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rwinegar
join:2010-07-22
Mifflinburg, PA

rwinegar

Member

Windstream GEO IP Wrong

I live in central PA. A month ago Windstream installed a new modem. Ever since then the entire Internet thinks I am in Lincoln, Nebraska. I need to be extremely careful ordering things online. This is causing me all kinds of problems. Yesterday I placed an order with Wal-Mart online with local store pickup. It wanted to send the item to a store in Lincoln which is over 1,000 miles from where I live. Windstream keeps telling me it is "working on" a fix, but that it will take a long time and that I need to be patient. I do not understand how this happened or why it cannot be fixed. Windstream tells me that the NSOC is involved. I think that is the National Security Operations Center. I do not understand it's involvement.

Can anyone here shed any light on this?

Are there other Windstream customers effected by this glitch?

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

Napsterbater

MVM

As much as I hate Windstream.

Its not the ISP's that is responsible for this information..

This information comes from third parties that gather it from many places and as you can tell, sometimes it is wrong.

you were probably talking to a Tier 1 who has no clue and is just spewing BS to get you off the phone.
rwinegar
join:2010-07-22
Mifflinburg, PA

rwinegar

Member

I have been communicating with Windstream through it's direct support forum. They are telling me it might take months to fix. I actually don't think they have any plans to do anything about it.

Windstream has a very short lease on the range of IP addresses connected with this router. Almost every time I check I have a different IP address. Every one of them thinks I am in Lincoln, Nebraska when I am actually in central PA.

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

Napsterbater

MVM

As I said its not Windstream's problem.. It's not thier responsibility.. Its not their fault.. Geo IP is run by third patries that basicly pay ISP for the information or use many methods to take an educated guess..

Use Google to find Geo IP location services and check each one and send correction yourself if you are worried about it. Or contact the site in question and tell them thier geo location provider sucks.. That's is about all you can do. .

Jack
join:2012-03-01
Oklahoma City, OK

Jack to rwinegar

Member

to rwinegar
I also have this issue, although sometimes it is the city next to me, or one in a completely diferent part of my state, and sometimes it will even show in kentucky as an alltell connection, since windstream aquired alltell some time ago :P

- Jack
rwinegar
join:2010-07-22
Mifflinburg, PA

rwinegar to Napsterbater

Member

to Napsterbater
It's not possible for me to contact every website that thinks I am located over a thousand from my actual location because I don't know who they all are. Even if I did it would take forever. I did inform speedtest.net and they fixed their website.

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

Napsterbater

MVM

said by rwinegar:

It's not possible for me to contact every website that thinks I am located over a thousand from my actual location because I don't know who they all are. Even if I did it would take forever.

Same problem for Windstream.

trythis
@68.14.178.x

trythis to rwinegar

Anon

to rwinegar
»www.iplocation.net/

Windstream
Premium Member
join:2009-03-31
Twinsburg, OH

2 recommendations

Windstream

Premium Member

Hello everyone,
We have tried to explain that the issue with Geo IP that rwinegar is experiencing is related to ARIN records and not his modem.
Napsterbater is almost 100% dead on with his post, but we are trying to work with our NSOC which is not the National Security Operations but Network Security Operations and our IP Admins. Arin records are not maintained by any ISP and it will take time to resolve the issues with the ARIN records.
Thank you everyone for your understanding and patience as we work towards resolution.

Sharon
Support Specialist II
Broadband Tier II

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS to rwinegar

MVM

to rwinegar
said by rwinegar:

A month ago Windstream installed a new modem. Ever since then the entire Internet thinks I am in Lincoln, Nebraska ... Windstream tells me that the NSOC is involved. I think that is the National Security Operations Center. I do not understand it's involvement.

Can anyone here shed any light on this?

NSOC? How do you know it isn't the, "Nebraska Subaru Owners Club"? More likely it is Windstream's, "Network Services Operations Center": a very likely name for the part of the company responsible for assigning host names to IP addresses.

Napsterbater See Profile is quite correct. And Windstream's own Windstream See Profile has given the explanation.

ARIN assigns blocks of IP addresses to various entities, including ISPs. The owners of record are listed with ARIN by whatever address of record the acquiring entity gives to ARIN. Trying to determine the specific geographic assignment of an IP address by outsiders to the owning entity is a guessing game.

Some guesses are based on assigned host names. Consider: 'adsl-69-105-118-35.dsl.pltn13.pacbell.net'. It is reasonable to assume, if you know common telco city codes, that the host name refers to Pleasanton, California. But it would be wrong to assume that is the city where that IP address was assigned. It happens to be the city where the POP center is located; some 26 miles east, and a hair north, of the customer location. And third party geolocators still often got the city wrong, placing that host in San Ramon, California, or even 60 miles to the north, in Novato, California.

Also consider: '173-228-18-254.dsl.dynamic.sonic.net'. There is no city code, or other similar regional identifier used from which to make a guess. Some geolocating services put that host in Santa Rosa, California, which is where the ISP headquarters is located.

Both hostnames are associated with IP addresses that were assigned to a residence in west San José, California.

