09/02/2025
UPDATE: Blue Ridge Communications and its partner, PenTeleData, have only one way to influence IP geolocation. A file is posted on our website as defined in the Internet standard here RFC 8805 - A Format for Self-Published IP Geolocation Feeds. Content providers, like Hulu, or their IP geolocation service provider, like Digital Element, may use this file as one of the factors in determining where a given IP address is located. Content providers may also use any other factors that they feel are useful, like GPS coordinates if a device supports GPS. The geofeed is updated automatically as network changes are made and at no time did the file contain any errors that would have made customer IP addresses appear to be outside of the country.
Digital Elements, an IP geolocation company that Hulu, Disney + and many other content providers have outsourced their IP geolocation needs to, makes changes every Friday evening to their geolocation database. Last Friday, for unknown reasons, Digital Elements chose to begin using other sources of information in its process for determining IP locations. For customers in the general area of Stroudsburg and Hellertown, the hostname of the IP addresses contains the letters “STH” for Stroudsburg, and “HEL”, for Hellertown. Digital Elements appears to have decided, unilaterally, that “STH” is Stockholm, and “HEL” is Helsinki. Using three letters in a hostname to give a hint as to the general location is a very common practice in the ISP space, though there is no standard for what three letters refer to what geographic area. We have used the “STH” and “HEL” codes in this way for years without IP geolocation issues. Digital Elements’ incorrect assumptions and subsequent unwillingness to make any change to their database before this coming Friday have led to the service interruption that customers in these areas are experiencing.
Blue Ridge Communications and PenTeleData have worked diligently since Friday to advocate for our customers with Digital Elements and with the streaming providers without success. As Blue Ridge Communications and PenTeleData are not customers of Digital Elements or the streaming providers, we can only ask that they prioritize resolving the issue that they created.
Once this issue is resolved, Blue Ridge Communications and PenTeleData will make changes to the hostnames that we assign to IP addresses to remove any information that could be misunderstood by a 3rd party in order to prevent this from reoccurring. Unfortunately, doing so now would not resolve the issue as Digital Elements would not update their database until this Friday with the new information anyway.
Again, this issue was not created by Blue Ridge and appears to be impacting only streaming applications that use Digital Element as their IP geolocation provider. Their reluctance to expedite a fix for our customers is not acceptable. Thanks for your patience.
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UPDATE: Digital Element, the geo-location provider for streaming services Disney+, Hulu, etc. has notified us that a database error on their end is impacting some customer’s ability to stream content. We’ve been engaged with our vendors and have expressed our concern about the amount of time it is taking to resolve this issue. The provider has informed us that the issue will not be fixed until Friday. We suggest that customers contact their streaming service provider (Disney, Hulu, etc) directly and request an expedited fix. The content providers need to drive the resolution with Digital Element. Unfortunately the resolution is beyond our control.
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UPDATE: The provider for geo-location for streaming services Disney+, Hulu etc. has notified us that they have a database error causing some customers the inability to stream. They have informed us that they will not be able to fix the issue until Friday. We suggest that customers contact their streaming service provider directly (Disney, Hulu…etc) and request they expedite the fix. Unfortunately this issue is beyond Blue Ridge’s control.
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We are aware of an issue impacting our customers' ability to stream content on some streaming platforms such as Hulu. At this time, our engineering team is in constant contact with representatives from Hulu and other vendors, trying to support resolution of the problem. Unfortunately, we do not have an estimated resolution time for this issue. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
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