a scummer. If this is for nefarious reasons this really isnt the place.

DublinC

ED E wrote: »

They arent static, but the way the system renews them they rarely change.

If you really wanted to change, leave your router off for 24hrs and somebody else will probably pick up yours, giving you a new one.


If this is for gambling reasons as in another thread, dont be a scummer. If this is for nefarious reasons this really isnt the place.

I appreciate the respones thus far, it's certainly news to me that it's dynamic. It's been off for prolonged periods before (Well, when UPC drop the ball and it's out, I can't afford to leave it off for 24hours though).

This isn't for gambling, nor do I have nefarious intentions. Being heavily involved in online gaming communities, your IP address can, in situations be something that's sought after by many to DDoS you. As a result of Skype invulnerabilities, this has become a bigger issue.

Example:

SYN Flood 6 Wed Aug 15 15:17:46 2012

Tonight:

ED E

DublinC wrote: »

Skype invulnerabilities

FYP


First off, if skype is getting hit I'd turn it off, for gaming surely you'd use Vent/TS/Mumble.

Then I'd work on making your net resistant to floods. The odd time I'll see DoS attempts in our logs, but it never hampers our connection. If you offload DHCP etc to another router as per the bridging guide you may well see some increase in stability, I dont know enough to be sure. From the way I look at it the DMZ should reroute every packet without any determination to the second router, which should be able to deal with them if its half decent(unlike the EPCs).

DublinC

ED E wrote: »

FYP


First off, if skype is getting hit I'd turn it off, for gaming surely you'd use Vent/TS/Mumble.

Then I'd work on making your net resistant to floods. The odd time I'll see DoS attempts in our logs, but it never hampers our connection. If you offload DHCP etc to another router as per the bridging guide you may well see some increase in stability, I dont know enough to be sure. From the way I look at it the DMZ should reroute every packet without any determination to the second router, which should be able to deal with them if its half decent(unlike the EPCs).

Haha yes, vulnerabilities. It's used as a general communication method and it's not something I can just give up. I know the SYN/UDP floods that I sometimes get are capable of disconnecting me. I do have another router, though! So I will look into that today. Appreciate the response.

Right so, trying to follow a guide on bridging the Thomson router with a ZyXel router I had didn't work. I guess I was doing it wrong.

DublinC

Still searching for a solution to change the IP.

ED E

VPN service that allows for IP swapping is probably your only option, least as far as I can see.

DublinC

Having a VPN isn't much use when your personal IP has already been resolved.

Myrddin

Isn't there an option within the router settings to release the lease on the IP? Maybe try that & leave the router off for some time?

demanufactured

With UPC your IP rarely changes...
There's nothing you can do about it...they won't even do it by request.

it wax easier back when they used the epc 2203 cable modem as you could if PCs or laptops directly to it and you'd get a different IP...their system issues IPs by Mac address that's why it rarely changes.

DublinC

demanufactured wrote: »

With UPC your IP rarely changes...
There's nothing you can do about it...they won't even do it by request.

it wax easier back when they used the epc 2203 cable modem as you could if PCs or laptops directly to it and you'd get a different IP...their system issues IPs by Mac address that's why it rarely changes.

Even by spoofing the MAC address (Which works for others ISP's) of the router, it doesn't do any good.

But an update: I spoke with a member of UPC Technical Support on the phone this morning. He's been working there for 4 years, and has never heard of a Direct Denial of Service attack. I was quite shocked, I was put on hold for a few minutes while he spoke to his manager. The "Data team" at UPC told him they would only change the IP if I contact the Gardaí and get a signed letter from them giving my reason, and allowing UPC to go through my browsing history.

An absolutely absurd system to go through for such a simple thing, this really bothers me.

EDIT: EnterNow: I spoofed the MAC address last night, released the WAN lease and left it off for 5 hours.. Renewing it at 9:30am this morning, no joy.

DublinC

No DDoS attack today, but still searching for a remedy.

kaku777

I thought it changed if you just leave your router off.

djh2009

kaku777 wrote: »

I thought it changed if you just leave your router off.

It does. I was away recently for a week, had my router off, and when I returned my IP had changed.

DublinC

djh2009 wrote: »

It does. I was away recently for a week, had my router off, and when I returned my IP had changed.

Hi,

Leaving it off for a week really isn't an option!

djh2009

DublinC wrote: »

Hi,

Leaving it off for a week really isn't an option!

