Baffled by T-Punkt "two months wait for DSL"

Hi I was wondering if this seems common or sensible to anyone. To me it seems an excessivly long time, having waited a max of 3 weeks to get DSL setup in the UK.

Basically we live in the sticks and DSL is due to be shortly activated (next week 21/11) for the area (21224 Rosegengarten). Checking the T-Online site on Saturday it said about the DSL now being available for order and the activation date for the area.

My wife, being the German speaker, decided that she preferred talking to someone in person so we went to a T-Punkt store in Hamburg. From it all we are now signed up for Call & Surf Comfort Plus (though with 6mb rather than 16mb, as only 1 2 or 6 are available at the minute) but for me there are a few oddities from it.

First they said it would likely be two months before we got the DSL even though the line (already T-Com) would be switched over to the new package in a couple of weeks. 2 Months seems an incredibly long time to get the wires changed at the exchange and someone come out to do whatever it is they are going to do.

Second they weren't clear at all on what we will actually be charged once we have swapped onto the the CSCP package but without the DSL for 2 months. Sadly as I know only a little German I couldn't really follow what was going on and there get my wife to force the issue. I was wondering if this is how they skip the installation costs?

Third, call me cynical but I can't help but feel that something will go wrong with the order in regards of having CSCP for 6mb rather than 16mb. They did claim that 16mb should appear in 3 to 4 months and that it would be auto upgraded.

Fourth, T-Com's DSL check flitted between saying "Error searching", apologising that DSL wasn't available and saying that I could get DSL for 1, 2 and 6mb packages. T-Online's works every time. ... I thought DT/T-Com provided the DSL line and T-Online simply resold, so surely T-Com's site should provide the correct info and not 3 different answers to the same number.

Certainly from reading bits in this forum I am glad we didn't go with T-Online directly but really I wasn't enthused by the "helpful" shop assistants in the T-Punkt shop.

Anyway thanks in advance for any thoughts

Rob & Bob

Welcome to Germany, and Thanks for using Telekom and T-Offline..
(Nothing new, it's all standard DT/T-Com business)

If they've only just connected your area to DSL (in itself quite remarkable), then it's not unreasonable to wait for two months. Well, it is unreasonable, but not in the T-Com world of things. This is why there are countless threads like this one here on Toytown:

Avoid Deutsche Telekom like the plague!, Their service is disgraceful

Mind you, a friend of mine lives in the very centre of Southampton and NTL were bugging him for months to get broadband. When he eventually agreed, they made an appointment for an engineer to come round and fit the necessary bits and bobs. When said engineer didn't turn up, they called up NT-Hell and were told, "Oh, sorry, but actually your street doesn't have broadband".

Point is, it's not only in Germany where the telecommunication companies are hopeless.

As STB says, if DT has just brought DSL to your area, then an 8 week delay is not a surprise.

There are many folk that complain about DT and their connection times.. Many of the delays are caused by mis-communication and bad info being given to DT in the first place by the customer.

Eventful Communications offer an Intermediate service to organise (and set-up, if needed) your telephone and internet services.

Our typical turn around time is in the order of 3-5 working days.!

And to top this all off, We are English!

Click here and see if we can help you.

You can read Zu Lila, zu teuer, zu kompliziert in süddeutsche zeitung (German only). It's an article about how fed up germans are with the company's services and policies. Imagine that, the germans angry because of bad service. That must be really bad service.

Refreshing indeed. However, it turns out that the Number One complaint is the colour.

You must admit the T-Color is a pain on everyones eyes.

Well, it's not pretty, but there are worse aspects.

That said, Deutsche Telekom were elevated to a new high in my evaluation recently -- they actually installed a new public telephone box. In Britain they're all being taken away because everyone walks around with their mobile phone glued to their ear. Seeing DT continue to invest in public telephones gave me that warm tingly feeling that I get whenever I'm grateful that I live in Germany -- usually when in the bakers.

When Telekom started to use its magenta-color on the phone-boothes everyone was irritated because they couldn't be seen as easily anymore as the previously used yellow ones.
Additionally I found out yesterday you can use your creditcard to make a phonecall from the booth not having to worry about loose change

Funny, when I went from dial up to DSL, it was 3 days, and that was because I had to wait for the splitter and the box in the mail.
Again, I am a happy customer of Telekom. When I had some problems setting up, I called them, and they walked me (a computer illilterate) thru the steps.
Sorry you are having problems.

