BT Wi-Fi frequently unable to reach any Google-related service.

vogon — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 12:06:33 GMT

For a lot of every weekend, I depend on the 'BT Wi-Fi' service available nationwide.
Quite often, ALL google services are unavailable when using this.

Everything else appears to be OK : Wi-Fi Signal fine, Wi-Fi connection fine, logged in OK, DNS queries all resolve fine, and NON-Google services work fine.

Any Google-branded service (Google search, Youtube, googleapis etc. etc.) is unavailable. Worse, any website or service that depends on loading items from google service e.g. fonts.googleapis.com is *also* broken as a result of this.

What happens is that every request to any Google service 'times out'. Technically, a perfectly valid TCP SYN leaves whatever device I am using, but does not solicit no SYN-ACK response.
This is *not* a fault with my equipment or configuration - other non-Google-related sites/services function perfectly.
I am located in Norfolk. Right now, the problem is happening and my apparent IPv4 address is in 86.128.0.0/10, BT-PAWLAN AS2856.
If I switch to any other provider ('Hotspot' on my mobile phone, or another accessible Wi-Fi service - both of which require travelling some distance), everything works fine....so, it's a problem in the BT Network somewhere.

Having done quite a bit of investigation, it seems this is usually a problem with BT's peering, typically co-incident with issues inside BT's peering entities - usually Liberty Global.

I *am* competent to provide the above information, and it *is* accurate - I'm used to designing and debugging IP networks professionally.

Here's my request:-

PLEASE, PLEASE maintain the connectivity of the BT Public Access WLAN with the same priority as the 'traditional' residential broadband service, or at least keep a better eye on peering issues affecting the BT-PAWLAN at weekends.

Why am I asking this? BT may not be able to see or do not notice a connectivity issue affecting BT-PAWLAN clients/users, especially at weekends, but this is a real problem that leaves people without working connectivity for extended periods of time.

In my case, the impact is that I cannot help some elderly/vulnerable people avoid the risk of COVID-19 by doing things on-line for them.

Regards,

Paul

This topic

BT Wi-Fi frequently unable to reach any Google-related service.