MTNL Broadband stops working all of a sudden? There is hope.

Everyone has faced it. For some, it’s a daily affair. For some, it happens once in a month. But it happens just when you plan to check that important email you have received.

Here is the problem:

For no apparent reason, your broadband Internet connection ceases to work. All your modem lights glow normally. You plug and unplug your modem a million times hoping that it might work with a reboot. Then you check your telephone line, anticipating that your phone line might be dead. Finally you call up the customer care. What happens on the phone is a story in itself –

If you are lucky enough to call at a time when their queue is not “full”, you are put on a waiting, generally for a few minutes. Then you are greeted with the usual sarkari voice… You explain the problem and the agent invariably asks you to restart your modem. If that does not work, you are asked to login to your router’s control panel as he painfully confirms whether all your settings are correct. If they are, they issue you a complaint number and assure you that someone from MTNL would contact you shortly and look into the problem. When they will actually turn up is left to God’s grace.

The culprit:

Assuming that you really did not mess up your modem’s internal settings or your computer’s network settings, the culprit is most likely to be MTNL’s DNS server. DNS (domain name server) converts human friendly names like “www.yahoo.com” and “www.google.com” to IP addresses, which machines use to recognize each other on a computer network. If the DNS server is down, your domain name requests (which is sent after hitting Enter after filling up a URL on the browser’s address bar) won’t get converted to the correct IP address and hence you will not be able to “reach” that website. Damn!

The solution:

Your choice of DNS is not restricted to using MTNL’s own DNS. I recently found a free for all DNS server at www.opendns.com. (If you want to know how to change your DNS server settings, I suggest you do a simple Google search.) Before changing to their DNS servers, I suggest you note down your original settings somewhere, just in case you want to revert.

I have been using Open DNS for quite a while, and I have not experience any Internet downtime so far. So it’s definitely worth changing to. Moreover, I feel reassured that in case Open DNS goes down, I can revert to MTNL’s own DNS and start surfing! (Hopefully, both shouldn’t be down at the same time).

If you have any comments, suggestions or feedback on this article, please leave me a comment.

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Comments

  1. What you say about DNS seems to be correct, I’ll also give it a try.

    Another remedy I have discovered is by engaging your telephone line, simply dial your own phone number to engage the telephone line and lo, thr broadband starts running fit and fine.

    MTNL is aware of the problem and this weird solution but, do not have a proper solution for the problem.

  2. What you say about DNS seems to be correct, I’ll also give it a try.Another remedy I have discovered is by engaging your telephone line, simply dial your own phone number to engage the telephone line and lo, thr broadband starts running fit and fine.MTNL is aware of the problem and this weird solution but, do not have a proper solution for the problem.

  3. m definitely gonna try this coz my broadband is messed up for over 3 weeks now and no solution from mtnl thus far. I got night unlimited plan and it doesnt seem to be workin at night since past 3 days, mtnl’s doin this on purpose i reckon

  4. m definitely gonna try this coz my broadband is messed up for over 3 weeks now and no solution from mtnl thus far. I got night unlimited plan and it doesnt seem to be workin at night since past 3 days, mtnl’s doin this on purpose i reckon

  5. m definitely gonna try this coz my broadband is messed up for over 3 weeks now and no solution from mtnl thus far. I got night unlimited plan and it doesnt seem to be workin at night since past 3 days, mtnl’s doin this on purpose i reckon

  6. m definitely gonna try this coz my broadband is messed up for over 3 weeks now and no solution from mtnl thus far. I got night unlimited plan and it doesnt seem to be workin at night since past 3 days, mtnl’s doin this on purpose i reckon

  7. This could be a infrastructure bottleneck. I think if other people are facing the same, they would be working on it.

    However, it makes sense to go for complete broadband plan now. Rates have been slashed further.

    In general, I feel Airtel might be a better service provider for broadband connections than MTNL. They even have a 512 kbps plan at affordable rates.

  8. This could be a infrastructure bottleneck. I think if other people are facing the same, they would be working on it.However, it makes sense to go for complete broadband plan now. Rates have been slashed further.In general, I feel Airtel might be a better service provider for broadband connections than MTNL. They even have a 512 kbps plan at affordable rates.

  9. Short n Sweet, put the below as your DNS Server Address [at Local Area Connection Properties n Router] in place of the MTNL provided 203.94.243.70 or whatever

    208.67.222.222
    208.67.220.220

  10. Short n Sweet, put the below as your DNS Server Address [at Local Area Connection Properties n Router] in place of the MTNL provided 203.94.243.70 or whatever208.67.222.222208.67.220.220

  11. This was very useful for me Thanks a ton I got my net working again ..esp the last comment by yogen singh was the best Thanks once again

  12. This was very useful for me Thanks a ton I got my net working again ..esp the last comment by yogen singh was the best Thanks once again

  13. Hi
    I am into a strange problem.
    Every midnight the Internet goes down, the connection status is connected and all led glows but I cannot open any webpage
    Morning 6:30 AM it starts working fine.
    MTNL as usual has no clue what to do. Does anyone has any solution to this issue.

  14. Hi, Gaurav! you have helped me solve the biggest irritation causing problem! Thanks!

  15. Hi..
    Thanks a ton. That pain in the ass MTNL dns problem solved..
    Lovely piece of info.

  16. It has been years and MTNL is still not able to solve the issue. Don’t you smell anything. Its a Sarkari Company and are not interested actually. They earn better this way. Once they start resolving the issues, these people will not get money as consumers will stick to MTNL and not switch-over to Private players. I had registered the complaint many times during last few weeks. The result – No Resolution, No Call back. Because of these Sarkari Damaads, I have lost business opportunities. It is my curse on them that these people will not be never able to live happily. They don’t understand what CUSTOMER means.

  17. OH MY GOOD LORD!! THANK YOU! Finally I caan open the sites I needed. OpenDNS’s server name worked. PHEW! Thanks for the article xD

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