Hi @norliss,
Thank you for the update; I know internet service provider chats are not a particularly cozy experience and I’m hoping we can provide a better setting here. I wanted to provide a little more context here.
It’s true that carrier-grade NAT has been particularly widely implemented in the UK since before 2015. Most mobile broadband residential-tier accounts will have CG-NAT; some offer DS-Lite or equivalent, but these IPv4 tunneling solutions generally won’t work seamlessly with ARC.
Hyperoptic, Toob, and several of the small- to mid-sized broadband providers in the UK offer static IPv4 addresses for a small monthly fee. Some users have posted about their experience in the router/ISP list here. BT has a much greater diversity of package offerings - any initially grandfathered accounts with static IPv4 addresses in certain tiers - but usually reserves IPv4 addresses for their business tier.
3 Uk falls in the middle. As a larger provider with more simplified service offerings, I believe they implemented IPv6 earlier than many UK or continental providers in to address a dire IPv4 address shortage.
Port forwarding is the solution for ARC in its initial form, but we’re actively researching solutions that are more adapted to the evolving landscape of internet service offerings and will open on-the-go playback through ARC to more customers. We’re certainly aware that wide swatches of our user base will have extra hoops to jump through to evade increasingly standardized network infrastructure. With certain ISPs, it may not work in its initial inception. I absolutely empathize with the frustration of feeling put on hold, but trust that we’re working to improve the connectivity mechanism. For now, it’s always worth checking with Roon tech support and the Community here, in case we can identify an issue in your local network disguised as carrier-grade NAT. It’s also worth engaging with your internet service provider, as flexible workarounds are sometimes available even with the old guard of cable.
Feel free to pass along these questions in particular to 3 UK if you have a chance to engage with them again:
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Do you have static IPv4 address available for my account tier level?
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Have any customers inquired about port forwarding solutions for online gaming, and are you aware of any solutions you’ve provided them or they’ve suggested?
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Are there any ports you have reserved that I should be aware of?
Thank you again for your patience, everyone.