DSL Connections

[Anonymous]

Ya, Ya, I know this isn't a MRR topic, however this info may prevent one of you good folks from having to go through what I just went through for 2 weeks trying to trouble shoot my DSL Connection . Get a load of this, this is how it started..

Symptom..DSL Connection would lose sync with equipment at local telephone company Central Office, not all the time but it did seem to be focused in a time frame between 4pm- 11pm at night.

At first, I thought well maybe it's my modem, my ready light would go out and then start flickering like it was trying to re-aquire the far end equipment, so I changed to my spare modem, no change, still losing sync, so I check my cable pair from the house to the Central Office, it checks ok, next I call a friend with the phone company and he changes their equipment, still no change in situation. Now it's about a week or so later into this, and I'm just about out of ideas, then it struck like a flash bulb going off, maybe I've got a problem with my surge protector, so I eliminate that too by running my cable directly from the modem to the wall jack, guess what, Ya you got it, problem fixed, I even went back and checked other cables, no cable problems. I haven't quiet figured out why the time frame of the trouble, but I suspect that may have something to do with the connection operating marginally to begin with because of the surge protector, then with all 4 customers operating 3 meg connections, it was just too much for the modem to maintain the connection. Hope this helps someone that may have problems with a 3 meg connection. You would probably never experience this with a 1.5 meg connection since there's more than enough bandwidth to accomodate 4 customers with such connections but when you move all four up to 3 megs, I think it gets a little crowded and if you've got any kind of trouble developing on your connection, it just aggrevates the situation. So far, no more trouble, after 3 nights of operation without the surge protector but I'll have to move everything to my other surge protector. Remember, protecting against surges is a must but be sure you also protect the phone line too. Lightning will do a real number on your computor if you don't.

[cacole]

At least you were able to solve your problem. I have heard some real horror stories about DSL service being degraded during certain hours of the day, weather conditions, moon phases, whatever.

Another factor is distance from the telephone company's switch. My house is over five wire miles from the central office, so I was told that I can't get DSL at all. Cox Digital cable has no problem reaching me, even though their central office is further away, so I don't know why Qwest can't. I think digital cable systems are faster than DSL, anyway.

[darkstar974]

I had almost the same with roadrunner a year ago although it was a bit different. Last year we had a super bad storm here I heard this really loud crack and didn't think nothing of it, but when turned my computer on I noticed that my modem was on but there was no pc light on the modem so i called the cable company they came out and replaced my ethernet to usb connection it was smoked that little bugger saved my pc by taking the surge must of came in through the cable. Then i had to replace my modem two weeks later the lightning also fouled it now all is well just love ya gotta love roadrunner beep beep !!!

Dark

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cacole

At least you were able to solve your problem. I have heard some real horror stories about DSL service being degraded during certain hours of the day, weather conditions, moon phases, whatever.

Another factor is distance from the telephone company's switch. My house is over five wire miles from the central office, so I was told that I can't get DSL at all. Cox Digital cable has no problem reaching me, even though their central office is further away, so I don't know why Qwest can't. I think digital cable systems are faster than DSL, anyway.

DSL will not reach more than 3 miles and some change. Cable will reach a bit further.

One day coming soon, FTTH will arrive at your local Telco. These can reach 180 kilometers to your house without need for repeaters and have 10's of gigs of bandwidth. DSL, Cable will be made obselete the instant you are "Lit" at your house.

I am not sure if emeraldisle is trying to run 4 computers to one DSL Telephone Number with a total of 3 meg bandwidth that must be shared.... or 4 computers with 4 DSL lines (4 telephone lines) at 3 meg each.

Surge protector? I dont know that DSL lines had those. I use a Cyberpower 1500 AVR Battery Backup that is capable of operating my computer for 43 minutes in a real world black out. More than enough time to shut down safely. If there is a lightning strike, the DSL Box will take the hit, what's left gets into my motherboard and it's time to upgrade anyway.

