Blocked IP addresses

RLENT · Apr 5, 2008

Are the IP addresses of the free wi-fi spots in the service areas on the NY Thruway blocked ?

I ask because last night I was in a service area and could not load the EO Forums page when using the Thruway wi-fi network ..... the page appeared to be loading but just came up blank .... but other non-EO pages would load (extremely fast - since the Thruway hotspot apparently has an outside antenna .... full bars)

Coincidently, that service area also had a McDonalds with an ATT wi-fi hotspot which I could access (ATT customer) ..... the EO Forums page would load ..... although it took some minutes due to poor reception outside the building (inside antenna only maybe ? .... and no bars ...)

Lawrence · Apr 5, 2008

Sorry, for the trouble.

Can you tell me is this the first time?

Thanks!

RLENT · Apr 5, 2008

Lawrence,

Thanks. Yes this is the first time that I have experienced this sorta thing from any location .... although I vaguely recall someone else mentioning a similar experience - but I don't know that it was from the same location .... seems like it was a similar thing though but a different location.

Lawrence · Apr 5, 2008

Okay, this has happened once or twice over the years. You may have hit and IP that is blocked.

Can you please let me know if this happens again?

Turtle · Apr 5, 2008

I happened to me at the Flying J. The odd thing was I kept getting the same IP at every Flying J I went to.

greg334 · Apr 5, 2008

Turtle said:
I happened to me at the Flying J. The odd thing was I kept getting the same IP at every Flying J I went to.

I think those are pooled IP addresses that are the same at every location. The IP address gets resolved at the router at the location as part of the location IP address, which better be different. The way to find what the location IP is, run a trace route to EO.

Turtle · Apr 5, 2008

Pings, tracerts, stuff like that, doesn't work from a Flying J. The destination is always unreachable. However, you can go to What Is My IP Address? - IP Address Lookup, Info, Speed Test, and more and find out your net-side IP address. The problem was, I was getting the same net-side IP address at multiple Flying J's. It was hard to deal with Customer Service, cause they kept telling me I had an IP address of 10.xxx.xxx.xxx, but that's the internal IP range, not the external address.

Normally, everyone at a given Flying J hotspot would have the same external IP address (or a handful of them depending on the routers), then the NAT server would sort it all out locally. But I would have a different IP than someone sitting right next to me. It turned out that, by mistake, I had been assigned a static IP address.

greg334 · Apr 6, 2008

Turtle said:
Pings, tracerts, stuff like that, doesn't work from a Flying J. The destination is always unreachable. However, you can go to What Is My IP Address? - IP Address Lookup, Info, Speed Test, and more and find out your net-side IP address. The problem was, I was getting the same net-side IP address at multiple Flying J's. It was hard to deal with Customer Service, cause they kept telling me I had an IP address of 10.xxx.xxx.xxx, but that's the internal IP range, not the external address.

Turtle,
The only thing I could guess, and it is only a guess is that they use hardware VPN to channel the traffic to a central location for both filtering and authentication and then route it out that way.

With the speed the Js are running at, they are not using the same satellite internet connection that Pilot has been using. J's have had some good latency and it makes sense if they are using hardware VPN solution to move the traffic.

I seen this with some AT&T/sprint services that my customers used for disaster recovery. Once we geolocated the IP at 6 locations for one customer who was had locations 300 to 1000 miles apart, depending on which location the IP was split between their NJ or Atlanta POP, one location was in LA.

The level 1 and 2's may not know how this is setup, the 3's may.

RLENT · Apr 6, 2008

Lawrence said:
Can you please let me know if this happens again?

Absolutely ....

Turtle · Apr 6, 2008

Greg, yeah, they are definitely doing something along those lines. The upside is, I can watch Reds games on mlb.com that are locally blacked out, even home games if I'm in the area, because the MLB servers always think I'm physically in Ogden, UT.
My home area has St Louis and Cincinnati home games blacked out, but as long as I'm the Flying J's Internet they aren't.

RLENT · Apr 13, 2008

Add this one to the list (as of this past Friday evening):

bbhotspot

(The free wifi hotspot at the Future Shop electronics store in Windsor, ON)

Jack_Berry · Apr 22, 2008

okay, has anyone had trouble getting on at a ta? i was in ct and over two days could not get the ta signal to appear in both boxes in the wireless networks window. usually if i sidetrack say to excel i will notice the antennas will go green but at this place nada. of course there was no one to help me. also had problems at other ta locations. one on 70 in ill i remember.
had a similar problem at the detroiter. one day very good the next nothing. the owner came up to me and asked how the wifi was and i told him i couldn't connect and he replied that he was in contact with the service and the service was saying all was fine. must only work in the smoking section was my reply.
at the j never a problem.