BT blocking access to PPRUNE

[Old Photo.Fanatic]

THIS IS A SERIOUS MOAN ABOUT BT, yet again.

For the last few days I could not access PPRUNE.and other aviation Websites
On trying to open a Forum on pprune up I got a message that Parental controls were set at medium.
It directed me to go to my BT settings to access parental controls.
However I can in effect only access and open "Parental Controls" if I am the account holder.
I did not set up my BT ID with an account as I did not want to be tied with "On-line" billing etc. so only set up basic e-mail etc.

Begs the question that as I could not access and change the parental settings, who did and why ?

BT technical help were a waste of time, they took remote access of my PC yesterday to try and see why I was getting blocked, my having done nothing myself to my PC to cause this problem.

He gave up!!!!
I came to the conclusion myself, that I would have to activate a full account.
So I was forced to activate a full on-line account today to get at the Parental controls,.
I was able to go to the minimum restriction level and then I was able to activate pprune.

To me this smacks of a sneaky way for BT to get customers off "Paper billing"

I then had to contact the BT Billing department to ensure that I could still recieve normal billing via the postal service which they did, no problem.

Yet again an example of BT causing frustrations following on from the take over from Yahoo mail.?????

I would welcome any feedback as to a suitable alternative provider .
With thanks for any help

[mixture]

aah ... the wonders of BT customer "service" ... :cool:

The less of your life that has a dependency on BT, the better your life will be !

You have to bear in mind that 99% of providers out there are merely reselling BT on a wholesale basis, albeit often doing so with better customer service (and allowing you to leave them to shout at BT on your behalf).

If you are in an area only covered by BT, I'd suggest looking at :
- ZEN (I actually still use them as a customer for multiple connections, their support is great)
- Andrews & Arnold (Have heard heresy from third parties that their support is good, and their Managing Director runs a blog where he regularly vents his anger at BT... ;))

If you are fortunate enough to be in an LLU area :
- Easynet (either direct via their EasynetConnect brand or with a Sky LLU line since Sky (should) use the Easynet LLU network given they bought Easynet a couple of years ago). I don't know about Sky support as I've only ever contracted with Easynet.... but Easynet support is the Rolls Royce gold standard ... they really are very, very good (I deal with a lot of support desks, ranging from the scum at BT upwards.... so when I say they're very,very,good, I really mean it ... for example they'll login to your local exchange and do diagnostics live whilst you are on the phone ... manual diagnostics by a knowledgeable individual, no automated scripts, no bull, just a genuine hard-working attempt to resolve your problem !). An Easynet contract, whilst not the cheapest, is worth every penny.
-TalkTalk... unfortunatley they have a bit of a hit&miss reputation on the support side. But their LLU network is decent and stability of their lines is generally pretty good. So still worth a punt.

Personally my preference ranking would probably be as follows :
- Easynet
- Sky or TalkTalk
- Virgin Cable
- Satellite
- Old-school 56k dial-up
- Carrier pigeon
- Smoke Signals
- Coded letters in the newspaper
- Hand delivery
- Anything with BT's sticky hands

Seriously, I imagine that even community service must be better than dealing with BT's god-awful customer support ! I've dealt with all three branches of BT (Retail, Wholesale, Openreach)... they're all as ghastly as each other.

I was most amused to read the following quote from the new Openreach CEO today :
He said there were still too many situations where it got something badly wrong and then proceeded to compound its failure through poor customer service. “If that happens there is a possibility of leaving the customer in some real distress,” explained Garner.
(source: ComputerWeekly)


I've lost count the number of times BT have left me in distress !

He didn't present much of an insight into his answer other than spouting a bunch of management-speak :
“I believe the whole customer service model has changed. The customer is in much greater control and we need to respond to that. We need to put the customer increasingly in control of the experience.”

Which probably roughly translates as .... "nope, the leopard aint' going to change its spots.... so just let me go pick up my first pay packet".

