SatSig topic:

Tooway Downtime

(Read 17437 times)

Jul 25^th, 2009 at 5:37am

Is anybody else have a problem with Tooway going down regularly or is is just me?

Jul 25^th, 2009 at 9:34am

Yes, my TooWay is VERY unpredictable at the moment, I have gone back to using dial-up for anything important.

Both lights are on solidly on my modem but there are many periods of no connectivity, not very good.

I have raised tickets but the problem then corrects its self so I close them, what can we do?

I am sure it is not my hardware but we have been having very thundery weather here in Wales and that doesn't make sorting things out any easier!

Regards,

Tony

Jul 25^th, 2009 at 11:33am

That is very interesting to hear. I contacted BW and they said I was the only one who has complained about it. Like you I have a solid light on the incoming signal from the satellite and a flashing light outgoing, which is as it should be and proves that there is no interference between the modem and the satellite, so one assumes it must be a problem between the satellite and ground station. I have one computer connected directly to the modem and 2 connected via a router. When they go down they all go together, so it is not the router. I had 24 hours without a connection the other weekend ansd I have been without a connection since last night. I have re-booted the modem and router several times and I have changed the cable between the computer and modem and tried another router, but it does not help. I am now resorting to dial-up also. Not a happy bunny as I have paid a year in advance. BW say all they can do is contact Tooway.

It was very interesting to hear a techie say to someone else when I called up " Does any one know of any problems with Tooway, other than it is Tooway"!! Not very encouraging when they are saying on their site how good it is.

If there is anyone else with the same problem then I think we should contact them as one body.

Jul 25^th, 2009 at 12:05pm

My TooWay has now re-connected and is working ok having been off last evening and all this morning. I have been giving Turin the benefit of the doubt because of the obvious likely hood of problems getting the speed upgrade working. This very welcome when it works but frustrating when we have so many down times.

I had a notice from BW about an RF component replacement at the base station causing loss of service overnight a a day or so ago, so I assume that all is not sorted yet.

I have just renewed my service for another 3 months but will be expecting better things before I renew again.

Let us hope the situation improves soon.

Regards,

Tony

Jul 26^th, 2009 at 10:12pm

Hello,

I use tooway couple of days. But noticed that connection is unstable.
Should I use DHCP or just hardcode IP/DNS into my rooter?
Tried to connect SM direct to PC but the situation doesn't change.

ipconfig
inet addr:95.210.25.168 Bcast:95.210.31.255 Mask:255.255.240.0

arp
(95.210.16.1) at 00:30:b8:c6:95:00 [ether] on eth1

PING 95.210.16.1 (95.210.16.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 95.210.16.1 ping statistics ---
62 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 61143ms

as you see I'm unable to ping gateway!

Surely nothing works.

Where I can find user manual for my SM2101?
User's guide that I've received with the package doesn't explain too much. Surely, I expected much more documentation available.
When connection is lost and ping doesn't work then user starts to think what is wrong.

Sometime if I renew dhcp. I get back the same configuration but tooway starts to work.

Is there a simple "how to" that explains how to connect modem to the router? Does it have 100mbps or 10mbps port, and so on.

Mystery.

Jul 27^th, 2009 at 9:40am

Hello,

I connect my router to SM's Ethernet port. Then the router runs DHCP client to acquire IP/DNS info from Tooway.

The router receives:

Remaining Lease Time 00:49:22
IP Address 95.210.21.167
Subnet Mask 255.255.240.0
Gateway 95.210.16.1
Domain Name Server 212.31.224.2, 172.26.48.7

If I connected my PC to the modem directly then I get different IP =95.210.25.168 (PC's NIC adapter has different MAC) but same DNS and gateway IP.

After that I ping 95.210.16.1 from the router/PC. Nothing in response.

What does it mean? I shouldn't use DHCP to get my IP address? DNS? Why there is no answer from gateway 95.210.16.1?

It worked but it doesn't now.

thank you for help.

Jul 27^th, 2009 at 10:44am

Suddenly It works.
Ping 95.210.16.1 Successfully!
Mystery.

Jul 27^th, 2009 at 11:21am

You are lucky! Mine has been off from yesterday evening and only worked briefly this morning. It is still off now I am having to use dial-up again.

Have raised a ticket with BW but if it follows previous patterns it will suddenly work again.

