Sure and JT: toilets and non-static "static ip addresses"

Sure and JT are the incumbent telecoms companies around here.  Sure is the local one and runs the physical infrastructure.  JT is from Jersey, has a bit of their own fibre in business areas, but generally run their services over Sure's infrastructure.  (There's also vodafone, who quoted me 50 GBP(2023) / month extra for a static ip address, and misled me with a leaflet about mobile topup bundles, but I'm not sure they count.  For those reading from the future, 50 GBP / month is more like the total charge for a half-decent internet connection, and the going rate for a static ip address surcharge might be more like 5 GBP / month).

A neighbour alerted me to a surprise toilet appearing on my property, pictured above.

I don't know if this is just from living in Switzerland, but to me the notion of putting up a portaloo on someone's private property without permission is nuts.  It's also surprising because my rate for this is 10,000 GBP(2023) per day or part day (plus tariff per estimated number ones / number twos), whereas my rates negotiated and agreed in advance can be a fraction of this.

My initial ideas included yelling at the phone number for the business on the label 4hire.gg, but they are just renting out the physical object not emplacing it, and asking the police about it, which I did, but it's a civil matter.

I spoke to the workers on the street and it was theirs.  I said it was private property and their toilet was on it without permission.  The foreman said well, that's where it was dropped off.  I asked them to remove it, and he said okay.  He said they'd tried to speak to someone, but no one was in.  I said you still shouldn't put it on private property without permission.  I called a neighbour, who had a truck on their space without permission, and the neighbour said no, take away.  At this point the foreman, a subcontractor for Sure (telecom), got huffy.  He said they will pack up and go away and our street will not get fibre.  I don't know whether Sure (telecom) have delegated authority for decisions about their fibre rollout to this particular individual, but it seems unlikely.  As a social contract, it seems dubious, to require that private parking spaces be commandeerable for toilets without discussion, or warning, or documentation, in order for a neighbourhood to be be bestowed with internet infrastructure.  I guess a portaloo is preferable to them just going on the driveway.

While I'm discussing Sure, I've been trying to contact them for 6 months to try and rent a rack of space in a data centre from them.  Allegedly, they operate a data centre.  The "contact" page on the web site is a web form to which they do not respond.  I somehow got into quasi email contact with someone in their sales team, but the individual appeared to have accidentally blocked the whole of the gmail domain, and I was writing by gmail.  So I sent them a letter in the post, laying out my enquiry.  To their credit, they did reply by post, many weeks later.  But instead of their reply answering my enquiry, it just asked about other ways to contact me.  What were we here for again?  Recently, a good private contractor installing networking internal to my home told me that Sure ran the best data centre on the island, so I thought I'll try to contact them again.  I did, via their web form, but didn't hear back.  Their "data centre" may as well not exist.

Moving on to JT, the other incumbent, I am JT's customer for a fibre connection (at a different location from that pictured above).  The procurement process was way bigger than it should have been.  The "competitors" generally provided downlink speeds, but uplink speeds were hard to discover.  A range of obscure documents with inconsistent uplink speeds were available.  Static ip addresses were somewhat exotic, but were at least available in the business services (not the consumer ones).  Ipv6 was right out.  It's 2023.

I ended up going with JT.  They quoted me 180 GBP(2023) a month and wanted me to "sign" a sqillion pages of contract over multiple documents on one of those online "sign"ing services where you don't know what you're "sign"ing and are probably unable to file away a copy of what you are about to "sign" just before you "sign" it.  After several months of cajoling, I was finally able to get the contractual matter from them on paper, and I can see why they didn't want to print it out, it's heavy.  At this point I thought fuck it, do I want gigabit internet or not, I'm just signing it.  

For those reading from the future, 180 GBP(2023) was enough to buy a good quality business-class internet service for a small business.

Immediately their charge came in more like 200 GBP(2023).  They hadn't notified me.  I asked, and they said inflation adjustment, it's in the contract.  I'm sure it is.

There is a good quality of life in this place, but you have to be veeeery patient, sometimes count to ten, and try to look on the bright side.  And the bright side here was: I had a static ip address and could set up some services accessible over the internet.  Delighted with this, I found out my ip from some web site (perhaps it should have been a warning that JT had not informed me of what my ip was), printed out several large labels, and stuck them on the ONT, router, and so on.

I did a few other basic bits of testing and setup.  By the way, RTT to google's 8.8.8.8 is around 16ms, not that low.  Is this because of the weird local loop system? The undersea cables?  RTT to jt.com is 225ms (ouch!) and sure.com itself doesn't ping.  Beaches are more important than internet.

A short time later I discovered the ip address had changed.  Hopefully they've just forgotten to make it static and it's a quick fix.  I wrote to my rep.  Remember, this is a fairly expensive business class service.

Subject:  fibre connection whispering winds -- ipv4 address not static / not assigned?

Hi REMOVED,

The fibre was installed this week and there is service, which is good.

Please could you state what my static ipv4 address is, and confirm

that the connection is configured for that.

When the service first started, I had an ip of 93.187.0.242.  Today I

have an ip of 195.226.151.199.  So, it is changing, which I did not

expect.

If I should ask tech support instead then that's fine -- please could

you let me know the best contact details anyway.

  thanks, Tom.

They replied:

Hi Tom,

Yes that’s correct and pleased to hear it is working well, I’ve checked your IP address and can confirm its

195.226.151.199

I’m Not sure why it was that the first time and then changed but checking the system the second one is your IP address.

Kind Regards

Note the ambiguity here.  I asked them to state "what my static ipv4 address is", meaning the assignment, not what a possibly dynamic address happens to be right now.  The answer says "I've checked your ip address and can confirm its 195.226.151.199", which could just as well apply to a dynamic address and what it happens to be right now, as to an assignment.

On the other hand, I do not want to be excessively sceptical, and if there is some initialisation state, which transitions on the first day into the assigned static address, then fine.  Time to make new labels!

Except, of course, it's not a static ip address.  Some weeks later, I notice a change in address, and write to my rep again.

Hi REMOVED,

Are you sure that you were correct to state that my static ip address assignment is equal to 195.226.151.199 ?

The reason I ask is that the public ip address on the connection is now 93.189.161.178.  How do I regain my assigned static ip address of 195.226.151.199 ?

This is a very expensive service and was sold as having a static ip address -- what is going on please?  Can we apply at least a 90% discount to the service until the assignment is clear and the address is static, please.

  kind regards, Tom Jones

but instead of the address getting to revert to what was supposed to be my static ip address, the rep just confirms the new address with me:

 Hi Tom,

I’ve checked your IP address for you and looks like its changed to

93.189.161.178

I have requested the Networks and IP team to check this for you.

Kind Regards

At the risk of stating something extremely obvious, this is not a static ip address.  If you have a dynamic ip address, where on every change the ISP says to you "yes, that's your new address", then you do not have a static ip address.