Whirlpool

Hi, ive been having trouble with my connection/modem.

I'm currently using a D-Link ADSL 504G, I've been trying to connect for the past day and a half. These are the errors that were in the status log.

"Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : MAJOR ALARM : Failed To Get IP Address : Interface - ppp-0
Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : WARNING : PPP Interface Down : Interface - ppp-0
Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : WARNING : PPP Authorization Failed : Interface - ppp-0
Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPPoE Event: Send PADI Packet
Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPPoE Event: Receive PADT Packet

Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : WARNING : PPPoE Down : Interface - ppp-0
Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: LCP: Sending Terminate Ack.

Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: LCP: Terminate Req received.

Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: LCP: Sending Terminate Req.

Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: CHAP Authentication Fail

Sun Apr 24 11:35:11 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: LCP: Sending Config Req."

When it comes to modem and adsl I'm clueless. If anyone could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

To save the reps the trouble...

Annette Linton writes...

Call Exetel on 02 9954 6622

Looks like you are getting authentication errors. Make sure you have the right username & password in the modem.

Username is in the format of yourphonenumber@nsw.exetel.com.au
Password is the password supplied to you by Exetel, which is in the format yourphonenumberXX where XX is 2 uppercase letters.

You would have received this information in an email when the connection was accepted by Telstra.

Thanks for the replies,
I'm quite sure my user details are correct though, so I'm really not sure what to do.

I really can't wait till tuesday (can't call because of the long weekend), because I've got a ton of uni work. =\

If anyone has any other ideas as to why I'm experiencing these problems, let me know!

Thanks

ssjmark writes...

I'm quite sure my user details are correct though, so I'm really not sure what to do.

Sun Apr 24 11:35:16 2005 : STATUS ALARM: PPP Event: CHAP Authentication Fail

That message means that your login was rejected. So either youve got it wrong or it hasnt been configured yet.. youll probably have to wait until Tues to get it sorted out unfortunately.

Is this a new connection, or an existing one? From the way you've written, I suspect the latter, in which case you may not be able to connect due to actions by an upstream supplier of Exetel. In which case their advice is to use dial-up until this is rectified, which is not expected until after Tuesday.

Yes, its the latter. I've been with Exetel for about 5 months now and I've only had minor problems.

Thanks for the info!
I guess all i can do is wait and see till Tuesday.

ssjmark writes...

Yes, its the latter. I've been with Exetel for about 5 months now and I've only had minor problems.

Sounds like you've been hit with the ongoing disconnection problems - chances are I'll be next. Hang in there. Exetel are churning as soon as notified.

So sorry you may have been caught up in this mess.

It's not your fault and nor should it be your problem.

"Exetel are churning as soon as notified!!!!"

Given the recent events that have occoured, I think Exetel should be contactable to provide support and at the very least take calls after hours. I think its most unprofessional if you have a connection issue, phone up their phone lines and get an automated responses thats says, "I'm sorry you have called us outside of business hours. Please contact us during business hours"!!!! Business hours being 4 days away, given my connection has also been down since Friday night, and guess what, I also work during business hours. So how are they going to troubleshoot any issues if they need me to try something on the PC. Maybe I should have my ADSL connection transfered to work, so I can call them during business hours!!

Any ISP wishing to have a professional image should be maning their phone lines to a resonable time slot in the evening. Especially if they have had the recent disconnection issues.

kats writes...

Any ISP wishing to have a professional image should be maning their phone lines to a resonable time slot in the evening.

To tell you what? Hold your hand and then call back in the morning?

Exetel follow testra hours - where they can make remedial changes.

Note sure why... but I too cannot connect all of a sudden (HuntersHill exchange Sydney). Have not changed any settings etc... but diagnostics show PPP/PPPoE server connection failure / Ping Default gateway failure according to my b5100w modem.

Not sure how long its been down... but at least since 10am this morning.

I have been with Exetel since Feb. (3 months)... and assumed I was one of the lucky customers not to be impacted by the 3rd party supplier issues and the churning exercise... but maybe not?

Anyway, have to wait till Tuesday morning I suppose.. I can only reset / upload firmware / re-install tcp etc etc.. so many times.

Frustrated
Merr1

Does Exetel need telstra to tell their users that their connection has been disconnected and that they dont have any setup issues.