I should say the the top 2 lights on the modem are on rock solid, I have rebooted several times and renewed IP address several times also but to no avail. There is something very strange going on with my (lack of) connection.

Regards,

Tony

Jul 27^th, 2009 at 11:52am

I see B&W have addedd "there is currently a DNS outage at the NOC, should return soon" to my ticket - it has just! But this or something like it is happening regularly. I do hope it can be sorted soon, patience is wearing a little thin.

Regards,

Tony

Jul 28^th, 2009 at 10:26am

Bingo!
It works great.
many thanks.

Aug 1^st, 2009 at 5:25pm

I have had big problems with losing connection for the last month. In fact ever since Tooway Upgrade went in. I can lose connection every few minutes over and over again. Sometime I give up and drive a few miles to a landline connection. That is how bad it has got. Sometimes the modem manages to work for an hour. Often the modem disconnects and won't reconnect for hours. It seems random, not weather related and is VERY POOR SERVICE.
I Have logged a series of tickets with BW . They don't seem able to tell me anything or help . Couple of days ago I ran diagnostics that seemed to point at their system losing the IP address. I used to have a fixed IP address (like us all). It appears not to be anymore. I have asked BW if I now have a dynamic IP address but no response yet. I have asked BW if there is a problem with IP addresses being lost and I got this answer An anomaly on IP assignation for a certain pool of terminals on French and Spanish networks could be temporarily present causing the connectivity problem. I took the word anomaly to mean ERROR and that it might get fixed? It seemed pretty vague and don't know why these networks could affect me - I thought I was Wales via Turin. Noone seemed able to tell if this was what is affecting me, and it was me that offered it as a potential solution - so it may well be a red herring. But in the absence of any progress (or contact) from BW - I am desperate. No timescale was given for fixing it and I haven't heard anymore. The call has been marked for closure by BW. This afternoon the link seems to be ok. But that is the first time in a month so I won't be holding my breath.

Aug 3^rd, 2009 at 7:11pm

Last few days have seen the modem stay connected for longer periods. However this afternoon the disconnects started again, sadly.

Aug 5^th, 2009 at 10:19am

Cut off about six times last night. Totally unusable.
Already dropped out twice this morning.
No response to tickets logged with BW.
No advice.

Aug 6^th, 2009 at 11:33am

We are an authorised installer/reseller in Spain and all of our customers experienced a very torrid time of it during June and July.

Since the maintenance on 23rd July, things have generally been much better, however, we have received a couple of reports this week where customers have a steady lock light, but performance has been either poor or non-existent.

Both cases have been logged with BW for investigation, but they have experienced difficulty with connecting to and examining the affected modem remotely, even though it is clearly locked on the customer's side. We have checked alignment, cabling and used a "known and clean" PC, but the results are still the same - initial google page, but subsequent pages or searches and painfully slow or failing. Customer is not under FAP.

We are going to the site this afternoon to investigate further and see what results we get after changing the modem and/or ODU.

Without wishing to jump the gun, this could be similar to the software issues that we have seen in the past, but our investigation this afternoon will help to determine this.

I'll post an update later to advise how it goes, as it might prove useful to others.

Aug 6^th, 2009 at 8:49pm

Sounds familiar to my situation.
I lose connection suddenly for no apparent reason.
Or two lights locked but Page not Found.
Or painfully slow.
Occasionally it works great!
Seems to have started this since June . When it works the speeds are faster. But most of the time it fails soon after.

It is helpful if anyone having problems posts a note, as then we are able to see it is not an isolated problem.

Aug 7^th, 2009 at 11:29am

We suffer an average of 3-6 unexplained drop outs every day - particularly annoying if one is in the middle of an https activity!
When the system is up, down speeds are generally an improvement on the pre-service-upgrade, up speeds still the same.
Latency has only improved slightly though - always a fault with Tooway in my experience (compared witth SkyDSL for example).
Current rating of Tooway - I'm a dissatisfied customer - in the year and a half we've had it, it has never functioned correctly for more than a few days at a time.

Aug 8^th, 2009 at 12:06pm

To be honest I have had enough. I have been down over 6 days in the last 3 weeks and to add insult to injury the now have me on full throttle as I am 6 Mb over my limit. I wish I had not paid a year in advance as my contract ends the end on November. I will not be renewing it. Luckily we have just got ADSL in our village and I am going to sign up with them now, even though it is a slower speed, but hopefully more reliable and no throttling.

