1.6Gbit connection new smart hub (white, small box) sporadic issues? DNS MITM?

[allamavortex]

Hello all,

So I recently changed my service from 900mbit to 1.6Gbit and that involved a change of router and obviously the OR ONT on the wall.

Ever since having it installed there seems to be an issue with (most likely DNS issues). Whatever is loaded/playing/game continue to work, but I have spells where NO further DNS requests seem to make it through.

I totally forgot to nslookup during one of these issues, but I will the next time it happens (it's pretty frequent and annoying). I can ping 8.8.8.8 (google) whilst being unable to load any webpages on any device/browser. Thus removing the possibility of it being localised to a single machine/device as some were using the router, some were set to DNS over HTTPS and some were using Google's 8.8.8.8 etc. 

It is very much like the router is playing the MITM and intercepting the requests and then slowly, or failing to process these requests at all for a period of time which ranges up to about 45 seconds.

As I said, cached requests, or those already in process are fine, but even something as trivial as trying to watch a YT video is met with 45 seconds of nothing, totally unable to look up ANY address, but established connections and new connections not requiring DNS all work fine.

I'm not really one for conspiracies but I really feel like this new router is intercepting (MITM), attempting to do something with, and failing the DNS requests. This behaviour is only been present since getting the new Smart Hub (the tall, thing white one).

I did a quick google and it seems I'm not alone with this - is anyone else noticing this type of behavior?

Mixture of wired and wireless devices, same behaviour.

[TraderTravel]

@Mason1978 

Things are in a much better place now since EE changed something in respect to their wifi optimisation (which was impacting wifi and ethernet) late last week. We no longer get the full regular drop outs which often manifested as a DNS resolver error in a browser (but impacted just about all traffic going in and out). Things are about 99% better since Friday for most people.

I am still detecting an odd delay which seems to come and go every 10 mins to 4 hours. I've tried lots of testing using various scripts and it seems to just delay the odd UDP or TCP packet every now and then when the router throws a wobbly, but I think might just be completely down to DNS related queries rather than any other traffic like pulling down a web page. Without building some sort of full test suite testing consistently very specific queries and transactions, I can only see what I can see. I personally doubt 95% of people would even notice this, and I also have to admit that personally this does not impact me, although competitive gamers might have an issue. I also don't think any of my individual network setup is part of the cause as I have tried to do some internal network testing to try and ensure nothing in my unique setup is not contributing to the problem.

If you have the ability to setup your own DNS and DHCP server as well as disable the EE Hub's DHCP server (which is very easy to do!), you should be able to bypass the issue entirely.

[baldwins1754]

Hi,

I've started suffering delays again this morning and my WiFi calling has again started with the voice dropouts, not a drop in the call but drops in sound

[JimM11]

@baldwins1754 Same process off elimination, wi-fi calling staying at the main router, or at the smart wireless extenders, trying not to move about between stations that may cause issues, true test switch phone to Airplane mode and see wi-fi calling works over EE wireless. Sound dropping is it both way's or one way! 

[baldwins1754]

Hi,

Yes, on airplane mode perfect. Even staying still doesn't work, we've had this issue since joining EE and whilst the problem with the DNS was happening no issue with it but now it's back. Don't have extenders in the house also

[bobpullen]

@baldwins1754 - so, to be clear: are you saying that you had these Wi-Fi Calling problems prior to the end of July? If so, I think we can assume it's probably unrelated to the DNS/timeout issue.

[baldwins1754]

Hi,

Yes and during those issues the WiFi calling was resolved and now back again

[PepsiCola2]

Ok so I have been following this thread for the last few days, but I am still unsure what to do...... I had signed up to the service last week (prior to finding out about these issues) with an install date of the 29th August. I am migrating from a 900mb Vodafone, which I use primarily for working from home and kids for gaming.

I can't afford any issues with Teams calls quality, otherwise I can't do my job, so reading the above is quite worrying me to the point of thinking of using the cooling-off period and cancelling. 

Before I do that, I wanted to check if anyone has had any issues with Teams calls and working from home in general. It is unclear to me how the DNS problems would affect Teams calls and overall working from home.

Although I must say that reading all the comments here, it seems that even when things do work bette,r everything seems quite unstable on 1.6gb...

Thank you in advance for your responses

[bobpullen]

@PepsiCola2 - you should be perfectly fine with Teams calls/working from home.

[JimM11]

@PepsiCola2 What is the reason for the move, did you want wi-fi 7, 1.6Gb/s speeds, and if Teams is so important to you, then search Teams!

Search - The EE Community

[PepsiCola2]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I moved from Vodafone as I was at the end of the contract and the renewal offer was much higher than everything else available elsewhere. Also I would be keeping my 2 year old equipment rather than get a new wifi 7 hub / externders, all this while paying more. It didnt feel right to me.

I wanted to check Teams performance for the 1.6gb connection, so I thought I would ask in this thread. I checked the whole forum like you suggested and the picture is really murky. Frustrating overall as I have not had issues with internet connectivity in the past 10 years, regardless of the ISP and I didnt think this would be an issue for this ISP switch either..