I dont think Telco's intentonally degrade service. Both parties have signed for DSL service which should at least approach minimum levels of bandwidth 24/7 barring internet problems. I do a great deal of online gaming which requires a connection to the server of about 70 ms or less on my Yahoo and have yet to experience problems.

I am about to light a second computer for the wife to use onto my line and have no worries about bandwidth.

[jrbernier]

Surge prtetector for phone lines last as long as the first 'hit'......

Jim Bernier

[grayfox1119]

Surge protectors are available on Battery backup systems as well as power strips, and also as completely seperate units that mount on the wall next to a duplex outlet where you can connect the ground wire from the surge protector. APC makes these, and they guarantee your equipment.
They stand behind their guarantee because we took a big ground strike last August at our house. It took out two TV's one PC mother board, two enet cards, the router, the cable modem and two telephones. The hit came in through the Cable line and the power line. It was the worse bolt of lightening that I had ever experienced. People all over my neighborhood lost equipment. APC stood by their guarantee for equipment that was plugged into the APC unit. Unfortunately, my Modem, and router were not, so now I have an APC surge protector for the Cable line, and GFCI's on the TV and phone power outlets, because the equipment plugged into the ones that I had...all survived. The GFCI all tripped quick enough to protect that equipment.

As for DSL....I am only 1.5 miles form the CO ( Central Office) and I cannot use DSL, the old copper lines are too noisey...I could not even get past 33kb...that is real bad !!!!

Highiron...I am interested in FTTH....what is this technology? Some sort of enhanced fiber optics with phase modulation?

***

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar

QUOTE: Originally posted by cacole

At least you were able to solve your problem. I have heard some real horror stories about DSL service being degraded during certain hours of the day, weather conditions, moon phases, whatever.

Another factor is distance from the telephone company's switch. My house is over five wire miles from the central office, so I was told that I can't get DSL at all. Cox Digital cable has no problem reaching me, even though their central office is further away, so I don't know why Qwest can't. I think digital cable systems are faster than DSL, anyway.

DSL will not reach more than 3 miles and some change. Cable will reach a bit further.

One day coming soon, FTTH will arrive at your local Telco. These can reach 180 kilometers to your house without need for repeaters and have 10's of gigs of bandwidth. DSL, Cable will be made obselete the instant you are "Lit" at your house.

I am not sure if emeraldisle is trying to run 4 computers to one DSL Telephone Number with a total of 3 meg bandwidth that must be shared.... or 4 computers with 4 DSL lines (4 telephone lines) at 3 meg each.

Surge protector? I dont know that DSL lines had those. I use a Cyberpower 1500 AVR Battery Backup that is capable of operating my computer for 43 minutes in a real world black out. More than enough time to shut down safely. If there is a lightning strike, the DSL Box will take the hit, what's left gets into my motherboard and it's time to upgrade anyway.

I dont think Telco's intentonally degrade service. Both parties have signed for DSL service which should at least approach minimum levels of bandwidth 24/7 barring internet problems. I do a great deal of online gaming which requires a connection to the server of about 70 ms or less on my Yahoo and have yet to experience problems.

I am about to light a second computer for the wife to use onto my line and have no worries about bandwidth.

I'm running one computer on a 3meg connection at a distance of one mile from the C/O and yep, I'm on copper cable so a surge protector is a must, even on the incoming phone line. My UPS is made by APC and I was using the built in surge protector on it but have since moved the phone line to my other surge protector on a power strip. Seems to have licked the problem. I also read on the Phone CompaniesTech Support Page that EMF from power sources can cause a problem so cable routing can present some challenges.


Grayfox..FTTH is "Fiber To The House".Local phone companies are already gearing up for this. Most have had test bed communities running on it for 3-5 years with great success. Cost was the major factor for a while, but then the Co-Locator/Reseller issues came up and the incentive to deploy the technology was no longer there because Local Phone Companies would put in the technology and then have to turn around and lease it out to competitors at below cost. Thats no longer true now so lookout Cable TV, FTTH is on the way. Once deployed DS3 to the house is just a matter of time. BTW, I've heard through the Grape Vine , that 4-wire 6 megs is due out by years end or early in 2006.