Maybe not for you.
I was just confirming that it does work.

demanufactured

Just to note my IP changed on Sunday after having.g the same one bit over 2 years

Yakuza

Mine was the same address for over a year (despite its having been off for over 2 weeks due to holidays). It changed a few months ago, after their major outage (June?) and has been the same since (including another period of the modem having been powered down due to holidays).

demanufactured

Yakuza wrote: »

Mine was the same address for over a year (despite its having been off for over 2 weeks due to holidays). It changed a few months ago, after their major outage (June?) and has been the same since (including another period of the modem having been powered down due to holidays).

I only copped mine had changed after i tried to access something from outside my network.

DECEiFER

I have found a way to put the EPC3925 in true Bridge mode, none of that double NAT'ing. This will enable you to use a cable router with the EPC3925 to handle your connected devices exclusively and if the cable router you have has an option to set its MAC address, you can get a brand-new IP after the settings apply and the router resets just like with the old Scientific Atlanta DOCSIS 2.0 standalone modems that UPC used to supply.

I've written up a guide on how to make this happen, it's actually quite easy and you do not need to do anything intimidating to achieve it. Just note that if you're a UPC Phone customer, your phone will cease to work while the EPC3925 is in Bridge mode (a known drawback and this is possibly the reason why the option was removed in the first place). You can of course switch it back to Router mode just as easily as you Bridged it (and all your old custom settings will be retained), or do a hard-reset (but you will lose your settings).

There's absolutely nothing dangerous about giving it a go, there's no firmware flashing, nothing that can brick the device. If you're not happy, Lever Brothers will give you your money back! Or, in other words, you can switch back to Router mode just as quickly.

Just remember, if you're a UPC Phone customer, the chances of your phone functioning while the EPC3925 is in Bridge mode is very slim to none. By all means, give it a whirl to see if it does work and go back to Router mode if it doesn't. Anyone who either doesn't care about their phone service or is not subscribed in the first place, this is really for you.

In the meantime, here's some screen-shots to offer proof that I'm not talking out of my ass and give you an idea of how it's done. If you're iterested, head over to my guide.

DublinC

Hey DECEiFER,

Appreciate the response. But I have a Thompson router..! I had the Cisco, but due to wi-fi issues the technician switched it for the Thompson which he said is a better router... Is that guide still useful?!

Cheers

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

Hey DECEiFER,

Appreciate the response. But I have a Thompson router..! I had the Cisco, but due to wi-fi issues the technician switched it for the Thompson which he said is a better router... Is that guide still useful?!

Cheers

Hi. Unfortunately one of the guys posting on my guide thread has said it isn't because they actually did remove the functionality from it. But if you have a standalone cable router, perhaps ask for the EPC3925 back and you won't have to worry about its crappy WiFi or anything else, as the cable router you'd use would handle all of that. The EPC3925 would essentially be a modem and nothing else while in Bridge mode. Just remember, it's not going to be much good to you if you use UPC's phone service.

Sorry I can't be the bearer of good news regarding the Thompson.

DublinC

Hello there. Well I originally had the cisco, but the capability of the wi-fi was severely lacking. Paying for 120mb/s, and with Wi-Fi it was barely pushing 30MB/s, even while being next to it. The connection wasn't consistent, either. It would be at 30, and suddenly hang at 1mb/s.

When the technician came out, he experienced the same sort of speeds using the laptop he had with him.. Which was strange. I had wireless n adapters for both the desktop & my own laptop. He gave me a Thompson instead, although we both still experienced the same poor speeds... Final result to "Fix" my connection was hooking up an old ZyXel router, via ethernet with the Thompson, which only has Wireless G capabilities (Max of ~21MB/s) so it's quite a shame.

I don't really feel like hassling them for another router, although their service has been quite appalling.

DECEiFER

Have you tried plugging yourself in and doing a speed test over Ethernet to rule out an overall poor service or bad signal? Before I purchased a standalone cable router, I did use the EPC3925 exclusively and over Ethernet I was able to achieve my full 50Mb/s, at the time. I can still do it today (I'm on 60Mb/s now and I get between 60Mb/s to 65Mb/s). I haven't tested it much over WiFi as I wanted the standalone router for that purpose since the range sucks on the EPC. So remove WiFi from the equation and see if it's your actual connection that's at fault.

Also, if you can see the noise levels in the Thompson router, the downstream SNR for each channel should be 30dB or more and the higher the better. I'm all good at ~36dB here for each channel (I have the signal split twice before it reaches the modem upstairs so I'd be closer to 40dB if I removed one of the splitters, but there's a TV upstairs that needs a signal too).

As for the downstream power levels for each channel, the ideal range is between -15dBmV to 15dBmV, but I read somewhere that it's better again between -8dBmV to 8dBmV. My channels are -13dBmV to -10dBmV, which would improve again if I removed the second splitter upstairs.