First of, thank you to everyone who replied to my questions. The only thing I am not clear on is whether we will be charged for the full amount of the package even though we wont have DSL for 2 months.

Actually I have thought of one question that I haven't seen much info on. Do T-Com/T-Online do any port blocking? I.e can I host my own services like website and mail server on my computer?


Ahh (you stalking me DK, you replied to my Linux post as well). Dang I had hoped / wasn't sure if going with the Call And Surf Comfort Plus would avoid T-Online.


I had seen that thread you indicated and it is pretty shocking. Hard to imagine anyone staying in buisness to long like that, but I have, like you, heard similar horror stories for both BT & NTL / Cable and Wireless that would put you off ever using them.

From looking at another thread (regarding fibring Germany) I am surprised you think it remarkable that they are connecting a new area to DSL. Is this something they are particularly bad at? I gather this partly came about because of petitions from the mayor of Rosengarten but I don't know many details of it.


Thanks for the offer Eventful but I believe it would be to late. As I gather, as we placed the order in a T-Punkt store we don't have a right to cancel. (I do find it bizarre that you can cancel if ordered by phone / internet but not in person. Esp as you can get really pushy sales people that seem to want to throw everything at you in shops.

We will bear you in mind when it comes in 2 years when we need to move property or in a years time when the contract runs out The only thing lacking from what we've signed up for is a static IP but I have use (and have a lifetime account for) Dyndns.


Thanks, I'll get my wife to look at the article for me.


Its good to hear that there are people having good luck with them! Thanks.

Just a minor follow up. They seem to be getting some bits through already. Received a letter on Wednesday telling us about the package we selected and that it would be activated on the 20th November. Then on the Thursday the T-Online welcome package arrived with the login details (but surprisingly no email address - not that I was going to be using it).

As my wife managed to get the router to take away when we placed the order (she played the going to give birth in 3 weeks time card -- which is true -- and they decided to just give it to her) all we need now (I think) is the Splitter and I have no idea when that might arrive.

Waiting has never been a strong point for me

Your t-offline Email address is by default is you login name @t-online.de

Example: 12343123121345243244#001@t-online.de

You can setup an alias thru the cust. portal

Danke Darknight, that helped.

I had thought the T-Online account (for their website, no splitter yet to check for DSL) wasn't active yet. From another thread I had understood that the address should be

Anschlusskennung+T-Online Nummer+Mitbenutzernummer@t-online.de

But I have since found out that its T-Online Nummer+Mitbenutzernummer@t-online.de

Rob

It' really is all 3 - see How to connect to T-Online. You can cancel T-online at any time prior to your first log-in, by simply returning the materials they sent and writing/faxing a cancellation letter. They really aren't the best to use if you plan a webserver. Kamp-DSL offer a very reasonable product for domestic use with optional fixed IP address and many extras.

Who do they resell for YL6?

They don't resell. They have their own basic backbone but share other carriers (predominantly Telia, Lambdanet and Cable & Wireless) using BGP4 (AS8648) and peering via DECIX (in Frankfurt) and ECIX (in Düsseldorf). They are a little known, but remarkably reliable service who have been around for 20 years costing only a Euro or two more than the mainstream and ideal for both private and small business use. On an existing DSL line they can provide access in less than 30 minutes.

Thats the thread where I had seen it was all three, but when I tried using that to log in (to the website) it wouldn't work. When I swapped to just the two it worked fine, not sure what to make of that. I have since logged into the website but as DSL is not yet active on the line I haven't logged into the DSL. Depends on what is meant by "first login".

Why aren't T-Online particularly good for running a website? Other than I couldn't see a way in the supplied router (Speedport W700V ) to disable auto disconnect (I could set the timeout to 60minutes though and cron could take care of doing something every 59 minutes). A dynamic-IP is okay as DynDNS handles that well enough, I used to run my site off my box with BT Openworld with Dyndns doing the routing, later Freedom 2 Surf with a fixed IP.

Thanks for the link and comments