Working from home, cannot connect to internet

[#1]

Hi. I am able to work from home but since getting a new Plusnet One router, I cannot connect to work servers. Have contacted work IT department and the issue seems to be VPN and Plusnet. Using Cisco Anyconnect Secure Mobility Client.
Have tried to look at other posts without any success. Tried to contact Plusnet support but offered no help at all.

[#2]

---

@russells9 wrote:
 Tried to contact Plusnet support but offered no help at all.

---

There are two possible reasons for this.

1. You are on the standard residential service and this is considered business use, which is contrary to the Plusnet service Terms and Conditions.

2. This is way outside of the scope of the provision of your basic broadband package and agents do not have the necessary skills.

Hopefully a fellow customer will offer advice.

[#3]

Lots of people have problems with VPNs and unfortunately Plusnet support usually can't help - they are a budget ISP, and just don't have the capacity to cover all the permutations of VPN clients/servers/settings etc.

Also, whether you are on the residential or business tariff makes no difference to VPNs.

I have used AnyConnect (and several other VPNs) successfully with Plusnet, so it is possible.

The key is to identify just what the problem is - ideally that means getting access to client and/or server logs. Your IT department may be able to help with that. Depending on how locked down your client is, you may be able to enable some level of debugging at your end.

If you identify a specific problem or see a specific error then post that here, as someone may be able to recognise the issue.

One issue that crops up from time to time is that the ISP address you're allocated can be listed as being in some other country (usually USA), and some servers are configured to reject connections from outside some geographic boundary (e.g. UK only).

[#4]

Sounds like you got a new router and your external IP has changed when you disconnected and installed it so it which may be a problem if your work are using GeoIP services which records could be wrong.

[#5]

From past experience, you need to enable "port clamping" in the advanced settings of the router

[#6]

Hi there,

I'm sorry to see you're having issues getting your VPN to connect. Unless I'm mistaking this for another type of VPN I believe that the Cisco AnyConnect doesn't play well with certain dynamic IP ranges (I could be wrong though)

I'd agree with Alex in that it doesn't sound like a fault with the router, it may be that you've got a different IP now through disconnecting your previous router and setting up your new one.

Having said that, can you check if the broadband firewall is on? I believe anything apart from Low or Off will affect the ability for VPNs to connect. If you're unsure how to there's instructions Here.

If the firewall is switched off or set to Low, it may be worth powering down your router for 65 minutes to attempt to get a new IP address, although dynamic IPs are rather sticky nowadays in that the chances are you may get the same one back as they're allocated from a relatively small pool specific to your location.

Let us know how you get on.

[#7]

Thanks @Gandalf 

It may be worth mentioning to the OP, that they should consider paying the one-off £5 charge for a static IP, which should avoid all this hassle in the future?

I am not sure if you agree.

[#8]

Thank you for all your replies. I have changed the firewall and port clamping but still not working.

For the static IP do I just need to contact Customer Services?

[#9]

Yes I think so, or a member of staff may pick this up from here and contact you.

[#10]

@russells9  you can get a static IP from the member centre. IIRC  it's on the 'broadband' tab.

Actually I'm not sure you can anymore, I've had a static ip for a long time but when I go to the 'configure static ip' option, it says it's not available on my account!!

Thinking about it, I seem to recall seeing something like this a while ago but cant find it....

[#11]

Yes, just tried and states not available on your account for me too. ☹️

[#12]

You could try enabling the Broadband firewall at the Low setting, that should be compatible with a vpn.

I'm sure I've seen somewhere that enabling the firewall automatically sets a static ip. Having enabled the firewall you will need to disconnect and reconnect the pppoe session for it to take effect. Then check if your ip has changed. If the firewall upsets the vpn then turn it back off and reset the session again and check the ip again.

[#13]

---

@MisterW wrote:

@russells9  you can get a static IP from the member centre. IIRC  it's on the 'broadband' tab.

Actually I'm not sure you can anymore, I've had a static ip for a long time but when I go to the 'configure static ip' option, it says it's not available on my account!!

Thinking about it, I seem to recall seeing something like this a while ago but cant find it....

---

Is this the link that which you seek?  https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Static-IP-address-has-gone-from-my-account/td-p/166909...

[#14]

Thanks for getting back to us @russells9 

I've just added a temporary static IP for you free of charge to try to get to the bottom of this issue for you.

Could you reboot your router when you next get a chance and let us know how the VPN'ing goes after?

[#15]

Hi Gandalf

Thanks for the help, it has seemed to work fine. Logged in first time into work stuff. 😀