Regarding the upstream, there is only one channel and a power level lower than 55dBmV is stable (~50dBmV when the second splitter is removed). The lower, the better. The EPC3925 doesn't show upstream SNR but if the Thompson does, the same applies as per the downstream SNR, above 30dB is stable.

So if you use my SNR and power levels as a benchmark, if you're getting lower than mine or even worse, lower than the minimum levels, you should call UPC and have them look at the signal coming into your home and the internal wiring (this is why you pay a connection fee - they sometimes half-ass this but they are normally willing to come back out and do a better job if need be and it won't cost you a penny).

DublinC

Also, I've used an ethernet directly and the internet speed is the full 120mb/s, no issues at all. Just when using wireless it's shockingly bad and unstable.

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

Also, I've used an ethernet directly and the internet speed is the full 120mb/s, no issues at all. Just when using wireless it's shockingly bad and unstable.

Those are great results.

When on WiFi, how close are you to the router? What is the link speed? Also is it possible that you're getting any interference from, say, electrical equipment or perhaps you're WiFi channel is being used by neighbors? I use an app from Google Play on my Android to show me a graph of all nearby WiFi signals and what channel they're using vs. signal strength from my position. If you're using Android, here's the app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

DublinC

I'm right next to it, usually. I'm not sure if there's interference, I think it's unlikely to happen.

I do have access to an android so I'll give that a go now.

Link speed? :P

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

Link speed? :P

Sorry, I meant the WLAN connection speed stated within the Network and Sharing Center (in Windows).

DublinC

I've got this program which I downloaded a month back or so.

The connection cropped and replaced with a black line is my Thompson (Cropped out my name).

I have the ZyXel wired up to the Thompson.

DECEiFER

Okay, there's a lot of activity in your area so here's an idea.

I think you should turn the ZyXEL off for a moment and set the Thompson to broadcast on channel 5. There's a nice gap between channels 3 and 7 that can be filled so 5 is right in the middle and the best bet. There's someone else broadcasting on 11 nearby with a strong enough signal that could cause interference. I'm not an expert but I've had complaints of interference (slow or dropped connections) by past housemates (while I was wired) and when I switched the channel to something more appropriate, it seemed to fix the issue every time.

While back on the Thompson, can you post the WLAN connection speed that I mentioned before?

DublinC

It's on channel 5 now and the ZyXel is powered off. Still getting poor results from Speedtest.net.

Also, is this what you're after?

DublinC

EDIT:

Poor as in 20-30MB/s whilst I'm next to the router.

DECEiFER

Not exactly. This is what I meant, I'm not familiar with your Intel software to say where you'd find it, just Windows.



But looking at yours, I wonder if your wireless controller is G or N. If it's G it would explain the terrible speeds. Generally whatever the WLAN connection speed is, half that will be what type of speed you'll get, assuming your connection is fast enough, which yours is. Back in the good ol' days it wouldn't have mattered. 802.11g was perfectly sufficient when the fastest Internet speeds were below 20Mb. So if you were on G, you'd barely get above 22Mb/s or 23Mb/s no matter what.

P.S. That's not my screen-shot. "TEKSAVVY-REZ 5GHZ" - I robbed it from Google Images. :pac:

DublinC

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

You're definitely using a Wireless-N controller, that's no longer a doubt. Quite frankly you should be getting about 75Mb/s to 80Mb/s at that WLAN speed and I couldn't tell you what is slowing you down to less than 30Mb/s. What's strange again is that you should be capable of getting 300Mb/s WLAN speeds, I guess it boils down to the router. If you were to get a 300Mb/s WLAN speed, you'd have no problem reaching your Internet connection's top speed of 120Mb/s. Are there any options to turn on wide band inside the router?

What's the story with other computers in the home, if you've managed to test with them?

DublinC

Would that be one of these?



When the chap from UPC was out, the best speed he reached was 40Mb/s...but again, it was inconsistent. He called his supervisor and they said we should be happy with 40Mb/s with wireless and should expect that to be the best.

Haven't opened up the connection status on other computers, but I have tested them in the past. Same poor results.

DECEiFER

Yeah, the box with the 20MHz. Switch it to 40MHz if you can and let's see if your WLAN speed goes up past 130Mb/s.

Oh and the box below it will not be grayed out anymore, set that channel to 9 if you can (though you might need to set it to 3 or 7, I'm not 100% sure - if so, set it to 7, which is the lesser of two evils in this case).

DublinC

Well this is a first.




EDIT: That's without the above changes you've just suggested, by the way!

DECEiFER

Well done, that's not a bad start! I do believe that something is holding you back from getting closer to the top speed but this is a lot better than before at least!