Aug 8^th, 2009 at 12:39pm

Outcome of our customer site visit was that both a change of modem and ODU was the only solution for ensuring the return of "normal" service - very unusual for both components to be problematic and we did test each individually, but the only solution was the replacement of both elements.

Unfortunately, not helpful for this particular thread, but I have received calls from at least 35 of our Tooway customers who are suffering with 10 mins on, 10 mins off at the moment. BW are aware of the problem and I'm reliably informed that Anthony Walker spent most of Thursday morning on the phone to Skylogic trying to establish a cause and resolution to what has been a long ongoing lack of stability. which is now affecting user across all parts of Europe.

From our own support records, I know that the system was reliable and performing very well up until 5th June 2009 - that was the first major impact which affected all of our customers. After battling with BW & Skylogic for 2 weeks to actually accept the existence of a problem, there was a short period of improvement, followed soon after by further widespread reports of connection loss and/or slow upload speeds. Pretty much throughout the whole of June and most of July, performance and reliability on Tooway KA band in Spain was poor.

After the Turin RF maintenance on 23rd July, things appeared to be much better, with good speed and reliability, but this week has seen a return of the bad old days.

Understandably, many of our customers are getting very hacked-off with Tooway as a solution and are suggesting that they will not be renewing their annual contracts or are getting closer and closer to losing patience and considering early termination.

Such a great system has now become a 9 week nightmare for both customers and resellers. My own guess (and I stress the word "guess") is that the hardware is very good, but all of the problems are down to buggy software and what appears to be poor version control (because one fix appears to generate other problems).

Let's hope the right people are taking this seriously and working hard to resolve these issues once and for all. If I hear any further info, I will update the thread.

Aug 8^th, 2009 at 12:55pm

Forgot to add ...

One of the earlier threads had mentioned intermittent DNS problems and that certainly fits with some observation we made yesterday. A modem reboot improved the situation, but that might have been fortunate timing rather than a cause/solution.

We're also finding 10 minute delays in IP addresses and TX signal/noise levels being correctly registered for systems we have installed in the last few weeks. IP address shows as 0.0.0.0 which a status of "Error fetching status" and TX level shows as zero - we do nothing except wait of 10/15 mins and suddenly everything returns to normal and we're able to activate.

Definitely something funny going on with the network...

Aug 9^th, 2009 at 9:40am

Yet again been down this morning for the last 6 hours. Having to use dial-up!!! Have not even been able to access Tooway usage stats for the last day, get the message "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 62.49.2.48:9090.".

Aug 11^th, 2009 at 10:21am

It seems to me that the system gives most trouble during weekends and evenings. Daytime during the week is pretty good in my experience and the modem light goes solid at all times.

Do others agree or this just me?

If this is the case, I suspect that the servers just can't handle the number of people trying to log on at busy times. - reminds me of dialup in 1992!

Perhaps EUTELSAT's public relations people announced the upgrade sooner than their techies could deliver.

richard

Aug 12^th, 2009 at 7:21am

My modem light is solid even when I have no signal. The modem light shows that you have a connection to the satellite, not that you have a connection to the base station. If it flickers or goes out it means you have a problem between you and the satellite, ie bad weather.

Aug 13^th, 2009 at 3:40pm

Hi everyone,

Good news - I hope ...

I have been reliably informed by Bentley Walker that Skylogic's Tooway engineers (in conjunction with BW) worked tirelessly during last weekend to address the long-outstanding issues regarding reliably/stability and more recently, the IP timeout issues (mentioned higher-up in this thread).

Hopefully, things should be much better now (reboot your modem if you haven't done so since before last weekend), but it is absolutely essential that you report any slowness or connectivity issues to BW or your reseller as soon as possible, so that the issues can be investigated and addressed accordingly.

Feel free to PM me if you wish to discuss further.

Aug 15^th, 2009 at 8:46am

Thank you Inland Computers for providing your useful information and insights.
It has always irked me how we rarely see on this forum honest info on the faults with Tooway from any of those actually involved in supplying the system.
Pretending everything is hunky dory all the time, refusing to acknowledge there are problems or just keeping silent are never going to help Tooway become what it so easily could be with some TLC by SkyLogic - a very good alternative to landline ADSL, if a little pricey.

