[brownboy66]

so this is strange.....

here am I on my MTNL broadband line here in Delhi and I can't connect directly to IM - but if I go through an anonymous proxy in Germany I can??? By way of explanation - an anonymous proxy is a service that allows you to browse websites using an internet address other than the one usually allocated by your ISP. You log on to a proxy website which then allows you to surf the web through their site. Can be useful for narrowing down connectivity problems if you find that for some reason or another your internet address is getting blocked or having problems.

I can download sites in NZ, Australia, UK, and Germany of course - but nothing from the US....oh...hold on - I can get CNN but geez its slow. Anyone else having a problem?

weird.....

[Dilliwala]

Hi BB,

Such problems seem to find the people best suited to deal with them, i.e. techies.
My MTNL is working fine. Maybe a prob at your exchange?

Anyway, just popped in to say maybe u shud move the thread to
http://www.indiamike.com/india/forum...uncements-f53/
whose blurb starts off with - "Can't figure something out on this site?" Management might know the answer.

[nadreg]

Very strange. I got an email from a member a week or so ago, reporting a similar issue. Anyone else seeing the same issue?

[machadinha]

I can't figure it out either. Inasmuch as BB mentions other US sites not working well for him either, I think that would indicate the problem lies at a different end, not at IM's. Could be some routers along the way screwing up or something.

[steven_ber]

I'm no techie, and I don't even know if the following is related.

Whilst I was traveling around India (the last 5 weeks) I was constantly having problems connecting to indiamike, constantly being diverted to other websites when I tried to log in, it was bad with indiamike, but google and gmail was a lot worse, I had 2 weeks where I couldn't get through to gmail, and in total I only got gmail 3 times in 5 weeks. (same problem, when I tried to log in I was taken to another website, usually a search website)

[machadinha]

I wonder if the latter isn't a problem of working on public virus-infected machines. This happens quite a lot, and it could theoretically mean someone is capturing your passwords. People on the move should be aware of this, and preferably change their passwords (using a clean machine) if they suspect something is up. Unexpected redirects are a danger sign though -- related to that machine you're on anyway, not necessarily to your private accounts. But I wouldn't want to have entered any personal information on such a machine, and would be sure to change it.

But this shouldn't affect BB, if he has a fixed home address and a reasonably safeguarded machine. There was a recent report about certain domains being blocked in India, I wonder if this might be related to it. Impossible to tell just like that though. BB might try and log in somewhere else, preferably with a different provider, then see if the problem persists. It's also possible your provider is blocking something, inadvertently or otherwise.

If this were more widespread, I'd expect half the Indian membership to be screaming about it. It's weird. You could of course continue using that proxy server btw, but it's arguably not like it should be.

[brownboy66]

by way of an update - all back to normal? Very strange...

The only thing I can think of is that the link to the US out of MTNL might have been having problems. Its a bit of a long shot - but on my router settings my primary DNS server is MTNL Delhi, while the secondary is MTNL in Mumbai. Last night (or about 1.30am) Mumbai was unreachable. Now in terms of name resolution this shouldn't make any difference (that's the reason everyone has two DNS servers to resolve names against) - and indeed, US URLs were resolving - they just weren't connecting.

Technically it shouldn't make any difference if one part of the network is down since it is the internet afterall, and it should be about to dynamically route - but who knows. Maybe MTNL has their network setup in such a way that all traffic from Delhi to the US routes via Mumbai - whereas traffic to Europe, asia, etc - takes another route.

Dilliwala - When you were browsing last night, early this morning - had you just logged on or had you been on most of the evening and not logged off? If its the latter then it may be that you already had a static route in place (hence - MTNL DNS Mumbai being unreachable had no affect). Sometimes there's a real advantage to leaving your connection permanently on.

steven_ber - sounds a little bit like a browser hijack. Chances are if you did a malware scan or registry scan you'd find a piece of script somewhere redirecting you favourites to somewhere else.

[Nick-H]

I wonder if the latter isn't a problem of working on public virus-infected machines. ...

Absolutely.

I don't see problems like Steven's in my home at all. But there are days when I find connectivity to IM ropey, and times when connectivity to USA is very bad.

This is a routing issue, I think --- the Indian ISPs initially forgot the majority of "the internet" is in USA and Europe and connection and latency was very bad. They are fairly hopeless at concepts such as reliability and redundancy, and a couple of years ago we lost most of our connectivity to the outside world because someone broke a cable in the Pacific.