[Anonymous]

One of the key issues with DSL operation is that you either have to put a filter between the wall and every other phone device in your house (including fax machines, alarms, etc) or you have to put a master filter at the phone box before the DSL line comes into your house. You can get funny problems on both the DSL and the phone if you don't

[Anonymous]

As for DSL....I am only 1.5 miles form the CO ( Central Office) and I cannot use DSL, the old copper lines are too noisey...I could not even get past 33kb...that is real bad !!!!

Highiron...I am interested in FTTH....what is this technology? Some sort of enhanced fiber optics with phase modulation?


I am less than 300 yards from my Telco and enjoy good clean service. I had dailup for years.

Now, I did a paper in college on FTTH and I used a web site that is managed by the government that includes a "powerpoint" on FTTH. That site tries to speak in plain engli***he current state of FTTH in America. This information is already a year old.

Verizon and others have upped DSL to 6 meg down in a last ditch effort to ward off certain doom from the FttH.

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tutorial/FTTH_Tutorial-8-7-03.ppt

You may be able to download a powerpoint viewer if you dont already have the ability to view these.

They try to keep the "Tech Babble" down but bottom line computers will be so connected at bandwidths that are so huge and so fast riding the light... and the reach of this fiber optic cable will enable to most remote home anywhere in america to have FTTH.

If you do a search on New Egg, You will find that Gigabit conncetions to Fiber lines can be built at the house where you have the fiber coming in. From there you can have everything, Satellite TV, Cable, Telephone, Internet, Live Streaming Broadcasts going on at once all over the house. And instead of 4-6 bills to pay for each service you subscribe to, you only need to pay one bill.

The FTTH technology has been in use across America these last several years. It's deployment nationwide has the same impact as the telephone did back in the 50's It is a truly historical time for us.

[Leon Silverman]

The horror stories about telephone DSL are real because Verizon does not provide accurate information to the computor stores about service availabilty. I signed up for Vorizon DSL when I purchased my home computor and had to wait two weeks for the service to even initiate. If wasn't until then that I found out I was too far away from the switchboard to get the service. My next door neighbor, who has a different telephone exchange, had no problem getting the Verizon DSL service. Switching to Comcast had me up and running within 24 hours since I already had Comcast digital TV cable service.
This problem may not occur in urban neighborhoods but I live in the Pine Barrens in the middle of southern New Jersey.

[Anonymous]

I have SBC DSL and I wouldnt go back to dial up for anyone even if it were free for life and cable is just to high in cost, The only thing I hate about my DSL is there browser it will not allow me to right click on a picture and get the properties so I can copy and paste URL's. I have to open up a regular Internet explorer program and surf that way to do anything. SBC was no help in trying to fix this issue.

[Anonymous]

polizi.. are you using Mozilla? My latest Mozilla will not do that, I use the Yahoo's own browser to get the images.

I hardly ever ever use the IE.

[Anonymous]

Highiron, I am just using the yahoo browser that was part of there software, I called SBC but they were very unhelpful they were more of the opinion that "oh well you cant have it all" so I will just use my Internet Explorer to do all my posting of pictures.

[Anonymous]

Polizi can you provide me with examples of your being unable to right click pictures? I too use the SBC's yahoo browser (Which is used when needed) and want to see if there is a solution to your issue.

Do you know of specific pictures you are trying to "Pick up"? I would like to take a shot and see if I can find a way to "Lift" them and help you get them.

Keep in mind I think certain pictures such as found in Military.com are protected by the server which refuses a right click (You would be notified via dialouge box) especially on some videos.

Failing that, a third party screen capture program may be able to "snap" what is on your screen and you could still get the decent copy that way.

[Anonymous]

if you were to go to the web site on my signature it will bring up photos that I have taken and posted on rail images. If i am using my SBC browser and I right click on any of the pictures in any size I do not get a choice of properties in my list of options but if I do the same thing using IE I get the properties option.