Hello GZ friends,

At our office, we have BizNet VDSL provisioned by TelstraClear.  We have nine workstations (a mix of Mac and PC) connected by both wired and wireless to a Linksys WRT54GL router.  That router is connected to a Thomson modem/router that Telstra provided (one of these, I believe):

http://www.technicolorbroadbandpartner.com/dsl-modems-gateways/products/product-detail.php?id=186&seg=7

So, that's a broad overview of the setup.  Most of the time, this works okay, and we get a pretty constant ~14mbps connection speed.

HOWEVER, around 3-4 times a day, our net connection drops.  I log into the LinkSys, and it shows it's disconnected from the net, and it can't reconnect for a good two minutes, claiming an authentication error of sorts.  I talked to Telstra support about this, and they said the reason the auth error is bubbling up is because they think we're still connected, and therefore our reconnect attempts are denied.  However, after about two minutes, it seems like Telstra realizes we're no longer connected and clears us for reconnection.

Telstra's advice to us has thus far been "Replace your Linksys", or to be prepared to have a technician of theirs come out at a cost to us.

Before I replace the Linksys, which operated perfectly on Orcon before we switched to Telstra, I thought I'd run the issue past you lot, O Great Ones ;-) with the added knowledge that we have realized the connection drops when someone leaves their desk for more than five minutes.

Yes, when someone goes to lunch or out for coffee or whatever, that's when the connection drops.  It doesn't happen every time someone leaves, but every time it goes down, someone HAS left (if that makes sense -- i.e. someone walking out doesn't indisputably result in a drop, but drops only occur when someone's gone out).

This is doing our heads in, and given the fairly specific nature of the fault, I thought I'd run it up the flagpole.

Eventually I'll replace the router, and if that doesn't work, get a Telstra tech out.  However, wanted to start here, 'cos y'know, we all love tricky problems, right?

Cheers!