I once was routed through Richardson, Texas, going from San José to Mountain View, California ("NUQ"; Google); if you were to believe the router host names. The latency contradicted the information. The AT&T "NSOC" (probably better known as a, "NOC") engineers had reassigned a block of IP addresses from Texas to California, but not gotten around to changing the names. And, when I first activated my Fremont, California based Hurricane Electric 6in4 IPv6 tunnel, Google thought it was located in the Far East, serving Asian ads! I found the Google page for submitting geolocation corrections.

Short of notifying the errant web site, there is little you can, or even should do. Windstream is only responsible to provide you with a working Internet connection. It is on Walmart to find out where you are located. So give them a shout if they are wrong.
rwinegar
join:2010-07-22
Mifflinburg, PA

rwinegar

Member

Windstream has confirmed that NSOC stands for National Security Operations Center. I have no idea why they are involved.

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

Napsterbater

MVM

said by rwinegar:

Windstream has confirmed that NSOC stands for National Security Operations Center. I have no idea why they are involved.

Citation? Because they confirmed above that it is "Network Security Operations (Center?)"

»Re: Windstream GEO IP Wrong
said by Windstream:

but we are trying to work with our NSOC which is not the National Security Operations but Network Security Operations and our IP Admins.

rwinegar
join:2010-07-22
Mifflinburg, PA

rwinegar

Member

How are you able to read the thread in Windstream Direct Support?

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA

Napsterbater

MVM

Ummmm, I'm not.. look in this tread, a few post up.
Expand your moderator at work

Cito
join:2008-09-22
Quitman, GA

Cito to rwinegar

Member

to rwinegar

Re: Windstream GEO IP Wrong

I think most the IPS are incorrectly geotagged on Arin unless you live in the city the uplink is in.

I'm in quitman, ga
But every site with location services and ads (if my adblock plugin is off) all think I'm in Fitzgerald, Ga.

Some shopping services auto set my location to Fitzgerald, but I manually swap it to Quitman.

There is a hack to fix it for sites that read browser metadata you can get a plugin for Firefox and manually set your location and it will send that location via browser metadata.

Although some sites do ignore that and use Arin's database exclusively.

But its not a big problem, I'm glad my IP doesn't give away my location. I rather like it that way to be honest. Let NSA think I'm in a town 100s miles away, I'm happy with that :-P
hotwax
join:2008-06-25
Delmont, PA

hotwax to rwinegar

Member

to rwinegar
I'm in Western Pa and experience the same thing since the end of May early June. Have had Windstream CS on the phone several times for the GEOip issue as well as slow loading times and blocked services even in a DMZ. Tech have spent 6 days at home to try to resolve the issue to no avail. I found out that Windstream moved a few blocks of ip's from GA because PA was running out of ips and no one at Windstream has any idea of if/when it will be fixed.

This is affecting my job as I cannot log in from windstream with a Gerogia GEOip when I'm in PA. The only choice I have to is work off my cellular hot spot or go and connect to a public wi-fi which my company highly discourages due to the nature of work.

I'm miffed because there was no notice that this was going to occur. Im paying for windstream, now a higher data plan from my cellular or extra gas to go to a public wi-fi spot. This is absolutely ridiculous especially since windstream wants you to spend hours on the phone calling in to report issues every time there is a problem or pay them more to get a static IP even though they aren't sure if that would work. Seriously!?!?!?!

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

1 recommendation

NormanS

MVM

said by hotwax:

This is affecting my job as I cannot log in from windstream with a Gerogia GEOip when I'm in PA.

You need to inform your employer that their geolocation service is broken. ISPs have no obligation, beyond the requirements of ARIN, to ensure the geographic locations of their IP addresses are known.
hotwax
join:2008-06-25
Delmont, PA

hotwax

Member

said by NormanS:

You need to inform your employer that their geolocation service is broken.

I have contacted my employer well before I notified windstream of the issue. I have the log from my employer showing when "WINDSTREAM" changed the ip and my login problem began. And as I said in my past post...It's funny that windstream can't do anything about the dynamic ip clusters to try and correct the problem but are more than willing to upsell a static ip that they can "nearly" insure would be a fix.

Salty_Peaks
@173.255.181.x

1 recommendation

Salty_Peaks

Anon

said by hotwax:

said by NormanS:

You need to inform your employer that their geolocation service is broken.

I have contacted my employer well before I notified windstream of the issue. I have the log from my employer showing when "WINDSTREAM" changed the ip and my login problem began. And as I said in my past post...It's funny that windstream can't do anything about the dynamic ip clusters to try and correct the problem but are more than willing to upsell a static ip that they can "nearly" insure would be a fix.

Your employer is slow. These are the networks I currently have for Windstream dynamic allocations. This isn't a conspiracy to keep you from working a job, this is fallacy of composition by your employer and fallacy of causation by you.

98.16.0.0/13
71.28.0.0/14
75.88.0.0/20
151.213.0.0/16
174.130.0.0/15
173.184.0.0/13
 

If your company/employer is using GeoIP to "lock down" services they are doing it improperly and I suspect using antiquated MaxMind GeoIP databases -- but you don't have to take my word for it, I only do this for a living.