UPC: IP Changing

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

DECEiFER

Yeah, just don't give them the real reason why you want it back. :P

I'd tell them that the EPC's WiFi performance was better than the Thompson's and you regret the switch in the first place, despite what the engineer said. At least then you'd have a legitimate case. Have a good one and good luck!

demanufactured

Just an update on IP addresses , I have had 3 different IP addresses today....
If you have the thomson router you can spoof a MAC adress to change your IP.
I just put in a made up mac address and the router rebooted and i had a different WAN IP.

DublinC

I've sent you a PM already regarding that, demanufactured.

A walkthrough, if you've got the time, would be most appreciated. I tried spoofing weeks ago, but to no avail. Perhaps I wasn't doing it correctly.

DublinC

DECEiFER wrote: »

Yeah, just don't give them the real reason why you want it back. :P

I'd tell them that the EPC's WiFi performance was better than the Thompson's and you regret the switch in the first place, despite what the engineer said. At least then you'd have a legitimate case. Have a good one and good luck!

Good news, gave them a buzz and a new router should be out on Tuesday/Wednesday. I'll keep you updated!

The post above didn't work with the Thompson, sadly. I had tried it multiple times already, though.

rcanpolat

I called up UPC and asked them twice and they told me i have a dynamic IP. I've reset my router around 10 times since i had UPC installed (2 months now) and its never changed. I even left the router down for an hour and it didnt change.

I done an IP check before on a site and it even showed me that i have a static IP. So i dont know what to think. Ill just presume its static unless the whole UPC network goes down and they reset everyone.

It works out for me though because i have a NAS on my network so i can access it without DynDNS's - YAY!

DublinC

rcanpolat wrote: »

I called up UPC and asked them twice and they told me i have a dynamic IP. I've reset my router around 10 times since i had UPC installed (2 months now) and its never changed. I even left the router down for an hour and it didnt change.

I done an IP check before on a site and it even showed me that i have a static IP. So i dont know what to think. Ill just presume its static unless the whole UPC network goes down and they reset everyone.

It works out for me though because i have a NAS on my network so i can access it without DynDNS's - YAY!

Upon investigation it would appear my own IP is static? Users here told me it wasn't, technical support themselves told me it wasn't. It hasn't changed since the downtime all customers experienced for several hours, months back.

I'm confused.

DECEiFER

It's not at all static, but it's not very dynamic either. In other words, you have a mega-long lease time and short of a long downtime or turning your modem off for days (maybe weeks?) you're not going to get an IP renewal. Even if you go past your lease time (again, whatever that length of time is) you're not guaranteed a new IP. It depends on whether someone else has snagged your IP while you've been offline.

As for forced renewals over a long period of time, I'm not all-too-sure if UPC enforce that.

The only real way you can change your IP at will is to use a standalone modem (only old DOCSIS 2.0 Scientific Atlanta models available, maybe as leftovers) or to stick one of the newer Cisco devices in Bridge mode. You won't be able to bridge using the Thompson.

DublinC

Well not that the Cisco should be on its way, I'll be sure to update you on how that goes using your guide!

DECEiFER

Excellent. Just bear in mind that if you switch back to Wireless-G, you'll be losing that extra gain in speed that you got recently and you won't get more than 24Mb/s. You'll need a new cable router. Another poster in my guide is getting a Netgear WNDR3800 (one model up from my WNDR3700) for ~€120 inc. shipping from pixmania.ie. That's a good deal. Though there's even better deals to be had on eBay, starting at around €90-€100 inc. shipping. Don't even bother looking on dabs.ie, it's ~€190 for the exact same product.

It's a great router with dual-bands simultaneously running, all you'd need is a 5GHz receiver (like my Netgear WNDA3100) for your computer to pick up the 5GHz band, since interference from many other 2.4GHz band signals could be a factor of your low-performance over WiFi. But even at 2.4GHz, that router will outdo the EPC3925 or anything else UPC provides or has provided in the past. The benefit again of having the two bands broadcasting simultaneously is that other less-important devices, like phones, etc., can still connect using the 2.4GHz band if their wireless controllers are not compatible with 5GHz, while your PC can blast off on all cylinders using the 5GHz band.

DublinC

Evening Deceifer,

So my new Cisco arrived this afternoon, I bridged it using your fantastic guide when I got home from work late this evening. I understand the loss of speed; it's stable and that's all I'm really concerned about. If I need the full 120mb/s, I still have the ethernet.

Now I have two Wireless-G Routers. One being a NetGear WGR614v9 which was supplied by UPC and the other being a ZyXel NBG334W which I bought myself about 4 years ago when I was with BT. I've got both of them connected to the EPC via Ethernet, but I'm only receiving internet on the NetGear router. Is it possible to only make one connection?

I'm not much of a technical expert so I don't know how to go about resolving this!

Thanks for your Briding guide, it's worked wonders. I can obtain a new IP now within a minute which is really great.

C