The only thing he actually said he plans to implement is "live-tracking of frontline engineers".

In all my years of dealing with BT ... the ability to track an engineer live has been the very least of my concerns !

BT .... plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[cavortingcheetah]

My internet place is protected with VPN. I have not been able to log into Pprune for the last ten days using the Pprune.org or Pprune.com link. iPads seemingly have no problem and neither do telephones, perhaps because they use some back door method of accessing the forum. We have no parental controls, a fact that is often bemoaned by my thirty year (+) old offspring.
Any suggestions around the present back door operation would be useful. I had thought that Pprune themselves were blocking a load of ip addresses because of deliberate spamming.

[mad_jock]

its more likely that your VPN is using a different DNS server which has issues with resolving those 2.

98.158.194.181

Stick that in the address bar and if you can connect to pprune using it its DNS.

[mixture]

My internet place is protected with VPN.

Stop trying to be a smart alec and stop being stupid messing around trying to "hide" behind VPNs to access public internet websites.

That will sort out your problem soon enough. :cool:

[The Flying Pram]

The less of your life that has a dependency on BT, the better your life will be !The bastards nearly killed me! They raised a telephone wire that ran across the approach to a farm strip I used, DESPITE being advised of the risk at the time by the neighbouring farmer. This happened whilst I was away for a days flying, and fortunately I spotted it on approaching to land. I gather the operatives gave the usual "more than my jobs worth" excuse, and just carried on regardless. I had a long battle with them to get the span lowered back to where it had happily been for decades. Then a few months later they put it back up once more...

[glad rag]

My ISP addy has been shadowed to one in London, btcentralplus.com. My pc says another one.

I found this out when trying to do on online speed test. No I don't know why either...

[cavortingcheetah]

mad jock:
Thank you.
mixture:
What's a VPN son?
Never mind Dad, you'd never understand if I tried to explain it to you. Here's another way to access your favourite website.

[mixture]

What's a VPN son?

I assumed you knew, since you were the one who brought up the term in your post. :cool:

[mixture]

My ISP addy has been shadowed to one in London, btcentralplus.com. My pc says another one.
I found this out when trying to do on online speed test. No I don't know why either...

That's exactly what I've been telling people above !

Unless you're careful when picking your ISP, the vast majority of ISPs simply re-package one of the numerous permutations of wholesale ADSL packages that BT offers ISPs.

"BT Central" being the term for one of the wholesale ADSL products.

ISPs who wish to operate on the cheap can resell what is basically a white-label BT ADSL line, which entails using BT IP addresses. ISPs who for some obscure reason wish to hand over even more cash to BT can do more fancy stuff... still a BT ADSL line, but with the ISPs own IP ranges thanks to some magic boxes.

That's why I said its worth hunting for LLU or Cable, because otherwise you're basically just ending up with a BT line sold to you under a different name.

[glad rag]

Odd that I have BT unlimited then......

[mixture]

Odd that I have BT unlimited then......

Well if you've contracted direct with BT Retail, why are you so surprised you've been given a BT IP address ?!? :rolleyes:

[glad rag]

Ok did you actually read what was posted? My PC says one ISP ISP checker says another

[Keef]

Been there, done that - but not for myself. I'm with IDNet who have been consistently excellent, with the "connect to your local exchange to see what Openreach have misconfigured now". I'm very happy.

I also have a VPN so that I can access stuff when out and about. It works very well. Horses for courses.

[P.Pilcher]

Incredibly, Plusnet who I have been with ever since my exchange was broadband enabled about 10 years ago are totally BT owned and yet I cannot recommend them more highly. Help cantre based in England with genuine english staff on the end of the freephone number. BT seem to just watch them and try to learn how to do the job properly. I am dreading the day I get the e-mail announcing that hereafter all Plusnet customers will be joining the main BT system - but it hasn't happened yet and on the rare occasion I have a problem, the men at Sheffield seem to have no problem in sorting it.

[mixture]

50ms ping

50ms ping to where ?

