DSL light blinking? Noisy line? Bad wiring? The UnFixable

[Verminox]

I am from Bandra, Mumbai and got my MTNL broadband connection (with WiFi router) about 3 years ago and it has been working fine since then, except a few glitches when I tried to change the plan. I realised that the service is good as long as it is in working condition, it is only when you need to involve the MTNL staff that things go awry.

My connection started dropping 3-4 times a day in November, with the DSL light flickering. I spent almost 6 weeks (yes SIX WEEKS) of calling 1504, which most of the time ended up in either a long and pointless re-configuring of all TCP/IP and router settings, or the suggestion to contact 198 to fix "line problems".

198 is an automated service which allows you to enter your MTNL number, your "contact number" (they call on your landline anyway) and register a complaint. With my sample of about 18-20 complaints, 40% of them involved getting a call asking "is internet working?" with me saying "no" and then concluding with an SMS on my "contact number" saying "Your complaint number xxxx has been attended to". The other 60% of the complaints had only the SMS.

So in December when the disconnections went up to 15-20 times a day I decided a trip to the local exchange was in order. From there I was directed to Divisional Engineer Mr. Shyam Sundar who promised me that my internet will work by the end of the day. "Those 198 people only test dialtone, not broadband" he said. How pointless.

With Mr. Sunder not doing anything for 3-4 days I poked around his office and got in touch with a linesman, a Mr. Yadav, who became very helpful after a tip on his first visit to my house (around Christmas time). He pointed out that my parallel line had no splitter on it and hence installed a new one where the line from the exchange splits into two and was on his way - me with a smile on my face as well.

By the first week of January, the problems recurred. I got Yadav to come to my house again and he said the problem is with the router, so he got me a replacement the next day at 11am (as that's when the "store" opens). He also claimed that my "port" was changed at their end which caused my username to be appended by "@a" and password reset and now a new problem sprung up - frequent "Authorization failures" and "PPP down" errors. So he got my old router back after 3 days saying "your old router worked fine in our office, it's not spoilt - and this new router i gave you was actually a used one which is probably causing the problem". Amazing.

This whole saga took most of January and by the last week of Jan (my DSL light still flickering 60% of the day), the linesman came to my house again this time blaming the telephone jack - which he removed from the wall, stripped off some wires, crimped a new jack and set off again (this did help to some extent - the SNR margin went up).

Today is February 4 and I am still disconnected for about 50% of the day, the DSL light flickering and taking many minutes to resync. I often get SNR margins of about 6.0 and Line Attenuation of about 49.5. My last call to Mr. Yadav resulted in him giving his phone to SAAB who said "There is nothing more we can do from our end. Everything has been checked and is OK".

For all those who think this could be a problem with my parallel line set-up or house wiring, I even tried connecting my router to the point BEFORE where the line splits in my building outside my front door. It didn't work there either, so it's definitely not a local problem.

I am tired, frustrated and almost helpless now about what to do. I looked up many other ISPs hoping for a new connection - but almost all seem hopeless. I still see MTNL as an advantage because I have the linesman's number and address, and don't need to go through the call centre route - which I will need for any new ISP.


Thank you for listening to my rant. :icry:

 

[socrates]

Can you post your SNR margin & Attenuation reading? MTNL rule says that the tel line coming to your house should first come to your splitter then to other tel instruments. In some cases even if its does not, it might work. It did not in my case. Lol
Next MTNL will always check for line problem first, its something to do with their hierarchy in their company also it just might be the case in most cases.
I suggest that you write to the DGM/GM about your problems with the screen shots of your SNR margin & Attenuation reading, tell them all what you have mentioned here so they are familiar with the history of your case. If possible visit the DGM (Internet) at your exchange. If that does not work then write to the ED the links can be found Mumbai MTNL : At a Glance see the bottom for links.

 

[krish_88]

I am from Bandra, Mumbai and got my MTNL broadband connection (with WiFi router) about 3 years ago and it has been working fine since then, except a few glitches when I tried to change the plan. I realised that the service is good as long as it is in working condition, it is only when you need to involve the MTNL staff that things go awry.