What's the WLAN speed at now?

Also the reason why UPC wouldn't enable it is probably down to one of two reasons...

1. They don't know about it or give a sh1t.
2. It's not exactly courteous to your neighbors, taking up two channels and possibly extending the range. But it's every router for itself! Don't think twice about it.

DublinC

DECEiFER wrote: »

Well done, that's not a bad start! I do believe that something is holding you back from getting closer to the top speed but this is a lot better than before at least!

What's the WLAN speed at now?

Lower or upper? I can't set 7.



Heh.

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

Lower or upper? I can't set 7.



Heh.

Upper would mean 9. Lower would mean 3. It's normally 4 channels above or below. Go with upper and see what happens.

EDIT: I was wrong about it being 2 channels upper or lower, it's actually 4. Upper is still the best choice, it's going to be on channels 5 and 9, which is what I originally had hoped for.

DublinC

DECEiFER wrote: »

Upper would mean 7. Lower would mean 3. It's normally 2 channels above or below. Go with upper and see what happens.

I did set it to upper and this is the result. Jumping between 72, 78 & that.

DECEiFER

What's the result on speedtest? You might want to use UPC's speedtest instead, it's more reliable than the servers on speedtest.net, which are just up and down in terms of bandwidth hog (maybe not so much at this hour).

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/speedtest/

Also, I wonder if your computer's wireless controller supports 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz. 5GHz is better at cutting through interference and uses a completely different set of frequencies and channel numbers. If all your devices supported 5GHz, I'd switch. However, if you switch and you can't get access, you'll need to Ethernet up and switch it back to 2.4GHz. I'd say it's worth a shot. I'm lucky that my router is dual-band so I can have two wireless networks on both bands simultaneously so that unsupported devices can still connect to the 2.4GHz band.

DublinC

To test if it supports 5GHz, do I just change the settings on the modem itself?

Thanks again, appreciate the help a lot, especially at this time.

DECEiFER

Your upload is spot-on, nice. Yeah, switch it on that settings page you showed me. Just remember to have a cable to connect up if you don't see the SSID show up (which means your controller does not support the 5GHz band) so you can switch it back to 2.4GHz.

DublinC

DECEiFER wrote: »

Your upload is spot-on, nice. Yeah, switch it on that settings page you showed me. Just remember to have a cable to connect up if you don't see the SSID show up (which means your controller does not support the 5GHz band) so you can switch it back to 2.4GHz.

Hey, yeah it doesn't. Changed to 5GHz and the the wireless went completely, the SSID was nowhere to be found.

While the ethernet's currently connected:

DECEiFER

That's a pity you can't support it. We have computers and phones in the house that don't either. But the ones that do are pretty fast, full speed ahead and they'd get 120Mb/s if our connection was that fast.

I can't really find anything else to tell you to make it better tonight. What you could do is think about getting a better router, maybe that would help and you could double NAT like you are with your ZyXEL, but I can't guarantee that it will be better. You have a lot of neighbors with WiFi and that simply could be the reason. This is why 5GHz would be most beneficial to you and a dual-band router like mine (Netgear WNDR3700) can run both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands at once. You'd also need a new wireless controller. I got the Netgear WNDA3100, it's a dual-band USB dongle and it is pretty good, one of my housemates is using it downstairs, at the other end of the house (standard-sized semi-detached) while the router is upstairs.

Best of luck with it. If you need advice on choosing a router, should you decide to go for it, I'd be happy to help you. Just be aware that the cost of these devices are not as cheap as you'd hope, between the adapter and the router I paid over €100 on eBay. If you go to a store like PC World it'd be closer to €200. There are cheaper dual-band routers and adapters, I'm sure, I just don't know where to find them locally and I wouldn't know if they'd be any good unless I was to research them.

DublinC

Alright, well I appreciate your assistance with this. Very generous of you to devote so much time. The connection is certainly better than it was prior to speaking with you! Just a shame I'm stuck with the same IP.

Thanks again, those shall be my next purchases.

DECEiFER

DublinC wrote: »

Alright, well I appreciate your assistance with this. Very generous of you to devote so much time. The connection is certainly better than it was prior to speaking with you! Just a shame I'm stuck with the same IP.

Thanks again, those shall be my next purchases.

Cool, no problem. As for UPC, don't worry about bothering them. I'd see about switching back to the EPC3925 and I'd be persistent if they were being difficult. The worst they can say is no in the end. At least then you'd be able to bridge it and change your IP with feck-all effort. It's worth the hassle. :P

DublinC

I'll give them a buzz in the morning! Cheers