I use an Airtel home phone and their DSL connection. Airtel provided me with a Beetel ADSL + Wireless router many years ago, and it still does the job, but it seemed slow and clunky. So in September 2012, I ordered my replacement ADSL + Wireless router - and chose the DLink DSL-2750U from Flipkart. This got delivered quickly and I had it up and running in no time. The wireless connection was great (though limited to only 16 wireless clients) and the range/ speed was much better than the older Beetel device. That being said, I noticed occasional wireless drops with this router - every couple of hours, the wireless would reset itself for like a minute, all the wireless clients would get disconnected and the SSID would not be visible, and then a minute or two later, the SSID would appear and all the clients would connect again. This was initially not a big deal, but I decided to escalate to Flipkart technical support. They got back with the standard "Reset the router and try again" response, which I did, but still experienced the network drops. After that, Flipkart and I played phone tag for a couple of days, and ultimately did not connect, so I was past the Flipkart 30 days return period. Fast forward from Sep 2012 to Aug 2013, and I'm still facing the wireless drops every few hours. This was getting irritating by now, especially if I was on a Web conference and sharing my screen, or joining the call via VOIP. And lo and behold - my wife's work was getting interrupted as well, so that drove me to seek out DLink support to find a fix for the issue. A quick search revealed the D-Link website, and also the fact that they had a chat support for my product. I decided to try the chat support; the agent was helpful, but came back with the standard recommendations of "Reset the router" etc. Did all that, tested for a day, and still the same wireless disconnects. Time for my support attempt #2, this time I called the Dlink support center (India toll free #: 18002330000), and spoke with an agent. Fairly courteous, but very worried about wireless interference, and whether that could be causing the drops. Luckily I have a neat app on my phone/ tablet - called the "Wifi analyser", and have used it in the past to find the best channel for my router (and subsequently changed the wifi router to Channel 1). I used it quickly again, and reconfirmed that there was hardly any interference at Channel 1. The agent then forced me to reset my router again, and was on the phone helping me to reconfigure it. He insisted that I change my SSID, leave the channel as default (auto), and so on. When I told him I've done this in the past, he assured me they have to go through the standard debugging steps, and if it does not work out, they'll process a replacement. Hung up, tried the router for a day, and faced the same wireless drop issue again. Time for my support attempt #3, again chose the phone route. Fresh agent, but "discovered" they have a new firmware update released in July 2013, and insisted that I try this firmware update. He said he would email the new firmware, which he did immediately. Interesting that D-Link is using sendspace to send their official firmware, and not the standard HTTP or FTP based support site on Dlink.co.in! I downloaded and installed the firmware, only to find that the software version number had not changed. It was now time for support attempt #4 - this time to confirm if the firmware was indeed new as the version number was the same. The agent confirmed that "Dlink has not changed the version number, but you have the new firmware version if you can see USB storage support showing up" - which it was. Trying the new firmware for a day or two now, and if it does not work out, then time for call #5 to Dlink! In summary:
Cheers Nimish |
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