IP address wrong location

[jGuru]

I logged into steam and it said my ip was in mississauga ontario...I also checked what is my ip adtress in google and it also said mississauga ontario......... I live in Saint John NB.

Is there a problem, Should I be worried?

***edited labels***

[Gdkitty]

No.
Often that can be where the ip is REGISTERED to.. not necessarily your PHSICAL location.

IPs often have a GEOip location with them, which is more to where you normaly are.. but they are not always updated.
Rogers has a large set of IP addresses, and you could get assigned one that was from here.

Overall, nothing big to worry about.

[jGuru]

Thanks for the help, that's what I was thinking but wasn't sure..Thanks.

[fireborne]

About a week ago, maps.google.ca switched from showing the Ottawa area to showing the London area. I didn't make much of it until a few days later when I went to an IP Geolocation site and was told that my IP address (starting with 174... as opposed to 99 before) was in Guelph. Actually most IP location sites had me in Guelph which is over 500km away. I called Rogers but their first CSR, after perforning several disgnostics on my HItron modem including rebooting it a couple of times and confirming that I had a Guelph IP address said there was nothing more that she could do and did not escalate it. I asked some people who are also Rogers Ottawa subscribers to check their setups. One person, who lives in the west end of the city has an IP address appropriate to his location. However, someone else, who lives three streets away is also identified as being in Guelph so it can't be my confined to my modem. I called Rogers again today and the recommended solution was to get a new modem on the belief that the current one spent time in Guelph in the past and a year of normal activity suddenly went rogue. A new Hitron modem would get a new address. Has anybody else in Ottawa (or more specially Ottawa East) experienced this issue. Google Maps seems to have mitigated the issue somewhat and now opens up almost correctly.

[VivienM · Accepted solution]

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@fireborne wrote:

About a week ago, maps.google.ca switched from showing the Ottawa area to showing the London area. I didn't make much of it until a few days later when I went to an IP Geolocation site and was told that my IP address (starting with 174... as opposed to 99 before) was in Guelph. Actually most IP location sites had me in Guelph which is over 500km away. I called Rogers but their first CSR, after perforning several disgnostics on my HItron modem including rebooting it a couple of times and confirming that I had a Guelph IP address said there was nothing more that she could do and did not escalate it. I asked some people who are also Rogers Ottawa subscribers to check their setups. One person, who lives in the west end of the city has an IP address appropriate to his location. However, someone else, who lives three streets away is also identified as being in Guelph so it can't be my confined to my modem. I called Rogers again today and the recommended solution was to get a new modem on the belief that the current one spent time in Guelph in the past and a year of normal activity suddenly went rogue. A new Hitron modem would get a new address. Has anybody else in Ottawa (or more specially Ottawa East) experienced this issue. Google Maps seems to have mitigated the issue somewhat and now opens up almost correctly.

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Okay, this is plain ridiculous. The suggestion to get a new modem is nearly insane (but might work if you run in gateway mode and your new modem gets an IP in a different subnet as a result). 

You have a "Guelph" IP address because some subnets got moved around and the geolocation databases haven't updated. That's normal when Rogers splits nodes... 

I feel like I wrote a big post about this in an earlier thread, but fundamentally, geolocation is... one of those things I would have considered nearly impossible 15 years ago. Instead, some very clever people have figured out all kinds of ways to aggregate various data (GPS from smartphones, neighbouring wifi access points' MAC addresses, possibly even patterns in your searches) and map out shockingly precisely the physical location of both a single IP address and a subnet. 

This essentially happens without any involvement by the ISP; it's not like Rogers goes and tells all those people 'this subnet is Guelph, this is Ottawa East', etc... so when the provider makes network changes, etc, oops. Things will be out of whack until the geolocation providers collect enough data to conclude that their earlier conclusion about an IP's physical location is no longer accurate. 

Same thing if you move: some geolocation services took weeks to update after I moved... because they were basing themselves on my wifi access point's MAC. How were they supposed to know that that access point was now a few kilometers away from where they thought it was?

My suggestion: if you have a smartphone or other device with GPS, make sure it's on your wifi, and start using it for a little while with Google Maps. I expect that that might start the process of Google collecting enough information to be like 'wait a second... that IP is somewhere else'. 

[407]

Hi - I live near Conroy and Johnston in southeast Ottawa and I'm being located on queries as if I am in Barrie.   Haven't contacted Rogers yet - tried restarting the modem  - still in says its in Barrie. The ip query also reveals it as an ip owned by Rogers and located in Barrie

my biggest concern was someone was hacking in and stealing bandwidth I'm paying for.  Friggin Rogers . 

[VivienM]

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@407 wrote:

Hi - I live near Conroy and Johnston in southeast Ottawa and I'm being located on queries as if I am in Barrie.   Haven't contacted Rogers yet - tried restarting the modem  - still in says its in Barrie. The ip query also reveals it as an ip owned by Rogers and located in Barrie

my biggest concern was someone was hacking in and stealing bandwidth I'm paying for.  Friggin Rogers . 

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Don't worry about it - read the previous responses above. (And don't call tech support - I am sure this is outside their standard training and so... who knows what wild goose chases you may get sent on.) 

Honestly, I feel like a whole number of IP blocks were moved around, perhaps because of the network upgrades to enable the gigabit service. _I_ certainly got renumbered, and while I think the geolocation services have remained accurate, the WHOIS data (which no one should be relying on for geolocation, but I think that's what you mean by "IP query") has my new subnet as being assigned to "MTMC" (the old Shaw headend on McNicoll in Scarborough) which is not exactly where I am... 

[Gdkitty]

I got a new IP a week or two ago, so it is likely that they were moving them arround/re-assigning as they were doing the upgrades.

