Changing IP address

[deel]

Hi All

We have had a broadband service from BT for about ten years using a dynamic IP address.  For the last six or seven years we have used the IP address to 'remote desktop' from home and, although dynamic, the IP address has historically only changed when we have re-booted the server/modem/router.  Since the upgrade of our service to ADSL2+ a couple of months ago, and a subsequent change to the router (BT Voyager 220V), we have found that the IP address now changes every day or two.  We could probably accept that this is expected behaviour maybe due to a change in the BT servers that allocate IP addresses.  However we are repeatedy being told by the BT helpdesk that this is expected behaviour and that we have just been 'lucky' in the last six/seven years but they seem unable to explain why our luck has changed.  In addition we noticed several line disruptions yesterday where the router appeared to lose the connection and then re-connect.  In response to our query on this we have been told that a very small outage is to be expected every now and again.  Again this has not been our experience historically.  I would just be interested to know if anybody out there can throw any light on this behaviour or has seen anything similar.

Thanks

[TomKelly]

Hi Deel,

I can agree with you 100% with every problem you are having.

We use dyndns, which connects to our exchange so that we can check this from outside of the office, in our original office, I set the IP once, and never had to touch it again, as it never changed. The service was beautiful and the speed... well the speed was what you expect. But now, I am having to go into the dyndns settings to add in "that day's" IP address! Not sure what has changed!

We are also experiencing these smalls "expected" outages.

[Tracey]

Hi Deel & TomKelly,

Sorry to read about the issues that you have been having with your BT Business service.

I have double checked this for you and we have had no change in the way that we assign out IP addresses.

What I would suggest however is that it could be something like a dropping connection which is causing the IP address to change if you are not rebooting the router.

What I would suggest is to speak to the Technical Team who would be able to run some diagnostics and determine if it is an actual fault on the line.

Hope this helps

Tracey

BT Business Forum Moderator 

[deel]

Hi Tracey

Thank you for taking the time to check this for us.

We have spoken to the helpdesk eight or nine times over the last few months to try to resolve this.  Each time they check the line and a BT engineer has visited the offices to check the line.  The line appears to be OK.

However in our experience this does seem to be the extent of the helpdesk's abilities.  Other suggestions that they have is that the IP address is changing because of the weather (one chap suggested that the wind might be affecting the line) or because of an internal BT 'heartbeat'.  Nobody can explain why we only started getting the problem a few months ago and so they resort to the theory that we were 'lucky' for the past seven years.

I run a small IT company and if a customer were to call due to a system that we had supplied changing its behaviour then I'm sure the customer would not be impressed if we said that their luck had changed.  The customer would expect us to investigate the problem and, even if we could not change the behaviour, at least put forward a logical and plausible explanation.  Is this too much to expect of BT ?

Thank you.   

[Tracey]

Hi Deel,

The line itself may be OK, however there is obviously a fault somewhere along the line. 

I did double check this with another department that manages the IP Addresses and they have advised that there is no change what so ever to way we assign the IP addresses.

So unless you have a drop in your connection or you reboot your router you IP address will not change.

I would suggest giving them a call back to see if there is anything further that they can do to assist you with this.

However if you do require the same IP address all the time, we would suggest having a Static IP address.

Thanks

Tracey

BT Business Forum Moderator

[TomKelly]

Hi,

I have also spoken to the help desk a few times now, also had a test run on Friday, for them to find no faults.

So now I'm going to have to fork out money, for a static IP.

This is bad times.

[a-hill]

I think the main point you have to accept here is that you have a dynamic IP package, regardless if it changes once a week or once a day, that's the package you have chosen at the time rather than purchasing a static IP to ensure your IP stays the same. All routers have a DHCP lease time on the WAN port of 24hrs, meaning that it can request a new lease on the IP after that time. Over 7 years the number of users on broadband has increased dramatically, so IP cycling rates are increasing as well to cope with demand and the amount of users connecting and disconnecting and dropping IP's into the pool and requesting a new one.

If for some reason you really don't want to purchase a static IP, you can look into alternatives such as dynamic DNS which the BT Voyager 220v supports. This can be accessed via the GUI and navigating to Advanced> Advanced> Virtual Server> Dynamic DNS. The way it works is you would 1st register on http://www.dyndns.org or 'http://www.tzo.com and be provided with your own domain (e.g. http://myusername.dyndns.org) and a password, you would then enter these details into the router itself. The URL http://myusername.dyndns.org would replace the use of an IP address, when ever your IP address changes, it's updated automatically to point to myusername.dynsdns.org so you always reach the same place.... it gives the effect of a static IP using a dynamic IP.

Beyond that, not wanting to sound repetitive, you have a dynamic IP then it's going to change.

[deel]

Thanks for your response.  The line has been monitored and it appears that we are indeed having regular outages in our internet connection, e.g.:12/01/2011 11:53:41 to 12/01/2011 11:54:37, 14/01/2011 03:32:26 to
14/01/2011 03:33:22, 14/01/2011 11:07:41 to14/01/2011 11:07:48.  I guess in this case the router re-establishes the connection which causes the IP address to change.  The important question is would these outages be due to the router requesting a new IP address due to dynamic addressing or would we still see these outages even with a static IP address ? This disruption in our service could obviously impact on our ability to service our customers.

We have set up dynamic DNS on www.dyndns.org and successfully updated the router with the details.  This worked fine until the IP address changed but it appears that the router has not automatically updated the dyndns site.

[a-hill]

Dynamic IP addressing won't  have a baring on whether the line drops or not, this type of issue is usually either line specific or incompatible equipment such as fax machines or a broken filter causing the disconnects. Regardless if you had a static IP or not, you would more than likely still get the dropping issues as the cause would be separate.

[deel]

Thanks again for your response - much more illuminating than anything I have got from the helpdesk.  Given your suggestion we isolated the Internet PC and router from the office network and disconnected the telephone.  However the problem continues.  Nothing has changed at our end except the new router that we were sent when our service was upgraded to ADSL2 so I asked for a replacement router and was sent a Business Hub.  This has been installed and we still have the problem. 

The helpdesk are basically useless.  All they seem able to do is test the line, which they do every time I call, and then tell me that it's not BT's problem.  They seem to have no desire or incentive to investigate the problem.

It seems that nobody at BT is really bothered and it's not worth my time banging my head against a brick wall any longer.  I'll get a static IP address and hope that BT sort their issues out.