Or provide a simple appology for the distruption, and that their service will be restored as soon as possible, rather than leaving their users in the dark for 4 days ( Not all of their users have an alternate connection to source answers online)

OR does Exetel need telstra for all their connection issues. I think not. I'm sure some issues can be solved through some simple Q&A. Of which can be done after hours without Telstra holding Exetels hand.

kats writes...

I think Exetel should be contactable to provide support

They are. Users in this situation should send a message to adslsales@exetel.com.au with their service number and the problem. As there are quite a number of users affected, you may not get an immediate direct reply, but this will ensure that your service is looked into as soon as possible.

Any ISP wishing to have a professional image should be maning their phone lines to a resonable time slot in the evening. Especially if they have had the recent disconnection issues.

I agree that this would be better and good, but just wanted to point out the above as it is an alternative available before they open.

Howdy. Had to dig out my 28.8k modem to check whirlpool for just this topic. It's lucky I've still got it because I've just sold it for $3 on eBay!

Anyway, I'm in the same situation. Joined in mid-February, located near IBM at West Pennant Hills (Castle Hill Exchange).

At about 6pm I noticed my modem log had changed from showtime to fail but could still get WAN access until I rebooted my PC. I've then spent the time from then until now (watching a few episodes of JAG in-between) trying to work out what was wrong, and watching my log continue to hang at the CHAP authentication stage (a c223 error invalid user/password combination). The Challenge and Response IDs are different.

There was nothing on the Telstra pages about outages, so I assumed the problem was with me not with exetel - in fact I wasn't even aware there was a problem in recent days!

I guess I'll head off to the dawn service... it's a day for remembrance. So if your connection is down [and you somehow manage to still read this on Anzac Day) switch off the computer and, regardless of what you think about war, at least think about the sacrifices so many people have made for us.

Cheers
Pete

Ima Wag writes...

Sounds like you've been hit with the ongoing disconnection problems

Are don't saay their naame here still disconnecting Exetel customers?
Would Telstra be working on those disconections over the weekend?

Friend of mine with Exetel has been offline for 2 days (got disconnected over the weekend).
Can't ring Exetel (weekend)
Can't leave a mssage anyway (answering mahcine is full)
Can't check the (Exetel) forum (no dialup)

So he's asked me to ask (and I won't ask on Exetel's forum because I don't want to sign up)

The J Man writes...

(and I won't ask on Exetel's forum because I don't want to sign up)

and they check ur ip when u post bad things

holyland writes...

they check ur ip when u post bad things

... and for some reason, even my honest to goodness innocent questions seem to irritate :-(

Well I reckon I've seen the effects of chaos theory (and on Anzac Day).

Somewhere in the world two corporations have a dispute; elsewhere someone decides to reroute a number of ADSL connections into a black hole; in West Pennant Hills, Sydney, Australia an old 28.8k modem is revived by a weary husband; the 7 month pregnant wife of that husband has to review the statutory accounts of another corporation prior to signing them tomorrow; a dial up connection is no match for the size of the corporation's accounts on a VPN only just reconfigured for ADSL; the wife decides to drive to work to finish the job; darkness falls; the wife then reverses into the husbands car. Damn!

More money disappears into the blackhole...

The J Man writes...

Are still disconnecting Exetel customers?

Yes, but differently to before. They're not actually disconnecting but re-directing.

Would Telstra be working on those disconections over the weekend?

No, as they're not involved.

Can't ring Exetel (weekend)
Can't leave a mssage anyway (answering mahcine is full)

But you can send an e-mail message on his behalf to adslsales@exetel.com.au with the service number and problem - that will get it looked at.

hi,i have been with exetel for about 6 months
just to let you know early last week walked in the ppp light on my modem(b5100) was out, so turned it off/on again, still didn't go on.
rang exetel, they told me to check setting(username etc)
didn't work
then told me to reset modem
didn't work
then told me to check with billion, rang billion they told me probably something to do with connection,
rang back exetel, then they said they would refer it to telstra
then on weekend afternoon it suddenly came back on. so i am unsure of why it was not connecting, but glad to be back on, will ring tommorrow to figure out what the problem was.

I received a very prompt response from back this morning confirming that I had been disconnected. Like allot of others I was apparently impacted by the DataCo / aaNet tail circuits issue.

However, I actually thought it was only those customers off contract/ or at least joined prior to Feb 05... according to threads I have read. But apparently not?

