Too hot: a sunshade cools the Telekom junction box

In Liederbach, a community west of Frankfurt am Main, a telecoms farce has taken place: Because Telekom was unable to cool a junction box sufficiently, the residents who were cut off from the internet quickly put up a parasol.

Local residents find out the reason for themselves

According to bild.de, the DSL connection of some residents in Liederbach kept failing. This problem first appeared in May 2022 and then kept coming back. Finally, one of the residents happened to notice that there was always a loud hum in the distribution box on the street when the daytime temperatures rose to typical summer values. With high outside temperatures and direct sunlight on the junction box, however, the DSL connection also failed from time to time. An affected person did the test and parked his van in front of the junction box to protect it from the sun’s rays – the internet connection was working again after a few minutes.

The cooling in the junction box was obviously not sufficient. Around 400 people were affected, who even shared information in a Facebook group. Only in the evening, when the temperatures dropped again because the sun was lower in the sky and the temperatures in the junction box were dropping, did the internet come back.

Parasol cools

Opening a parasol over the junction box also successfully cooled it. So the problem was identified, from outside temperatures of around 30 degrees, the distribution box could no longer be sufficiently cooled and therefore switched itself off. But the solution by Deutsche Telekom as the operator of the distribution box still took a while.

Because Telekom did not initially react, as the affected resident Petra Rüdiger told bild.de. Telekom only sent a technician when the tabloid newspaper got involved. He installed air heat exchangers and rebuilt the roof to improve air circulation.