ACT Fibernet Static IP Performance

[ATX]

I'm from Chennai and using static IP allocation from ACT - but it's a bizarre setup, so allow me to explain:

For some reason, they're NATing the private IP allocation given to you, with a public IP address. For instance, that 10.x.x.x IP address given to you is attached to a particular public IP address. The only difference here, is the allocation does not 'end' at your router level like it should. Instead, your router is setup with the static private IP address (10.x.x.x) whereas it translates to the public IP in the backend of ACT.

In my case, I wanted them to give me an actual public IP, not this NAT crap - nevertheless, it still works as expected, just not explained properly by them in the first place.

In your case, I assume your apache server is behind a router, so you should be binding the local IP address that's allocated from your router to the apache box - not the static that's supposed to be setup in your router, nor the actual public IP that's displayed on whatever site you check.

So the setup should look like this :
Router (with a static WAN on 10.x.x.x) --> Port Forward (assume you want port 80) --> Apache server (bind to local IP given by the router, ex 192.x.x.x)

If you visit the public IP address (ex to check from whatismyip.com) directly from another connection, your apache server should respond. Likewise, pings will respond, as long as your router is setup to reply back and not just block. Some routers won't reply ICMP pings unless specifically configured to do so.

TL;DR:

Static IP from ACT means getting a static 10.x.x.x IP address, which will translate to a public IP address - this does not change, so technically it is still static except it's setup this way.

They implement Double NAT-ing to solve the problem. They make the required changes at their end and walk you through the changes to be made in your router. With that you pretty much get a static WAN IP.

Client router end changes:
PPPoE settings will be changed to static ip. No portal login required.
They provide you their DNS settings that you can discard, if you want to use Google or other 3rd party DNS.
You may not require DDNS going forward. But if you still need it, you can directly assign your public IP to the DDNS. If you still want the router to register, then your router should be capable of registering 'NATed Public IP' with your DDNS provider.

As expected, ping slows down considerably.

Okay time to share my experience. I'm in Bangalore for reference.

Firstly this will only solve the double NAT issue that comes along with giving people private IP addresses instead of public ones. I apologise if this is not what you're looking for but I believe it is better than using a VPN because I've never gotten above 20MBps with one.

To Fix Port Forwarding:

1. Call CC and tell them you would like to speak to an engineer. Wait for the callback.
2. Tell the engineer that you need open ports because you use game servers so you would like a static private IP (not public IP).
3. He should disable PPPoE on your account and tell you to setup your router WAN for a static IP like the following: https://puu.sh/jZG00/4aa9360697.png
4. If he bullshits around just tell him to look at the configuration for account # 10455273
5. There, you should now be able to port forward.

Now you might notice that most public trackers will not give you a proper peer response after doing this. This is largely because ACT is now intercepting tracker responses over ports 80 and 81 to make you use more local peers (P4P), whether this happens outside Bangalore or not I will still post the fix.

To Fix Tracker Responses:

1. Get a SOCKS5 proxy subscription (or whatever). I use PIA.
2. In uTorrent or basically any other torrenting client enable the proxy only for hostname lookups/tracker lookups. What this means is that the client will only use the proxy to query trackers. All other connections will be done over your normal connection (full speed) and that's the IP that will be reported to the seeds/peers.
   
3. It looks like this in uTorrent 2.2.1: http://puu.sh/jZGBz/9aabfdb248.png

Done, you should be able to torrent just fine now.



I am experiencing the same thing. However, that's only on first load. Refresh the page as soon as it loads and the video will stream at expected speeds. I believe ACT is using some inefficient version of caching.

I am ACT customer from Bangalore, and interested to know the drawbacks of the ACT's double NAT setup for Static IP & Port Forwarding. My primary tasks on internet are:

• Gaming (Dota 2)
• WebDev / Networks

So for me, both ping as well as ability to connect to my local system matters. After reading the above posts from Chennai ACT users, I want to ask

• Does Bangalore have the same Double-NAT setup for Static IPs & Port Forwarding?
• IF yes, how much latency does that add to the current system? Also, how much harm does it cause to the general downloading and stuff?
• Should I rather use my remote server (DigitalOcean/Vultr) as VPN and connect to my system via it, when I want access to the local system, and disconnect the VPN when I don't? (Neglecting the price aspect)

 

[RedskyITM]

- Bangalore was the first to get Double NAT
- It only affects stuff that needs open ports such as game servers and torrents.
- If you want to forward ports just follow my post which you've quoted.