Anyway, as of 6:30am today Exetel and Telstra are restoring the service. Wonder when I'll be back on?

It's been down now for some 4 days... wonder if I receive a rebate?

Merr1

Even though i'd love to see them give a rebate i very much doubt it.

After paying for mass reconnections i'd believe they would already be a fair bit out of pocket to start giving rebates.

I was down over the whole damn weekend too. Where the hell is support for Exetel?

.

ernest writes...

I was down over the whole damn weekend too. Where the hell is support for Exetel?

What were you expecting?

ernest writes...

I was down over the whole damn weekend too. Where the hell is support for Exetel?

Over the weekend Exetel personnel answered 2,173 emails and 316 telephone calls and hundreds of forum posts and PMs.

These personnel answered support requests 24 x 7 over the three days of the long weekend.

Telephone support hours for Exetel are published on the web site and haven't changed since Exetel first offered ADSL services.

manfred writes...

No, as they're not involved.

Are you sure these cancellations/disconnections don't involve Telstra at all????

The J Man writes...

Are you sure these cancellations/disconnections don't involve Telstra at all????

It's been stated elsewhere that these aren't disconnections, but re-directions, hence the advice to not turn off your modem so that the new routing isn't applied. (And also the difficulty in restoring the service using the previously established means, which did involve Telstra.)

my friend is having the same authentication issues but when he tries to call support it is either engaged or it rings out. whats going on are they too scared to answer the phone?

Maybe they are busy fixing the problem ?

I know that when i worked on a help desk, i use to wear 2 headsets and answer 2 calls @ once.

Gunner writes...

Maybe they are busy fixing the problem ?


There are 12 incoming support lines.

Since 7.30 this morning all lines have been permanently busy with calls queued.

well ive been with exetel since october last year and so far ive already encountered 2 of these major dropouts =\, last time it lasted 5 days and this time, my net has been down from saturday 2pm to 1pm today... i tried calling exetel all day today and they seem to be very busy indeed coz i always get the busy dial tone. i was getting the PPPoE error and it the log it was saying incorrect u/s and pw but then all of a sudden my net was working again at 1pm.. i guess im happy that my net is back but lost a lot of access time .. =\

why only 12 lines? that isn't many at all and also exetel don't even have a 1300 number so people interstate will cop an std rate call

M@TT writes...

why only 12 lines? that isn't many at all

Actually, it seems to be plenty. Each call is normally answered under 3 rings, which is much better than many larger companies. Of course, in exceptional circumstances, too much is never enough, but you can't build a business around peak circumstances (unless you market it and charge as such, in which case most of the market goes elsewhere).

12 lines is plenty for an isp of exetels size under normal circumstances.

I have worked at places where there have been 16incoming lines. and only 1 support person... poor me *:(

Dam phones use to light up like a christmas tree when something went offline. :) no sooner would you put the phone down than another one would flash up, i know what your support people feel like.

I remember 1 week inparticular when i was helping a friend out to change the dialup numbers for all his customers, ( only 5 thousand or so ). After a long few days and about $150 worth of "V" between 2. towards the end of the week we had friends over, most of them were just playing xbox and drinking after a hard week @ work, i slept straight away. During the night i woke up and shouted "Shut the **** up guys there's a call on line 5"

That's when you know your working to many hours with Phone handsets strapped to your head with rubber bands :)

Annette Linton writes...

Annette Linton... Over the weekend Exetel personnel answered 2,173 emails and 316 telephone calls and hundreds of forum posts and PMs.

These personnel answered support requests 24 x 7 over the three days of the long weekend.

Telephone support hours for Exetel are published on the web site and haven't changed since Exetel first offered ADSL services.

I called but no one picked up. I then called one of your technical guys (on mobbie) and he said I will have to wait till Tuesday to get this resolved.

Also how am I supposed to "go online" when my only source of online at home is my ADSL from Exetel which WASENT working. A paradox or what? Is Exetel planning to provide Dialup as a backup - this is what iiNET does.

Sorry but I'm still pissed off due to losses incurred!

M@TT writes...

REPLYING TO
M@TT... my friend is having the same authentication issues but when he tries to call support it is either engaged or it rings out. whats going on are they too scared to answer the phone?

Yeah the phone has been engaged all day today + no one from Exetel has answered my emails.