If within the same country, that's pretty terrible.

Incredibly, Plusnet

Nope, can't recommend Plusnet for the reasons I've explained before about BT, to quote myself....

The reason BT bought plusnet was for the IP associated with the CRM (customer relationship management) system plusnet developed that was a fundamental part of their BT Teleworker Business Broadband offering to BT's large and blue-chip clients. So I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole as the long term strategy is probably uncertain (i.e. their customers will probably eventually at some point be swallowed up into BT and the Plusnet brand left to perish).


I strongly advise people not to touch anything that has anything to do with BT with a bargepole !

All BT are doing is :
(a) Milking the Plusnet brand for what its worth
(b) Using Plusnet as a capture device for catching people churning away from BT Retail's ghastly products

Once (a) and/or (b) are no longer of much value, the Plusnet brand will no doubt be trashed, existing customers moved kicking and screaming over to BT Retail.

[Capot]

Old Photo Fanatic

I have no sympathy for you, you must have voluntarily signed up with BT at some point. There is, of course, no solution to your problem while you remain with them.

Anyone who willingly gets embroiled with BT, after all the reports and well-supported publicity about their customers' experiences over the last 25 years, deserves all that he or she gets by way of incompetence, unbelievably bad service, and gross overcharging.

The company's habit of shuttling their callers around different call centres in deepest India, each of which demands to know what the problem is, is just one example of how bad it is. Other big operators are pretty awful, but BT plumbs depths that make the others look like pussycats.

After several years of never having to talk to BT, I discovered that they had been charging my 99-ear old mother nearly £90 per month for a UK landline that she once once or twice a day in the evenings. I got her to ring to ask why, and listened in to, and recorded, the conversation. Not only did the call centre operative deliberately try to confuse her, she tried very hard to make her agree to pay MORE. I took over at this point, told her what I thought of her and her employer, and switched my mother straight away. I wanted to take them to the SC Court for full recovery and punitive damages, but deferred to her desire for a quiet life.

Why do people voluntarily submit to this treatment? I simply don't understand it. My mother had signed up with them because she didn't realise there was an option! She had always trusted the Post Office, and thought she was still dealing with them. But surely most people, including you, OPF, are a bit more aware?

[Ancient Observer]

When BT goes wrong , it is awful.

When it does not go wrong, it is fine. My 50 mega whatnot connection is normally fine, and when guests & kids are here and we use lots of mega gigas streaming tvs etc, all works fine.

Their most recent attempt at a con on me was when something went wrong with their line. I called. They said that if the problem was mine, the engineer visit would cost UKP130. Fine, I said. They sent out an engineer, (the very next day). He said that the problem was theirs, and he fixed it.
My connection from the modem/router is about 6 feet from their main socket in the house, which is about 1 foot from where their line comes out of the ground. I told them that the problem was most unlikely to be mine.

So on a bill some 2 months later they wanted to charge me for the visit!!

Irate phone call to Accounts - which was to a Brit person in a Brit place, and charge was removed.

I hate to think what they get away with, especially with folk with less time than me, or with folk who assume that any big Co can be trusted...............


On the other hand, when I worked for a mega-corp and bought their global services, (for millions, but millions less than their competition) they consistently out-performed the Japanese and USA competitors. Pings KL to Tokyo better than my pings to London!! Maybe that's why their Corp services lost bucket loads of money.

[Old Photo.Fanatic]

Capot.
I was not looking for sympathy off anyone.
I was looking for constructive ideas as an alternative to BT.

Your reply is just another tirade against BT, which was not the reason I opened this thread.