My connection started dropping 3-4 times a day in November, with the DSL light flickering. I spent almost 6 weeks (yes SIX WEEKS) of calling 1504, which most of the time ended up in either a long and pointless re-configuring of all TCP/IP and router settings, or the suggestion to contact 198 to fix "line problems".

198 is an automated service which allows you to enter your MTNL number, your "contact number" (they call on your landline anyway) and register a complaint. With my sample of about 18-20 complaints, 40% of them involved getting a call asking "is internet working?" with me saying "no" and then concluding with an SMS on my "contact number" saying "Your complaint number xxxx has been attended to". The other 60% of the complaints had only the SMS.

So in December when the disconnections went up to 15-20 times a day I decided a trip to the local exchange was in order. From there I was directed to Divisional Engineer Mr. Shyam Sundar who promised me that my internet will work by the end of the day. "Those 198 people only test dialtone, not broadband" he said. How pointless.

With Mr. Sunder not doing anything for 3-4 days I poked around his office and got in touch with a linesman, a Mr. Yadav, who became very helpful after a tip on his first visit to my house (around Christmas time). He pointed out that my parallel line had no splitter on it and hence installed a new one where the line from the exchange splits into two and was on his way - me with a smile on my face as well.

By the first week of January, the problems recurred. I got Yadav to come to my house again and he said the problem is with the router, so he got me a replacement the next day at 11am (as that's when the "store" opens). He also claimed that my "port" was changed at their end which caused my username to be appended by "@a" and password reset and now a new problem sprung up - frequent "Authorization failures" and "PPP down" errors. So he got my old router back after 3 days saying "your old router worked fine in our office, it's not spoilt - and this new router i gave you was actually a used one which is probably causing the problem". Amazing.

This whole saga took most of January and by the last week of Jan (my DSL light still flickering 60% of the day), the linesman came to my house again this time blaming the telephone jack - which he removed from the wall, stripped off some wires, crimped a new jack and set off again (this did help to some extent - the SNR margin went up).

Today is February 4 and I am still disconnected for about 50% of the day, the DSL light flickering and taking many minutes to resync. I often get SNR margins of about 6.0 and Line Attenuation of about 49.5. My last call to Mr. Yadav resulted in him giving his phone to SAAB who said "There is nothing more we can do from our end. Everything has been checked and is OK".

For all those who think this could be a problem with my parallel line set-up or house wiring, I even tried connecting my router to the point BEFORE where the line splits in my building outside my front door. It didn't work there either, so it's definitely not a local problem.

I am tired, frustrated and almost helpless now about what to do. I looked up many other ISPs hoping for a new connection - but almost all seem hopeless. I still see MTNL as an advantage because I have the linesman's number and address, and don't need to go through the call centre route - which I will need for any new ISP.


Thank you for listening to my rant. :icry:

Can you post your SNR margin & Attenuation reading? MTNL rule says that the tel line coming to your house should first come to your splitter then to other tel instruments. In some cases even if its does not, it might work. It did not in my case. Lol
Next MTNL will always check for line problem first, its something to do with their hierarchy in their company also it just might be the case in most cases.
I suggest that you write to the DGM/GM about your problems with the screen shots of your SNR margin & Attenuation reading, tell them all what you have mentioned here so they are familiar with the history of your case. If possible visit the DGM (Internet) at your exchange. If that does not work then write to the ED the links can be found Mumbai MTNL : At a Glance see the bottom for links.

As per your post, we can clearly feel the pain you have suffered, Now its time for action.

Mail your issues with Screenshots(As socrates suggested)to dgmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in ( DGM BANDRA) and send a CC to edmbi@mtnl.net.in things will work out automatically.

