Getting "Cannot connect to data network" error on AT&T router

[DanielNelsonTech]

Hello all.
I'm running into a situation on our router. For the last week it's been giving me this error message:

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AT&T Free Message: Your attempt to connect to data service was unsuccessful. Please try again later.

I'm running an AT&T phone sim in the router with the magic done to the module to make it work. The TTL is set to 64. It just started happening a few days ago, and will happen anywhere between once a day to several times a day - has anyone else been experiencing this problem?

[Didneywhorl]

I haven't had this issue. I don't use that SIM setup, but I have seen others do so and haven't heard of any issues.

It may be issues on the tower?

[mtl26637]

What APN? The ATT phone sim's should be 'nxtgenphone' and not the 'broadband' APN.

[ChrisM101]

I'm losing connection 20 times a day on a wg1608 and sometimes see this message. It's definitely new.

[Didneywhorl]

I've heard ATT is ramping up the imei checks on phone plans being used in routers. ATT is definitely up to no good again, as it pertains to the hotspot data market. Must be a new Netgear device releasing soon. MR5200 probably. Good ole Chronyism.

[ChrisM101]

I've heard ATT is ramping up the imei checks on phone plans being used in routers. ATT is definitely up to no good again, as it pertains to the hotspot data market. Must be a new Netgear device releasing soon. MR5200 probably. Good ole Chronyism.

Mine is setup with the IMEI of an old pixel phone which i still have. It shouldnt show as anything else unless theyre seeing traffic again somehow.

[frohike]

I'm seeing this with a Pixel 3 connected via USB to an Asus router. Connection dies for about 20 minutes and then comes back. The phone is on an AT&T Prepaid 5GB plan. I've used 3GB.

Started last week (April 28th ish?). But isn't consistent. Sometimes it works fine. Other times it runs into this.

I'm not really in a place where I can go back to the router/phone and diagnose this when the problem pops up. I do have an upgrade to Android 11 pending - would that solve anything?

I guess I could write an Automate script so that if a hostname is inaccessible then turn on Airplane mode wait 5 seconds and turn Airplane mode off.

[DonJuane]

I am on Consumer Cellular (ATT MVNO) and I have my phone SIM in a Sierra 320U modem and that plugged into a GoldenOrb build on my router that I have been using like this for a good 4 years. I was offline the month of April, fired it up 2 days ago and while it will connect, the router won't route.

If there are no devices attached the router, then if I quickly attach a device to the router and ping from the Windows laptop attached to the router I get this:

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C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [142.250.68.164] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=49ms TTL=113

Now on the laptop, if I go to microsoft.com on my web browser, only 1/4 of the browser screen gets painted and the traffic stops. Now when open a windows command prompt I get this:

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C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [172.217.14.164] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Now with Windows laptop attached (via LAN) to the router, I can go to the Golden Orb screen (web interface on the dashboard of the actual router) and do a ping now:

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(((( Seen from Router console - NOT from Windows))))
PING google.com (142.250.138.113): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 142.250.138.113: seq=0 ttl=104 time=46.248 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.138.113: seq=1 ttl=104 time=44.802 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.138.113: seq=2 ttl=104 time=54.996 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.138.113: seq=3 ttl=104 time=54.681 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.138.113: seq=4 ttl=104 time=55.312 ms

But returning to Windows, the ping still fails:

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C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [172.217.14.164] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

However, after both an always-successful ping exercise to google.com from the router browser screen then a trace rt will wake things up again:

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C:\Windows\system32>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [142.250.68.164]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  ROOter.lan [192.168.1.1]
  2    53 ms     *       66 ms  172.22.211.82
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    63 ms    47 ms    44 ms  107.242.126.116
  5    67 ms    47 ms    59 ms  12.249.2.1
  6    54 ms    53 ms    52 ms  12.83.179.194
  7    52 ms    73 ms    59 ms  12.123.18.237
  8    50 ms    51 ms    52 ms  12.255.10.96
  9   114 ms    46 ms    50 ms  108.170.240.193
 10    56 ms    45 ms    48 ms  172.253.78.227
 11    74 ms    45 ms    54 ms  dfw25s41-in-f4.1e100.net [142.250.68.164]

Trace complete.