[KelvinD]

Ancient Observer:
I had a funny experience with BT some years ago when commissioning a new radio system at Scotland Yard (long since superseded).
A central controller was installed at Scotland Yard and satellite controllers were based around London. When a radio message was initiated, the main controller figured out where the people who needed to be included were located, it would send signals to the appropriate satellite controllers and bring up the radios.
One evening we were having a lot of problems with a site in Hammersmith (about 5 miles away). Eventually, I found that the signals from the main controller were arriving at the Hammersmith controller late and were missing the window when the satellite controller was expecting them.
BT provided the data links to and from the main site so we asked them to look into the problem.
They came back (quickly) with the answer: it is down to the time it takes to go to the router and back to Hammersmith. And where is the router? Chicago! I understood the economics of it; when the local networks were very busy, it was more convenient and cost effective to route via anywhere with under utilised capacity. In the end, they agreed not to route the traffic any further than Glasgow!
And then it worked...

[cavortingcheetah]

So before family war is declared at the cheetary which is not so jolly cavorting at the moment, what could be blocking my direct access to Pprune.

1. BT. (My provider right or wrong.)? They say that this is not the case for any website as innocuous as this one.
2. Pprune themselves whose IP address direct produces no results?
It has been suggested that Pprune have blocked a whole mass of IP addresses of which mine is one.
3. Any other source of interference such as my family's own security system?

Perhaps a moderator would be able to comment on point 2? That would be kind. It's not that I have so much to contribute to Pprune but that I use search engines to find out so much that is useful on Pprune for my own enjoyment. This I can no longer do.
Thanks one and all. As might be apparent, my computer/internet knowledge is of the plug it in and push the button level, basic to say the least.

[KelvinD]

Google for and visit Spamhaus.
That organisatin maintains lists of IP addresses it feels are bad and innocent addresses can be caught up in this.
You can look on there for your IP address.
If you are not sure of your IP address, use the free "What is my IP" utility.

[flash8]

What happens when you put pprune into the address box?

[cavortingcheetah]

Thank you for the replies.
I'll have to do a little research on Spamhaus. I'm reluctant to put my ip address into an unknown search engine.
When I type in Pprune.org or the Pprune ip address into the box, the blue highlighter goes as far as the end of the word Pprune and then, that's it. The page doesn't change at all or sometimes just goes blank with the message that the server is not responding.

[mixture]

I'll have to do a little research on Spamhaus. I'm reluctant to put my ip address into an unknown search engine.


Spamhaus are perfectly kosher.

[Saab Dastard]

cavortingcheetah,

The IP address you used to post your last message is NOT on any of the Spamhaus blocked lists.

To my knowledge, IB have not blocked any IP addresses from the country that the above IP address is registered to.

Blocks of IP addresses from China, Korea, Phillipines and Russia, among others, have been blocked to prevent spam.

SD

[cavortingcheetah]

Thank you mixture and Saab Dastard.
The IP address I used was a proxy one. Mine is not listed in Spamhaus so I am none the wiser. This present address allows me to communicate with Pprune but not, for example, to initiate a forum search or to send private messages. If I want to do that I have to go to the Apple shop, for example, and use their internet connection on my laptop.
Strange to say but this is entirely beyond my comprhension.

[mad_jock]

try manually using one of these DNS servers.

You will have to go into your network settings and tell it to use them instead of picking up the DNS from the router.

Or it might be that you already do have something set and you just have to turn it back on to the router setting.

[Saab Dastard]

Try using one of the OpenDNS DNS servers:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

There is also the possibility that your system has some malware that has affected name resolution - either through modifying the hosts file or your DNS server entry.

SD

[mad_jock]

And both of the tasks use a php script so may be you have scripts turned off.

[mixture]

And both of the tasks use a php script so may be you have scripts turned off.

Oh dear.... :hmm:

PHP scripts are 100% server side. It is absolutely impossible to block them on a browser.

Javascripts on the other side..... but then only morons would use client-side scripts for authentication !

[mad_jock]

Was never a web person, just network and server maint.

H'mm maybe a entry in the local hosts file. Linking the address to that IP address would work.

its in system32\drivers\etc\hosts

You will have to change the security permissions before you can change it.

Haven't fiddled with that in windows for years though so they might have screwed with it.