Aug 25^th, 2009 at 10:12pm

Is anyone else back to having problems with Tooway?

Last couple of days haven't been great. Then today (25th Aug) has been terrible.
I have been unable to connect all day, then managed to get on but very slow for about an hour or so this evening, then down again for two hours. Just come back now.

Sean has phoned me as he has been totally unable to connect all day and night.

Both of us seem to be back to the IP address problem that was happening a few weeks ago.

Anyone else getting problems?

Aug 25^th, 2009 at 11:20pm

Quote:

Is anyone else back to having problems with Tooway?

Last couple of days haven't been great. Then today (25th Aug) has been terrible.
I have been unable to connect all day, then managed to get on but very slow for about an hour or so this evening, then down again for two hours. Just come back now.

Sean has phoned me as he has been totally unable to connect all day and night.

Both of us seem to be back to the IP address problem that was happening a few weeks ago.

Anyone else getting problems?

No reports of any problem from our clients (mainly Spain). Also our own test system online 24/7 (Barcelona, Spain).

Aug 26^th, 2009 at 10:09am

We have been carefully monitoring network stability with the Tooway network operators and request that any clients with outstanding problems please contact myself james@bentleywalker.com / +44 2392 311118 and Mr Anthony Walker anthony@bentleywalker.com so that we may progress the issue.

Aug 26^th, 2009 at 11:22am

James-BW wrote
Quote:

request that any clients with outstanding problems.... so that we may progress the issue.

I'm about to become a Tooway user, so I'm very interested in these downtimes

My question is: are these troubles related to Tooway/Eutelsat central infrastructure?
If so, I do not understand why you need info from single users since it should affect any user.

If not, that means these troubles might affect some but not all users. Is this related to geography? Such us France is OK and Spain is down? Or to some hardware/firmware/software issue?

Sorry for these newby questions

Nana
Italy

Aug 26^th, 2009 at 12:34pm

25th was mostly good here apart from some rain fade late in the day. Annoyingly the sat-modem needed a reset to recover from that...it stuck with the two top lights on, but nobody home

Aug 26^th, 2009 at 12:53pm

The Skylogic hub has multiple parts, any of which might, if faulty or partially faulty, affect small or large groups of customers, so it is important that any and all users who experience problems should report them promptly so that someone, hopefully, might put 2 and 2 together and work out what part of the hub system is at fault. On the radio side there are multiple beams, outlink and 4 return spot beams, plus multiple carriers on the TDMA return link direction. On the IP side, routers, QoS, traffic throttling, DNS etc there are similarly multiple possible failure or degradation possibilities, plus configuration error possibilites.

Ideally, such complex teleport hubs need real time monitoring to observe and raise an alarm if any customers are not getting what they have paid for. Until that time it would be appreciated if as many customers as possible should report any problems and not suffer in silence. Skylogic don't deal with end user customers and rely on resellers to collate and return such information. The major European resellers, Bentley Walker and Europe Satellite (El Molino) have significant 'leverage' with Eutelsat/Skylogic but can only make progress with plenty of feedback from you, the end users. Please help.

There is only one hub for the present Tooway Ka band system - in Milan. Later, if KaSAT is successful, the system will be expanded to 82 spot beams with 8 teleport gateway hubs.

Ref: Tooway satellite service

Best regards, Eric.

Aug 29^th, 2009 at 6:50pm

Eric Johnston wrote
Quote:

Does anyone know of companies bidding to become TooWay hubs in the KaSAT system ?

A customer of Sistelbanda SA (Spain) has contacted me and mentioned that they are advising their clients that Skylogic has given them control of the Tooway network for Spain.

Not sure if it's true or just a bit of marketing on Sistelbanda's part. Interesting though.

Incidently, since my previous posts in this thread, Anthony Walker has been excellent in pressing Skylogic into improving system stability and supporting us in resolving a couple of specific cases. I'm pleased to report that all of our customers are now delighted with the improvements and the return of an overall great service.

But Eric is absolutely correct - don't suffer in silence, you must report issues and press your reseller hard to give you the support you are paying for. One of our competitors has a nasty habit of palming customers off with the same old line of going over FAP limits, when a little time and interest can sometimes identify other problems which might need addressing.