 

[ATX]

@shr mentioned "As expected, ping slows down considerably.". Does their static ip setup cause increased latency? Also, you mentioned that tracker does not give proper peer response. Why does that happen? Getting response from tracker is not dependent on open ports at all right? So, in general, is it causing some additional issues of packet mishandling?

 

[RedskyITM]

Yeah I don't know what shr is on about. Carrier grade NAT adds below 1ms latency in practice and I have not noticed any ping discrepancies from before and after carrier grade NAT was switched on in Bangalore; in fact, my pings are lower than ever which is probably due to them expanding the network.

If you read my post fully you would see that I hypothesised that the tracker issues were because of P4P which edits tracker responses to emphasise local peers. I use primarily SSL based trackers now so ACT can't mess with any of the responses.

 

[ATX]

Is there a way to PM in here? Also, I have a few more questions:

• Does your external (public) IP remains static aswell?
• Are you able to login via PPPoE - dynamic IP - username - password AND via DHCP - portal.acttv.in aswell (i.e. the two ways to login before this static configuration)?

 

[AgentX]

Does their static ip setup cause increased latency? Also, you mentioned that tracker does not give proper peer response. Why does that happen? Getting response from tracker is not dependent on open ports at all right? So, in general, is it causing some additional issues of packet mishandling?

There is a latency of <1ms but it hardly matters - if you compare with previous shared IP vs static, you'll get the same latency since in both cases your connection has to go through their server anyway.

They open all ports on the IP side, so its your responsibility to port forward from your local router to your machines appropriately. I'm getting peer response and all my port related services (SSH, game server, etc) work fine as usual.

Is there a way to PM in here? Also, does your external (public) IP remains static aswell?

1. Your post count needs to be higher to get PM ability. Maybe 10 or 25, not sure.
2. That's the whole point of getting a static IP - the public side of the address should be the same, and is permanently paired with our private IP (only in case of ACT). Rest of the world deploys IP directly to the user (not if there's IPv4 shortage, out of topic in this post).

 

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[ATX]

@AgentX If at any moment I do not want the static IP, can I revert back to PPPoE or Portal Login?

 

[shr]

My average ping nowadays is 2ms. When i rolled over to double NAT based static IP it was much worse but cant remember how much that was. I have also created a bunch of firewall rules on my router to route my traffic better between ACT and Airtel ADSL. The performance nowadays is pretty good. You do get a static IP for all practical purposes. If you google 'IP' you get the same ip address.

The drawback with this setup is you do get occasional ACT outages and it requires you to call them and spend 15 mins on the phone to get the configuration restored. Had such issue 3 or 4 times till now. The advantage of static IP is far more than the occasional 15 minute pain. Their backend staff in Chennai is good enough to resolve issues faster.

You can use PPPoE anytime. It kills your static IP setup rightaway. You then need to call them to get the static IP assignment configured again.

 

[ATX]

@shr thanks a lot for laying out so many details. I got the overall thing, the only thing bothering me is the downtime part. Wanted to know that occasional ACT outages, did that happen only to people with static IP? What actually happens, and does going back to PPPoE fixes the internet (killing the static) during those hiccups?

 

[shr]

When static IP goes down you can use PPPoE as a temporary fix. You need a call back from their level 2 support to get static IP activated. So that includes a wait time of couple of hours for their call back plus 15 minutes on the phone.

Many times when the service resumes from an outage, the static ip works fine. Not every outage requires a static IP reconfiguration.
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If you are on the fence deciding if you should take static IP or not, my advice will be to take it.

 

[ATX]

@shr You have laid out things so well, its clear for me now. If in the worst case, there were be issues in the future, I will simply switch to PPPoE. One more thing, do we get a choice of public IP to select from a pool :blush:?

 

[shr]

I don't think you can choose your IP. The Level 2 agent seeks some internal approval for static IP and assigns one. You may sweet talk with them to get some choices.

 

[ATX]

@shr Is there a way I can write email/call the Level 2 agent directly (in Bangalore)?

 

[shr]

Don't think so. You can raise a complaint using their app or call them or send them a SMS - do check locally for numbers to call / SMS. Once the complaint is registered, you get a call back.

 

[ATX]

Thanks a lot for your guidance. I have sent across my request. Hoping for the best.