We loose the ability to connect at all, on a whole city basis occasionally: the help desk says, "yes, our server is down". BSNL help desk is pretty dim, and first-line support the world over is seldom well informed, but I am inclined to believe that this is literally true: their authentication server is down and they have only one for the district!

This is a situation that is getting investment and improving. The other day I read of VSNL (I think it was) panning a big cable into Paris (err... I think it was).

It doesn't help that dynastic politics robbed us of a telecoms minister in central government who was enthusiastic about broadband and moving it forward.

[Dilliwala]

BB,

No, I connected and disconnected many times. I do this regularly - even though I have the unlimited plan, I prefer not to leave an open door for a hacker if I'm gone from my PC for more than 5 minutes.
I've had unrelated connection problems regularly for the last few weeks though, i.e. it can be a few mins and several tries, before I get connected, after which everything's fine. Seems to be a local problem. I haven't bothered reporting it, cud even be a fault in my PC, altho I can't think why.

You're right, VSNL's 'international gateway' (which everyone uses I think, certainly MTNL) is in Mumbai.

[brownboy66]

Hi DW

when you say connect and disconnect - did that include turning off the power on the router/modem - or did that stay on the whole time? If you turned off the connection between the pc and the router/modem but the device still remained on - then the routing information would still be retained within it.

And aside from not being able to browse sites in the state - like you performance has been patchy on occasions.

Re VSNL - from what I can gather from traceroute information - the route goes Delhi, Mumbai (VSNL), then Teleglobe (Canadian originally but owned by VSNL/Tata - is there anything they don't do)- then hand off to Global Crossing (US), then Softlayer (US) and home of IM!

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Happened to me too, lately MTNL has been having a lot of DNS issues. Earlier this month I was only able to browse delhi.mtnl.net.in for 3-4 days and none of other sites would open.

Ps. by any chance are you using 949 unlimited plan?

[brownboy66]

no, I'm using the triband 499 - but yes, like you I've had days where all I can download is the delhi homepage, and mumbai is completely unreachable (although using an anonymous proxy out of germany was just something I experimented with and it worked)!

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Switch to Airtel if its available in your area or like me wait till it reaches your locality.

[Nick-H]

There seem to be issues with DNS here. The BSNL DNS servers, for instance, are so slow that you will see recommendations to use DNS services based in USA!

I use something on my own machine, it might be called treewalk... I forget .

[Dilliwala]

Originally Posted by brownboy66

Hi DW

when you say connect and disconnect - did that include turning off the power on the router/modem - or did that stay on the whole time? If you turned off the connection between the pc and the router/modem but the device still remained on - then the routing information would still be retained within it.

And aside from not being able to browse sites in the state - like you performance has been patchy on occasions.

Re VSNL - from what I can gather from traceroute information - the route goes Delhi, Mumbai (VSNL), then Teleglobe (Canadian originally but owned by VSNL/Tata - is there anything they don't do)- then hand off to Global Crossing (US), then Softlayer (US) and home of IM!

On rare occasions I physically disconnect my USB 'modem' (remember? we've discussed it extensively before) by pulling the cable out from it. Since it's bus-powered, that automatically cuts its power supply, leading to it going thru a full reboot after reconnection. But lately this hasn't helped either (it used to be the solution once in a while in the early days).
To connect - u may recall I have to do it in the same way as with a dialup modem, thru connection icon (regardless of the 'always on' status coming from the USB device).

I haven't had patchy performance altho at least thrice a day now the line just drops out, and reconnection will often lead to the string of many tries.

But to repeat, I'm not sure if this (connection matter) is MTNL-related or PC-related. I thought it might be the latter, but I reformatted the HD last week and the problem persists. Then again, there were other 'acting-ups' happening which have reappeared (lotsa blue-screens) after reformat, so I'm just not sure.

And I can never browse instantly anymore, always have to wait 1 or 2 minutes before the data-flow actually commences. Certainly nothing to do with my PC.
Then again, I wonder if all of this might be device-related. Maybe a faulty USB broadband thingy is too sensitive to work with the slightest fault (I previously had a dialup modem which once took a hit from storm-induced lightning coming thru the phone-line, no less! And this with PC and main power off. It survived - problems with normal conn procedure, but worked fine thereafter.)

Thanks for the info about the international relays, I've always wondered how these things work.