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NFT: Need Help - External IP Address Location Issue

aimrocky : 8/11/2020 12:32 pm
I'll preface this by saying, I am not tech savvy, but after some research over the past few weeks here is the issue I'm having. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction...

My external IP address has changed. It used to show the location as my town in Fairfield County, CT. A few weeks ago I noticed my location changed to Worcester, MA. Because of this, when I use MLB.TV I'm blacked out of Red Sox games because it thinks Boston is my home market. If I go on Home Depot.com, the "closest store" it will assign is in Worcester. Plus, my avg internet speed has dropped about 30-50 mps, likely because the IP is routing through a server much farther away.

I called Spectrum three times about it, and you can imagine what kind of responses I got. They had NO idea what I was talking about or how to fix it. The advice I got was to unplug my modem/router and my IP will reset. I've done that a number of times, plus my service was "out" from Wed-Sat due to the Tropical Storm, giving it ample time to fully reset.

The other option was to replace the modem and router. They're shipping me new units. I feel like that's going to be a dead end as well. Is there anything that can be done to fix this? As I posted yesterday, I'm thinking about shifting my TV to a streaming platform. This will be a real pain in the ass, as my local channels will likely be Boston and not NY. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
your external IP is the problem  
JonC : 8/11/2020 1:00 pm : link
and it sounds like they might have made some network architecture changes in-house, otherwise you should be pulling IPs that are geo-located closer to you. If you're VPN'd in somewhere that would also have an impact. Not much you can do if they're not allowing you to lose close to home.

You can use ipchicken.com, or ask google what's my external IP address, or even look at the forum page of BBI when you're logged in to verify your external IP.

External IP means it's public and routable over the Internet.
...  
JonC : 8/11/2020 1:01 pm : link
if they're not allowing you to IP lease close to home ...
Thanks, JonC  
aimrocky : 8/11/2020 1:24 pm : link
My external IP address has changed twice since the end of July, although both changes have been geo located in MA. Prior to July, my external IP had not changed since I signed up with Spectrum in August 2019. The kicker is that my sister lives in town and is a Spectrum subscriber. Her external IP is still assigned to our town.

I asked a friend of mine who works in IT and he suggested that Spectrum would need to delete the lease from MA then do a reset of the router. Does that make sense?

Yes, it's the right place to start provided the help desk can escalate  
JonC : 8/11/2020 1:29 pm : link
IPs are probably handed out from a switch near you, and leasing failovers are configured locally, regionally, etc. If your switch had a failure, it could move IP leasing to MA, for example. Your sister could be connected to a different switch that wasn't impacted. Start with trying to get them to delete your current IP lease, and reboot your router.
Great, thanks for the help!  
aimrocky : 8/11/2020 1:47 pm : link
I'll give it a shot.
Jon C is correct on the outside IP  
GManinDC : 8/11/2020 2:15 pm : link
It seems maybe they had a router fail and it failover to another router attached to anohter geo-location.

You can try to flush your DNS from your command prompt

ipconfig /flushdns
This happened to me a while back  
cjd2404 : 8/11/2020 2:48 pm : link
when I bought a new router. The basic explanation I was given by Xfinity was basically that they must have freed up a bunch of IPs that were now re-assigned to new devices. I tried a slew of different ways to get it to move from the Boston area back to Fairfield County.
I think it just eventually it just ended up resolving itself via the geolocation. I did submit to maxmind as well, but I don't know if it helped or not.
maxmind - ( New Window )
RE: This happened to me a while back  
aimrocky : 8/11/2020 4:17 pm : link
In comment 14947787 cjd2404 said:
Quote:
when I bought a new router. The basic explanation I was given by Xfinity was basically that they must have freed up a bunch of IPs that were now re-assigned to new devices. I tried a slew of different ways to get it to move from the Boston area back to Fairfield County.
I think it just eventually it just ended up resolving itself via the geolocation. I did submit to maxmind as well, but I don't know if it helped or not. maxmind - ( New Window )


This is strange... I used the maxmind link you provided and it gives me the correct location.

I went to whatismyipaddress.com and for the same exact IP as maxmind shows, it has my location as Chicopee, MA. I'm all sorts of confused...

They're sending me a new modem & router this week. Maybe that will fix it?
try the dnsflush gman mentioned  
JonC : 8/11/2020 4:43 pm : link
it's the best tool you have on your client besides releasing and renewing leases, etc.
aimrocky  
GManinDC : 8/11/2020 6:54 pm : link
New modem and router isn't going to make a a difference if is it using the same geo-location.

Put another way. If you are going to work the same way everyday and you happen to change cars, you are still going the same way (route). You need to have the route changed on the network (your way to work)..
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