Ah, of course. The link from the router to BT is also a private network.
Interestingly, I’m still on FTTC and while mine reaches the gateway and goes on to an address 31.55.186.184, it never reaches 192.168.201.15 Can’t ping that address either.
BT tech support finally responded today. Their assistance was about as helpful as an underwater hairdryer.
Despite my clear explanation that 192.168.201.15 was a hop well l beyond my LAN, beyond the BTSH2, and past their own gateway, they seemed utterly oblivious. Their solution? A proposed factory reset of my smart hub, which would erase all connected devices and settings.
Despite my insistence that this approach would yield no results, they persisted, claiming it was their only option. I do wonder if I would have received more effective tech support from a tech-averse elderly person who is both blind and deaf.
Naturally, I declined their suggestion to reset the BTSH2, as it was evident it wouldn't resolve anything. I'm inclined to believe this IP stems from a specific device or node within the BT network.
Interestingly, it's worth noting that other BT users have also encountered the same address, 192.168.201.15, in their traceroute results. Both myself on FTTP and others on FTTC.
If any active BT tech employees, agents, or moderators are present on this forum, I'd greatly appreciate some insight into the nature of 192.168.201.15.
I'm thankful for the contributions and input from fellow members here. Your support is truly valued.
@Sambob wrote:
Suffice to say I did not agree to a BTSH2 reset and I think I will have to put this down to a device/node within the BT network.
Indeed, there is nothing you can do about it in any case.
It's interesting to note that other FTTP BT users also see this address via tracert in the same way as I do but at least 1 FTTC user does not.
Not entirely sure how you arrive at that conclusion, neither myself or @countrypaul have indicated whether we have FTTC or FTTP. I have FTTC.
If there are any BT tech employees/agents still active on this forum, it would be good to know what this device is.
Thanks for all the input from everyone, it's appreciated.
Thanks for clarifying you are FTTC. I'm not sure why I thought you were FTTP, I am clearly mistaken. Apologies. I have reworded/updated my post to reflect for accuracy.
I am on VDSL and using a BT HH6 so clearly not just a SH2 issue.
One more data point.
I'm on FTTP, and there is no 192.168.201.15 responding to pings from my network.
In fact, just for laughs I just ran an IP scan for all IPs from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.255.254 - the only devices responding are those in my home 192.168.1.x network (2 with static IPs and the others with DHCP addresses issued by the SH2).
As an aside, it did give me a bit of a shock to realise that I now have 28 devices on my home LAN - I remember working in offices with far fewer things on the network!
@ptrduffy can you try a tracert o that ipaddress as I don't believe it will respond to ping.
traceroute gives nothing - I gave up after 35 hops. Also, the OP showed the 201.15 device responding to pings...
Sorry, I confused the situation by thinking it could not be pinged.
Just out of curiosity, what does a tracert show if you try t say 8.8.8.8? Just wondering if there is anything with different config as the next stop with BT
Okay, so I send data to an address that is outside of my subnet how is it routed? Umm, it's sent through the LAN gateway! So, do we think that the reserved IP ranges are hard coded as reserved or just that they are null, unallocated ranges on the Internet? If at the top level, they are not allocated, what would be the point in hard coding their reservation? So if my data hits the big wide internet with one of those reserved IPs, then there's nowhere for it to go. But there is nothing to stop organisations from using those addresses internally - provided they take security precautions!
*Many routers will hardcode certain specific addresses for specific purposes, but not the entire range. If you dig down into the documentation, the way certain ranges are managed is suggested, but not enforced.