In the meantime we would like to see your modem log and the SNR Margin

 

[socrates]

dgmbdr@mtnl.net.in DGM (Bandra)
dgmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in DGM (Broad Band)
gmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in GM (Broadband)
edmbi@mtnl.net.in ED, MTNL

WTF what happened to all the email-id's we had put in the wiki. It's all empty :wall::ishock:

Admin yeh kya ho raha hai? who is iitmanojit. I thought you were the admin AND in charge :confuse:

Why is all this info hidden here http://wiki.broadbandforum.co/mtnl-mumbai-information a regular user like krish_88 had to HUNT for it, a new user will never find it 🙁

 

[krish_88]

dgmbdr@mtnl.net.in DGM (Bandra)
dgmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in DGM (Broad Band)
gmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in GM (Broadband)
edmbi@mtnl.net.in ED, MTNL

WTF what happened to all the email-id's we had put in the wiki. It's all empty :wall::ishock:

Admin yeh kya ho raha hai? who is iitmanojit. I thought you were the admin AND in charge :confuse:

Why is all this info hidden here MTNL Mumbai Information - India Broadband Wiki a regular user like krish88 had a HUNT for it, a new user will never find it 🙁

Editing restrictions should be limited from now, Only specific people should be given the choice of editing. Anybody, comes and edits, can either replace the existing post or may delete @ fault.

 

[socrates]

Editing restrictions should be limited from now, Only specific people should be given the choice of editing. Anybody, comes and edits, can either replace the existing post or may delete @ fault.

V True

 

---

[Sushubh]

its not open to all actually. iitmanojit contacted me. he wanted to work on the wiki. i gave him access. it was sort of a risk. i guess he got busy and has not worked on the wiki for a while. i can probably revert back all changes. would looking that option once he confirms about his future involvement in the wiki.

 

[Verminox]

Can you post your SNR margin & Attenuation reading? MTNL rule says that the tel line coming to your house should first come to your splitter then to other tel instruments. In some cases even if its does not, it might work. It did not in my case. Lol
Next MTNL will always check for line problem first, its something to do with their hierarchy in their company also it just might be the case in most cases.
I suggest that you write to the DGM/GM about your problems with the screen shots of your SNR margin & Attenuation reading, tell them all what you have mentioned here so they are familiar with the history of your case. If possible visit the DGM (Internet) at your exchange. If that does not work then write to the ED the links can be found Mumbai MTNL : At a Glance see the bottom for links.

As per your post, we can clearly feel the pain you have suffered, Now its time for action.

Mail your issues with Screenshots(As socrates suggested)to dgmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in ( DGM BANDRA) and send a CC to edmbi@mtnl.net.in things will work out automatically.

In the meantime we would like to see your modem log and the SNR Margin


Thank you both for this information. I will indeed post a complaint. Here is my modem info as of NOW (working fine for last 1 hour):

Downstream	Upstream	 		SNR Margin:		27.8 	26.1	db		Line Attenuation:	36.0 	21.1 	db		Data Rate:		2048 	260 	kbps

But it changes very often to NA (when no connection) and then bad values such as (recorded 2 days ago on Feb 02):

Downstream	Upstream	 		SNR Margin:		6.5 	8.0	db		Line Attenuation:	49.6 	48.2 	db		Data Rate:		2048 	260 	kbps

There were also rare occasions when the Data Rate went down to something like 1780 or something but generally it shows the full data rates, just bad noise.

 

[Argos]

As per your post, we can clearly feel the pain you have suffered, Now its time for action.

Mail your issues with Screenshots(As socrates suggested)to dgmbbmbi@mtnl.net.in ( DGM BANDRA) and send a CC to edmbi@mtnl.net.in things will work out automatically.

I completely agree. Persistent written and phone call follow-ups with the ED's office and GM Broadband's office (with cc and phone calls to your Area GM), is the key to getting action. Ignore your linesman's ministrations. If things don't work at the ED level, write a polite but firm mail, quoting all your broadband complaint numbers to DoT in Delhi, and stating zero-action from MTNL bosses.

2 years ago, I did just that. And believe me, DoT ripped these guys apart. In 6 hours, my 3 month old problem was resolved, with every head honcho from MTNL calling me at 5 min intervals. Since then, I've become 'saab' to these vermin. And my broadband issues get fixed within 24 hours.

