T-Online functioning worse than usual

My internet connection has been acting up since the beginning of this past weekend. I get my service through T-Online. The connection is constantly dropped. By this I mean if I initially connect, the transfer speed is slower than usual and at some point it just stops responding. Sometimes the "online" light is still lit, sometimes it goes out, sometimes the "T-Com" light goes out also. Whenever I lose the connection, reconnecting through the computer doesn't work, I have to get off my lazy ass and reset the router through the power button. The "T-Com" light flashes for a while and usually it eventually stays on and resumes my connection for a couple of minutes, sometimes it flashes for a while before deciding to stay off. I then have to punch the power button again to restart the process. This happens whether I use wireless or a LAN cable. Constantly.

Has anyone else encountered similar wonky behaviour lately? I want to rule out incompetence on their end before I start considering the router itself. I also updated my Linux kernel about a week ago, but the connection was fine for the first few days, so I don't think that's the issue. I know wireless is a bit of a magic art with Ubuntu distributions, but I never had a problem connecting through a cable and like I mention above, I get the problem no matter how I try and connect.

What router/modem do you have?

I've been having the exact same problems the last three days. I phoned them up and they denied there was any widespread problem. In the end they claimed that my modem/router was faulty. But I tried two different units and they both have the same issues. So I suspect it is a problem their end.

I've had to restart my computer a few times over the last few days as it wasn't connecting to the network but once connected haven't had any problems thusfar.

I'm at work now, and the router is at home; I knew I should have written this down. It's one of their wireless Sinus models they were giving out with new accounts around 2.5 years ago. I'm not sure of the model number.

Great..

Pop onto the T-kom website and find the latest firmware for the model that you have.

Sounds like it could be the 154 Basic..

The firmware upgrade usually sorts this!

Good luck

I work from home and thus the t-online DSL connection is open for at least 14 hours a day. No issues recently. We use copper Ethernet - not WLAN.

Thanks, Grinner. I'll report back once I have the opportunity to do the upgrade.

Which part of Munich are you in? There are some minor backbone issues currently (since late last week) to the western edge of Munich and in the suburbs such as Gauting. These problems are causing frequent carrier drops on individual lines which may also lead to reduced speeds...

I'm in Großhadern, so south-west-ish. Not exactly on the edge, and not exactly a suburb, but not exactly a high use area, either (my WLAN card can only detect two other networks in my area).

You do know that Telekom/T-Online workers are on strike, or were for the last day or so..
It's not uncommon for the system to be screwed with by irate workers, hell bent against
the company, during a strike.. They do this so customers complain to DTAG to fix problems. Because
DTAG have no or a small group of people around to fix these problems the problems
contine until there are so many problems that DTAG agrees to worker demands
and the Techs. get back to work.

What on earth are you smoking DK?

Any TD guy that is on strike is more than likely pole-axed in a beer garden, not fucking with peoples DSL connection!

Just said it was a possibility. Esp. as it's happened before.

Sounds like synchronisation problems between Modem and DSLAM. Possible reasons include a faulty modem or DSLAM but also crosstalk from another line could suddenly play a role when a neighbor begins using his lines on the DSL frequencies. Either way, its the providers problem. bugger them until they deliver the service they signed a treaty on or change the provider. It might help to ave them reduce the bandwidth or disable fastpath (->enables lowlevel error correction) if its a crosstalk/Line length issue.

I didn't get a chance to update the firmware (however, since the latest firmware version dates from before I even got the modem, I don't know how useful this would be?) because when I got home last night I was unable to connect at all. A couple of hours later, just before bed, I tried opening Firefox again and lo and behold! my homepage loaded instantly and everything was running smoothly. Since my gf needed to do some research online I passed the computer to her and went to bed, and heard no complaints about the connection from her this morning. However, I tried connecting this morning before work and again...no joy.

@Pat Bateman: If it's a line issue, changing the provider won't help as they all use the same lines administered by Deutsche Telekom, oder?

So it sounds like a line fault.. Call T-kom and report the fault!