What has actually happened to cause all of this? was this something out of the blue or poorly planned?

This popped up on the exetel forums.

ForumAdmin
Site Admin

Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 1296
Location: Sydney

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:25 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
APRIL 26TH 2005 3.15 PM - UPDATE

A little over 750 circuits have been reconnected.

This is much less than was expected by this time due to issues within the Telstra DAC which have, apparently, affected all transfer activity for all providers today; this is Telstra's statement.

ernest writes...

Is Exetel planning to provide Dialup as a backup - this is what iiNET does.

Most of us would not want Exetel to charge what iinet do.

ernest writes...

What has actually happened to cause all of this? was this something out of the blue or poorly planned?

I refer you to this: forum-replies.cfm?t=327426

While this won't answer all your questions, it is not possible to go any further into it.

does anyone know of any updates from exetel regarding the connection issue?

thanks!

ssjmark writes...

does anyone know of any updates from exetel regarding the connection issue?


Status Report As At Tuesday April 26th 2004 - 8.30 pm

Almost 2,000 services have now been reconnected.

The balance are scheduled for reconnection between now and tomorow evening.

Thanks heaps!

Please keep me/us posted with updates if you could!

Cheers!!

I have also been down for the last 4 days and it really disappoints me when I read posts like the one from Exetel representative.

In the last 6 months of operation Exetel have made profits in the order of a quarter of a million dollars and revenues of over 4 million, maybe they should be spending more in support and less in other areas!

I really don't care (nor should I as a customer) how many emails or calls Exetel personnel took over the weekend, don't forget that is their job!

Telephone support hours are (as you said) published on the web site - however they really mean nothing when you cannot get through. I have been trying to call all day today and have not been able to get through! I also sent an email on Friday evening and have had no response whatsoever.

I have had nothing but trouble since I have joined Exetel and as soon as my exchanges DSLAM is upgraded I am outta here!

Yogibear writes...

I also sent an email on Friday evening and have had no response whatsoever.

All emails received were replied to within four hours, often within a few minutes; a difficult task given the number received.

As your email has clearly been overlooked please resend it to;

adslsales@exetel.com.au

and it will be responded to in the morning.

maybe they should be spending more in support and less in other areas!

Which areas are you suggesting that Exetel spend less in?

I really don't care (nor should I as a customer) how many emails or calls Exetel personnel took over the weekend, don't forget that is their job!


It is not the job of people who have defined working hours that exclude weekends to actually work 20 hours a day for the three days of the recent long weekend. It actually is not anyone's job to do such work or work such hours.

I have been trying to call all day today and have not been able to get through!

Over 1,000 people "got through" today; the average wait time was 5 minutes.

Apart from periods such as today Exetel generaly answers support calls within three rings; a "fact" attested to to in the recent survey conducted by this site.

I have had nothing but trouble since I have joined Exetel

Please include brief details of the problems you have encountered in the re-send of your email.

ssjmark writes...

does anyone know of any updates from exetel regarding the connection issue?

The sticky (currently and temporarily!) at the top of this forum also contains fairly regular updates, and also references to the routinely and frequently updated information posted that has been by Exetel in their User Forums...

Yogibear writes...

In the last 6 months of operation Exetel have made profits in the order of a quarter of a million dollars and revenues of over 4 million, maybe they should be spending more in support and less in other areas!

The latest figures provided by Exetel indicate that in the last nine months they made profits of $455k from revenues of $6.8m. Assuming that there were 20,000 customers for the full 9 months (and yes I know that's not been the case), that's still only $22.75 per customer. To my mind, that amount is extraordinarily low given the investment that the company has undertaken to allow for further expansion. And this could in fact be a pre-tax profit figure.

Profit is the residual after expenses are deducted from revenue. It's really important to understand that neither revenue or profit are the same thing as cash.

In the early years the biggest challenge for any small to medium sized business is to adequately maintain, monitor and manage their cashflow. The enormous increase in Exetel's subscriber base would be fascinating to try and manage; not just in terms of the physical infrastructure, but also the financial infrastructure. So far they seem to have coped remarkably well, but given the small profits consumers can't expect Rolls Royce treatment when you know you're paying Hyundai prices.