Now, after the tracert, the ping command from Windows command prompt works again:

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C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [142.250.68.164] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=113
Reply from 142.250.68.164: bytes=32 time=49ms TTL=113

Now open a web page to any popular site and the web page stops loading before finished and if I go back to the laptop command prompt, the ping is failing again and all that will revive it is if I a) ping from the router b) run a tracert on the laptop but that only lasts until I try to open a web page with firefox and then back to the dreaded:

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C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [172.217.14.164] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

I know it is not the equipment because I still had an active Telcel card from my last trip (Mexico) and putting the card in the 320U successfully roamed over to T-Mobile and I got near perfect ping times. So something is up with AT&T all right.

[DonJuane]

I drove to another city 22 miles away today to test the modems and rooter firmware in another location. Same results with same exact scenario. I had my new "out of the box router" flashed with the latest March Rooter firmware with an EP06-A and the other test router is the one I have been using since 2017 with the Sierra Wireless 320U in it and a version of Rooter from 2017 also.

The router with the EP06-A connected to AT&T with FDD LTE with 100% signal strength. Same scenario, pings OK from Router web interface but ping fails from the Windows machine when it is attached to the router. Repeatable scenario to get the network up for no more than 5 seconds, first do a ping to google.com from the router interface (always successful and super short latency), follow that with a TraceRT from the Windows command prompt, then a ping on the Windows command prompt will be successful but 1 minute later the ping will fail.

Same thing happens using the old Rooter build from 2017 with the Sierra 320U that I have been using for four years prior to the past April, this time the 320u connects as always with HSDPA,HSUPA, and this time a signal strength was 87%. The issue is the protocol will not route. Plug the 320U into the windows computer as a stand-alone modem and the AT&T service is speedy and works continuously without a glitch.

Seems like they are simply blocking routed protocols. This is devastating for me and kills my whole mobile internet capability until I can come up with an alternative.

[Didneywhorl]

Have you tried flashing base openWRT and use modemmanager?

[DonJuane]

RESOLVED:
The problem was actually with Consumer Cellular who is a MVNO of AT&T. I had been using the very same router, the same Rooter firmware, the same modem and the same SIM card since 2015 (last upgraded firmware of router in 2017). Everything stopped working on 2021, April. The strange thing is that SIP protocol from my VOIP device was still being routed fine, just not normal TCPIP traffic. I called CC support this morning and they told me that "tethering" had never been turned on for my account (never knew I needed to). I then stated I had been using "tethering" for 6 years to which they said "you couldn't have been using it sir, our records show it". I said well you must have just done a system upgrade because I have been using my mifi device now for 6 years. They argued with me repeatedly stating things such as I must have been using another carrier SIM LOL. Rather than argue, I hung up and am now happily using my system - until they pull another one on me. Rooter now works with either the old Sierra 320U now or the new EP06-A with no issues.

Makes me wonder if they are just fine-tuning this new "tethering is not enabled" toy so that they can either charge me for it or somehow mess me up somehow down the line by switching it off again while holding out for some green ransom. Its disturbing that they now have a switch to turn off routed traffic but from what some have told me, others have been dealing with this a long time. Guess I was just lucky up to a few weeks ago. Wish I had the 3 days back of PD that I wasted on the issue but it sounds like we are all lucky if what we have today works at all.

Otherwise I simply don't "get" this manic drive to go to 5G .... I have chosen 3G in the past over 4G just so I will not eat all my data plan up in a day or two. With 5G, it looks like I will be done with my plan each month before noon the first day of the billing cycle. I guess I must be missing something. Seems close to the same as owning a Lamborghini back when the speed limit used to be 55MPH.

[Didneywhorl]

Glad you have it resolved.