G

I have to ask just to cover all bases.. have you added any phone equipment or did anything coincide with your connection problems? Do you have an extra long phone line cable? Are the drop outs at predictable times of day? I had a customer when working for bell in the states who lost connectivity every time the streetlights kicked on. Anything that causes a fluctuation in the voltage, line noise, tel lines shifting in the wind, etc.. Can you log into your router? It stands to reason that if you can and you are able to connect any of the time at all that a firmware upgrade probably isn't necessary. It could very well be the outside line or the DSLAM could be locked up or dying. I'd lean toward line noise if your phone works. Not that it's always audible but can you hear any static on the line? If you're too far from the CO it might come down to them dropping you down a notch in speed to sync(lower frequency..longer distance). Hope you sort it out.

-Nate

I haven't been having any problems with my Tonline account lately. When I do, I just reset my box and it seems to work.

By the way Bit Torrent will lock up a router(unless it's a high end one) consistently if the concurrent connections exceed 256 so if you're using it make sure your max 'global' connections is set to something like 100 instead of 0 or unlimited. And of course if anyone else is connected to your router check to make sure they're not using unlimited concurrent connections either. If the router needs to be rebooted often it could very well be something like that. Some games or P2P file sharers that use your PC as a node or ping constantly or several connection intensive apps running at the same time can overload it.

@Nate:

All cable-based connections have been the same for the past two years, and there is no problem with the phone. I made sure everything was firmly connected after I vacuumed around them on Saturday just in case something was jarred loose. When I was running Windows I would have to reset everything once a week or so because everything would stay connected when my computer went into hibernation ("online" light on the router would stay lit and the uptime monitor in the connections wizard would continue to increment) and the connection would become unstable and simply stop after a few days. Since my current Linux install doesn't hibernate properly I have to do a clean reboot at least once per day. Sometimes I would have a little trouble connecting in the morning (between 8 and 9), sometimes not. Lately though, I always have trouble connecting, no matter what time of day. If the situation hasn't resolved by tomorrow I'll give them a call and hope the customer service monkey can understand english.

As my connection to the internet is a big part of my connection to the world, I was extremely concerned yesterday morning when I could not get online. I have a wireless LAN line for my desk top computer in my home office and the first thing I noticed was someone had tapped into it from outside and was using my wireless. Secondly, after about 20 minutes of trying to trouble shoot it I unplugged the Speedport and reconnected it and viola I was able to get back on line.

I was due to start my online class at the University of Phoenix yesterday evening and as it was the first day of class I kept thinking, I can't go to class without my computer and that's not a good thing to miss the first day of class. The third thing I was thinking was "damn, I may have to call my computer specialist to come over and get it back on line and that can be very expensive".

Generally speaking, yes.
However, some of them use different manufacturers that build systems that respond slightly better to long and/or bad lines, but that doesnt really make that much of a difference. So your best bet would be to get them to gradually reduce the connection bandwidth so that the link control can select channels/frequencies that have less noise/attenuation. If you're not a online FPS gamer you should also have them disable fastpath. I had a similar problem at 14 Mbit/S, now that its reduced to 10MBbit/s it never causes any fuzz anymore. They might be reluctant at first, because they fear you'll go back to a cheaper contract, which of course you should consider if the line is too bad. I would be getting 16 but am allright with my stable 10. (but still pay for 16)

Oh and dont forget: as Nate pointed out correctly, a dying DSLAM is not unlikely to be responsible for problems like these at all.

Why do i never have such neighbors?

Anyway, you should really set up your wireless to use WPA or better WPA2 encryption - But you probably didnt even use WEP, right?

I reckon everyone should set up their routers to allow people to surf the web if they are in range. If everybody in the world did this, we would fuck the telecom bastards (like t-online) charging money for "hotspots". Join the revolution brother.

Don't know? I paid someone to come over and hook up my wireless LAN as I'm technology challenged. I just pay and as long as it's working than I don't think too much about it. But now that I can see someone is tapping into my wireless, I'm going to inquire more about the setup so I can get these freeloaders off my network.

Yeah, but now I feel like I'm getting "fucked" as I'm paying and someone is tapping in. Are you so benevolent that you are paying and allowing others to tap into a wireless network as you propose to be such a visionary?

Btw, All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State (Albert Camus).