Yes, I would have liked an email actually telling me not to turn off my modem/router (since that's the first thing most semi-computer literate people do when they notice an error), a link on the homepage to the relevant forum would have also been very convenient, and perhaps changing the intro to the voicemail message would have also been useful. It would also be great to have a single page showing the status of all Exetel services to save users spending large amounts of time trying to figure out what was going on.

However, as has been indicated previously, the company was in something of a state of crisis and these were, perhaps, not priorities at that point. But I presume these things will come in time.

And it does take a heck of a lot of time to fully develop and implement coherent business procedures. It certainly doesn't help the implementation of a disaster recovery plan if cause of the business interruption can't be easily identified or fixed. Remember what happened in Auckland in NZ a few years ago; power blackouts for days. How do you overcome upstream supplier failures of that magnitude?

---

Anyway, sorry to hear of your ongoing troubles. I joined in Feb 05 and my experience has been very positive. I don't have anything to complain about; yes I'll be pleased when my ADSL is restored (hopefully later today) but really, so what if it isn't? Life is too short to worry about the small things.

Don't flame me if i'm not on the ball here atm, i finished work at 6am and the coffee machine is working overtime, poor thing. I've had intermittant sync for almost a week now, not being able to get any data flow from 5:30pm - 6:20am .. it's like clockwork. Exetel Phone guy seems to think it's only me? I had a telstra dude rig up a new little junction box in the phone pit outside my house, to no avail. Is this related? My natural logic would pick an exchange problem.
I don't want to rag, i think exetel is fantastic, i'm just not a total newb and i have the 1200/75 baud commodore 64 & apple 2e modems to prove it :) Now i'll try oblivion in bed.

MY INTERNET DOESN WORK

I am at work and CANNOT reset it. Bloody hell monkeys

Updates via exetel discussion thread... the first thread has now been archived... and replaced with this.

forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=13398

That's half the problem... there doesn't seem to be a great deal of consistency as to the communication of service status issues/problems to users.

Luckily I have dial up back up... but even then I don't ever seem to receive an email to after the fact, and there isn't one spot to go to on extel.com (it could be in a number of forums that take forever to search through), and then exetel go and provide a link to Telstra's service status page (but, I am a Exetel ADSL customer).

This is my only gripe.... I appreciate how hard its been for them correcting the situation etc etc... but it's been 5 days and still no connection (and providing connectivity is their core business surely?).

If unreliability is going to become more of an issue for Exetel, then they need to do more on this front - I don't need a fancy 24 hour support centre etc... just a basic, timely, relevant one stop all I need to know (i.e. who, when, how long) service status reporting spot.

Merr1

We just lost 3 of our 512/512 connections with eXeTeL 20 minutes ago (Eastwood, Penrith & Ulladulla). Very dissapointing, as the Ulladulla office communications relies on VoIP.

Day 5 - Still no ADSL internet and still no reply from Exetel after 24 hours. All phone calls to Exetel result with a busy dial tone.

My work runs SHDSL through Exetel and i'm getting worried this could go next. If it does I can see all hell breaking loose!

I'm pretty certain there's a governing body which looks after customers whom are battered by a service provider?

Gunny writes...

We just lost 3 of our 512/512 connections with eXeTeL 20 minutes ago

There's a separate issue with the GigE server, expected to be resolved around midday. See forum-replies.cfm?t=332869

Geez I'm getting furious now. All day today and yesterday I've been trying to get through to Exetel and no one is replying through email or Exetel's line is busy!!!

I also managed to find this: www.tio.com.au/complaint_form.htm

manfred writes...

There's a separate issue with the GigE server, expected to be resolved around midday.

Thanks. I might go out for lunch, office communications (email, VPN & VoIP) is driving me nuts ATM.

ack, my net dropped out before i left home this morning, things arent looking good eh?

In case anyone hasn't heard, this last outage was a Telstra fault. It affected more than just exetel. The govt department that I work for also lost connectivity between sites on its WAN.

|Azazal| writes...

my net dropped out before i left home this morning, things arent looking good eh?

Work mates connection also wouldn't connect last night.
Anyone have any updates on the problem?

i'm currently online :)

my©at™ writes...

Work mates connection also wouldn't connect last night.

Get him to email:

adslsales@exetel.com.au

with his ADSL number and a day time contact number.

Annette Linton writes...

Get him to email:

adslsales@exetel.com.au

with his ADSL number and a day time contact number.

Thank you.

Will forward this on...