 

[socrates]

Thank you both for this information. I will indeed post a complaint. Here is my modem info as of NOW (working fine for last 1 hour):

Downstream	Upstream	 		SNR Margin:		27.8 	26.1	db		Line Attenuation:	36.0 	21.1 	db		Data Rate:		2048 	260 	kbps

But it changes very often to NA (when no connection) and then bad values such as (recorded 2 days ago on Feb 02):

Downstream	Upstream	 		SNR Margin:		6.5 	8.0	db		Line Attenuation:	49.6 	48.2 	db		Data Rate:		2048 	260 	kbps

There were also rare occasions when the Data Rate went down to something like 1780 or something but generally it shows the full data rates, just bad noise.

Your Attenuation is way too high, it could indicate a line problem.(maybe beyond your house). When snr margins go below 10 you will get DC's

---------- Post added at 08:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:00 AM ----------

I completely agree. Persistent written and phone call follow-ups with the ED's office and GM Broadband's office (with cc and phone calls to your Area GM), is the key to getting action. Ignore your linesman's ministrations. If things don't work at the ED level, write a polite but firm mail, quoting all your broadband complaint numbers to DoT in Delhi, and stating zero-action from MTNL bosses.

2 years ago, I did just that. And believe me, DoT ripped these guys apart. In 6 hours, my 3 month old problem was resolved, with every head honcho from MTNL calling me at 5 min intervals. Since then, I've become 'saab' to these vermin. And my broadband issues get fixed within 24 hours.

Agree 100. I have done similarly & got excellent results 😀

 

[aviral sangal]

Got a MTNL broadband at my place in delhi and from the day 1 i am facing disconnections. I have tried with linesman even with the SDO but nothing has been done.If you read my SNR and Attunation you will probably feel how am i surviving.SNR Down most of the time -0.5 goes upto maximum of 1.0 in night Attunation Down most of the time it lingers at 60-65I am totally frustrated

 

[kalpik]

Got a MTNL broadband at my place in delhi and from the day 1 i am facing disconnections. I have tried with linesman even with the SDO but nothing has been done.
If you read my SNR and Attunation you will probably feel how am i surviving.
SNR Down most of the time -0.5 goes upto maximum of 1.0 in night
Attunation Down most of the time it lingers at 60-65

I am totally frustrated

What area in Delhi?

 

[aviral sangal]

Trans Yamuna

 

[Argos]

Got a MTNL broadband at my place in delhi and from the day 1 i am facing disconnections. I have tried with linesman even with the SDO but nothing has been done.

First, have you registered a complaint with MTNL 198? Do you have a docket number? If not, do so repeatedly, every 24 hours (if your complaint number is vacated without resolution). Keep a record of these numbers. When you have 3 or 4 dockets, and your complaint remains unresolved, email your local exchange GM, with a cc to GM Broadband (you'll find contact details on the MTNL site), quoting all your docket numbers and ask for immediate action. Follow up, if required, by calling them. Your issues will get resolved.

You see, if you press the wrong buttons, you won't get any resolution. And requesting linesmen is certainly not going to yield any results as far as broadband is concerned.

Registering a complaint with 198 is important, as your complaint is computer-logged. And complaint logs (including time taken for resolution) have to be submitted to TRAI. If mandated timeframes are not adhered to, TRAI takes the service provider's happiness.

 

[socrates]

First, have you registered a complaint with MTNL 198? Do you have a docket number? If not, do so repeatedly, every 24 hours (if your complaint number is vacated without resolution). Keep a record of these numbers. When you have 3 or 4 dockets, and your complaint remains unresolved, email your local exchange GM, with a cc to GM Broadband (you'll find contact details on the MTNL site), quoting all your docket numbers and ask for immediate action. Follow up, if required, by calling them. Your issues will get resolved.

You see, if you press the wrong buttons, you won't get any resolution. And requesting linesmen is certainly not going to yield any results as far as broadband is concerned.

Registering a complaint with 198 is important, as your complaint is computer-logged. And complaint logs (including time taken for resolution) have to be submitted to TRAI. If mandated timeframes are not adhered to, TRAI takes the service provider's happiness.

Agree 100%