I'm all on your side there, check out 'Freifunk' and if possible join or start your own net. I'm involved with the Berlin chapter. If you have the skills it offers the oppurtunity to research and develop a routing protocol designed for massive and sudden topology changes - It is as well a technical as a social revolution.
That being said, if you allow access from Freifunk into the internet, all kinds of nerds will do all kinds of illegal stuff over your line, which will get you into all kinds of trouble with the law. The solution is to route into the Internet via TOR, so everything is neatly anonymised.

But simply letting everybody use your line without anonymising measures is not a good idea, and if LR doesnt even use WEP i am quite sure she wouldnt go through the hassle of setting up a 24/7 TOR entry point.

Hasta Siempre!

Different thread, but camus was wrong there - unless you'd call the american revolution not a modern one.
I'd say that no state ever voluntarily (without a revolution) gave up power, so unless we'd conclude that the states' level of power has always grown or never changed, one of us must be wrong

You obviosly paid too much. Or not enough, depending on your trust in capitalisms rules

Anyway, the dude took a shortcut, and thats why everybody can use your net which can get you into serious trouble, so bust his ass and get another one to do it. Seriously, that is completely botched and noone with a clue and/or work ethics would do that.

Edit: there is a slight chance that he actually did nothing wrong, but you have a tech-nerd and dedicated/bored neighbor that broke the encryption. If your devices only support WEP that isnt completely unlikely, i could do it.

For your convinience:
Freifunk

TOR - The Onion Router

A possibility ..Your BIOS settings for ACPI power management might be the root of your hibernation issues. Just a random guess but when your system wakes up the process module for the LAN might be timing out before the system wakes up completely. Don't know for sure.

Good luck with customer support, it's almost non existent in Germany. Sometimes I think companies here think they're entitled to your business. Ok, ok.. so I can't base my view of the whole system on a few bad experiences.

@Patrick Bateman nice link, in return if you haven't heard of it OPEN DNS

I helps with connection speed reliability and safety.. pretty much win win.

My experiences with Alice were'nt that bad at all.

If you join Fon they do, in fact you can even make money. Fon send you a special wireless access point to attach to your router (free if someone recommends you, €29.95 if not). This radiates 2 SSIDs (wireless networks) one is private, encrypted and for your use, the other public for other Fon members or for people who are prepared to pay €3 a day to access your internet service. People sharing the public service have no access to your PCs, and you can restrict bandwidth available to them so they can't take over your network. You can choose to take 50% of the revenue generated by your access point or have free use of anyone elses "Fon-point" when travelling. Fon-points can be identified by address and locality using Google earth. It's amazing how many there are, even in Munich. By adding a larger antenna on my Fon-point I have increased potential range to almost 500m - it's quite surprising how often people surf on my net (you can download logs), given that I don't live in the city..

YL6 - Good luck with the authorities when ask how someone could commit a crime with your IP. Even if you can prove it wasnt you and you didnt know you'd still be in for Fahrlässigkeit/Beihilfe. Kid you not.

Fon is a business idea, freifunk is a (non-comercial) revolutionary idea that has the potential to *become* the new internet, only this time it would really be free - even of cable. All you need to join is a WRT-able router to run the Freifunk-Firmware on. And think twice before you allow freifunk access to the internet via your IP.

Utter Bollocks. I have as much responsibility for someone using my internet as T-Online do for someone using their backbone. Just like T-Online I can show detailed information for anyone that shares my access, as they have to be registered in the first place and therefore devolve myself of responsibility for their actions. Freifunk has the exactly the same issues, but less detailed tracking of personal details. On top of that I can surf around the world for free and make money on the side. Business is not always a bad thing, revolution often leads to downfall.

I ahve an extremely similar problem, can anyone tell me which download section on T-com to go for as I don't speak any german?

The thing about downloads/torrents/P2P thing was spot on! I think it is the router which is at fault. He may have been correct when he said it is because it is a cheap router, but I believe it wouldn't be a hardware problem but more a firmware problem... I have the most current release so firmware is not an issue. I reduced the connections and haven't had a problem yet...

If anyone hears of any kind of fix or workaround so you can keep up the speed without so many connections, I would love to give it a try!

EDIT: If you goto your router config you can see your firmware # and you can goto the T-Com website for a direct download. I speak no german and it wasn't hard to navigate and find the correct section. If you have version 1.22.000 (speedport 700v)you have the most recent version already...

It's from downloading torrents.