Other than as a 'rough' location (assuming its updated with the changes), GEO-IP really has no use.. and wont make any difference on usages, etc.  (usage is all tracked off the modems MAC address.. not IP)

[James_Greene]

Same issue here.  I live in Ottawa South.  All my webpages and city locations now point to Markham Ontario.  I google "Best Buy" and web locations for this store show Markham locations.  Same thing if I google "VW".  I now get dealerships in the Markham area.  Previously, everything pointed to Ottawa.

Called Rogers and they opened a ticket with Technical Support who will look into this.

I reset my modem and re-installed from scratch.  Same issue.

I connected my ethernet cable directly into my modem and bypassed the router all together just to see if it was the router causing the issue.  No luck.  Still everything points to Markham.

I'm guessing something changed on the Rogers side because I did nothing on my end to cause this.

If you get your issue resolved, please let us know.

Thanks.

[ccolin]

I have the same isue.

I live in Durham Region and my ip address is usually Ajax or Oshawa, which is fine.

However, the other day it got changed to Ottawa.

Extremely annoying, as every time I do a search on Google I mostly get Ottawa businesses that come up.

Ottawa is 5 hours away from me.

Frustrating

[Purfcat]

You are not alone. I get the exact same thing happening as of yesterday. I'm in Ottawa and noticed that my Google maps and other websites show me as living in the London Ontario area. I too have a Hiltron that has worked flawlessly for the last year.

[James_Greene]

I think my issue is partially fixed now.  I just noticed this yesterday.  When I do a Google search for example, VW, or Best Buy, or Honda car dealerships, the search results bring back locations in the Ottawa area.  Previously, I was getting search results for places in Markham, Ontario.

However, I still have an issue with locations inside of websites.  For example, when I search for a product with Best Buy and check for store availability for the product, I still het the Markham locations.

[BrownRB]

I got the new gigabit modem recently. Now I can't purchase Princess Margaret lotto tickets online as it says my IP address is not in Ontario. This sucks.

[Purfcat]

As as of yesterday, all is back to normal. I suppose Rogers finally figured things out regarding our IP address.

[James_Greene]

Still an issue for me with 3rd party websites

[tmkYOW]

 I'm experiencing a similar problem.  I'm near Ottawa.  

With my Hitron CGN3 in Gateway mode connected to my Cisco E4200 with stock firmware, I have a 99. IP and speeds of 320/20.  This is a normal set up.  I have VoIP issues though.

With CGN3 in Bridge Mode, I get a 173. IP located in Barrie and

- direct PC connection to Hitron Bridge 200/

- PC through Cisco E4200 running ddwrt firmware speed drops to 110/10 (last night)

- PC through Cisco E4200 with Cisco firmware, speeds drop to 260/04 (morning)

I have rebooted the CGN3 and Cisco and  I've put the Hitron into Bridge and Gateway mode mutliple times.  It is consistently slower speeds and .173 in Bridge mode, and faster .99 in Gateway mode.

The reason I'm trying Bridge mode and ddwrt firmware is due to the VoIP issues.  I have VoIP issues fairly often (FPL) with transmit audio being broken.  I've tried various things to resolve and much reading online.  I am looking at Hitron CGN3 in Bridge mode as a possible solution, but the drop in speed and wrong IP is now a problem.  

[thwartme]

The Princess Margaret Lotto is exactly my problem, too.  Purchased tickets several timesin the past, no problem.  Switched to Rogers Gigabit, suddenly can't.  And Rogers denies it's their problem.  Very frustrating.

[Intimidator]

This has become very annoying.  Is there not a way to manually correct an incorrect GeoLocation for an IP?   I live in Ontario and have been told that I am in NewBrunswick for the past several months.  I think it's been at least 4 months now.  I have taken the time to do a number of Google Maps searches, as I had read a suggestion to do that.  We have a number of iPhones with WiFi enabled and I routinely use map Apps on my GPS enabled phone while connected to WiFi.  I don't think it is going to magically fix itself as it hasn't already.  I'm getting really tired of having to go and manually enter my location everytime I go to make a purchase on a website.   Anyone have a solution?

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @thwartme and @Intimidator

Thank you for joining the Rogers Community Forums and posting your concern.

@thwartme - is the issue got corrected for you?

@Intimidator - I appreciate your efforts of trying the steps listed in the solution since the issue still exists I would suggest swapping the modem at the nearest Rogers Plus Store, thank you.

Regards,

RogersMoin

[gamwashere]

Several weeks ago I was suddenly switched from Toronto to Ottawa. Every time I do simple searches (such as a grogery store flyer) Ottawa is chosen. After eading this forum I called Rogers and was advised that there was nothing they could do but to provide me with a new modem. There's customer service for you!

Got my new modem this morning, still shows me in Ottawa!!!

[Datalink]

@gamwashere this keeps coming up in the forum from time to time, thru no fault of Rogers or any other ISP in the world.  I might be wrong here, but I don't believe that any ISP, in any country, has any obligation to inform all of the various Geo-location services where each individual subscriber is located.  I suspect that if that where to happen, the Privacy Commissioner would be all over the offending ISP, and for good cause.  The Geo-location services eventually work out general locations, some close, some not so close thru their own methods.  If there is a problem, then the Geo-location company should be taken to task.  The same goes for any company that sells services of goods based solely on the output of Geo-location service.  Those services make mistakes, and that happens all the time.  In some case it has led to lawsuits against Geo-locations services due to their carelessness in assigning an IP address to a specific geographic location that has absolutely nothing to do with any given IP address. 

My guess is that the CSR who suggested a modem swap was really trying to help, but at the end of the day, the ISPs really have no control over where the Geo-location service decides to park an IP address or range of IP addresses.