I have two locations each with a DSL modem and a firewall that makes a VPN tunnel for a secure connection that allows users in the branch office use terminal services on a Win2K server to access a LOB applications in the corp office.

The branch office has recently...last month or so....been experiencing disconnects that have been affecting their ability to work. Nowhere have I seen anything logged to account for this...

Users simply get a "Your connection has been broken, this may be due to a network error...."

When I do a continuous ping from the branch to the internet...www.yahoo.com...the access times are solid and there are no timeouts, however, when I do a continuous ping to the corp location terminal server, (through the vpn tunnel) access times vary wildly (10-1300ms) and there are occasionally timeouts...those I assume are the cause of the disconnects....

From ths corp location I do continuous pings to the internet e.g www.yahoo.com and experience varying times and occasional timeouts....the same when I ping the branch oofice's modem, server or firewall...

The DSL provider has been telling me that it must be my setup, however, I have placed a standalone pc on the dsl modem at the corporate location bypassing all other networking equipment and experienced the same problems...

Any comments or directions to help me troubleshoot this?