Hi,
I've got ADSL internet but it cuts out all the time, my phone line is quite long and it may be the cause. I'm darned sick of these cut outs. Is there anything anybody knows that could help me?
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Hi,
I've got ADSL internet but it cuts out all the time, my phone line is quite long and it may be the cause. I'm darned sick of these cut outs. Is there anything anybody knows that could help me?
I personally don't have ADSL. But i've heard of people suffering cut outs etc, and they seemed to be able to fix it just by moving there computer closer to the phone jack, thus enabling them to use a shorter cable from the modem to the outlet..Quote:
Originally Posted by kyoji
also have you tried giving your ISP a call and get them to manually test the line, maybe there is something not right happening from there end..
just a few thoughts..
cheers
acidtone..:)
Your ISP shouldn't sell you an internet package that "cuts out" every few minutes because they can check how suitable the line is for the service they're offering you. To be honest, the broadband market is scandalous at the moment, with so many half truths and misrepresentations. There's a whole host of reasons why you might not be getting the service you signed up for, including BT's ancient copper wires struggling to provide speeds of anywhere near the promised 8 megs, traffic shaping in busy periods, capping by nearly all ISPs (I can only think of Blueyonder and AOL who don't).
Cheap broadband packages, or deals like Orange are offering may sound tempting but pared-to-the-bone broadband is a very flakey business with technical help often costing premium rates and companies providing what ought to be so many additional benefits, yet ending up with increasing numbers of dissatisfied customers. "Free" broadband is often only free along with a phone package when you sign an 18 month contract and only 4 out of 10 subscribers to the 8Mbps maxdsl service will enjoy speeds of even 6Mb.
BT Wholesale reports that download speeds are dependent on at least nine different factors, which include distance from the exchange, your ISP's investment in its network, the local weather, the location of the site you're accessing and how well the internet is performing that day. Poor internal wiring, electrical noise and low quality hardware are other factors involved. ISPs make use of these "excuses" to provide slower than promised speeds.
Try replacing the patch cord between your modem and the wall, then replace the phone jack on the wall, a little oxidation can ruin your day
Do you have all the Filters in the relevant places? If so it may be worth replacing the one your PC is on. If you have a dodgy filter it is possible to get dissconnected everytime someone phones you.
The length of your phone line shouldn't have much, if any, impact on the service providing the cable is intact....
I agree, compared to the length of cable between you and the exchange, the distance within your house is negligable.
Sometimes those drops are due to improperly insulated phone wires. I've been through this with DSL. Personally, to me, DSL will never be truly viable until complete fiber optics are used in a given area.
OK kyoji,
Where are you and what provider are you using?................what is the service supposed to be?
I use BT (I am in the UK) and do not have much of a problem............... you can get problems if water gets into the system.............
I would get your DSL provider to check your line............ they can possibly increase the "gain" on your connection?;)
AFAIK increasing the Gain only works for dial up?
You are probably right from a technical viewpoint, but I know they can do some sort of "tweaking" for ADSL?
It is the same copper wire system I suppose?
Beyond my technical capabilities I am afraid:(
mine too :D
I am a dsl technician. The length of your cord has a lot to do with your service. The wires inside your house and in the network providing you are solid wire. Station wires are stranded and cause problems once you get past 20 feet of wire. Get a technician to place a wire run directly from your interface to your modem and have him filter it there. That will keep the signal from going throughout the rest of your home. Also have the tech remove any wire on your assigned wire pair that isnt nessecary in the network(such as if the wiring providing service to you keeps going past your house.) That can make a world of difference. If you have anymore question please pm me. Thanks
Hi Boogymantroy, it is nice to know that we have someone with your skillset around. :)
This is a small town and I drink with the two guys who mostly look after DSL. They are great guys, as they have put quite a lot of business my way. On my part I provide first line phone in support for those "problems" that have been reported as DSL but aren't:D
OK, I don't get paid for that, but I look on it as free advertising? and frequently there is some business for me.
I am aware that we are primarily a security site, but I am a firm believer in the "one stop shop" concept................. or, at least, in sub-contracting;)
I wish we had someone we could refer to around here. I am limited on how much I can do on a customers computer. But you could imagine how many times I am asked in a day. I tell a customer that their service is working correctly. Show them I can surf on my laptop. They arent happy til their computer will go online(which I would be mad too). Problem is we arent allowed to refer anyone to any kind of repair shop or computer savy people just to get adware, spyware, or browser hijackers removed. So that really adds to the undesirable part of my job. Other than that I love it.
Hi Boogymantroy, if you're an engineer then I can't argue with what you're saying. I can only tell you that when I've had internet problems and on the few occasions I've bugged my ISP to test the line, they've *insisted* I plug the internet directly into the master socket which is a right PITA, but it hasn't actually made anything work any faster. I don't have any speed issues though, except the ones everybody has who uses BT's ancient network of copper wires.
As soon as the obligatory instructions have been carried out and the line tested, I've put everything back the way it was, which includes phone extensions, Sky, internet, cable and filters to the computers and the speed/reliability is exactly the same. It sometimes looks a bit fragile but it works pretty damned well. The dsl filter is between the router and the extension cable and there are two others that filter the line before it goes to an upstairs extension and Sky.
I wish I was an engineer, they get the bigger pay. I am a repair tech. So I know what really works. You might be getting your speed, you might not. The only way to tell is to look at the actual signal, which can be done with the modem or a meter. As far as the copper network, so long at the DC values are decent, with BST's technology we can provide a speed of 8.128meg over a loop length of 8.6k ft. Our 3.552 meg will travel appr. 16kft and the 1.472 meg will take us 22kft, leaving 256k traveling about 4.9 miles.
Our advantage is that most of our network has remotes dslams about ever 2 miles or so. For best results though, the network needs to be wired directly to your place with out being *multipled* down different routes. And the wire needs to end @ your service terminal. pretty much saying that is should be a little wire outside as possible and inside you need a dedicated pair of solid copper wires from you interface to your modem, with no more than 20 feet of telephone cord.
If you have a dedicated pair or a *home run pair* that doesnt go to any other outlets, you can filter it at the master socket and send your signal just down those wires. That can really make a difference. Granted as I said there needs to be no shorts or grounds on your cicuit. Also remember than corrosion is your enemy. I can't do much for BT's network, but I do spend 8+ hours a day tweaking BST's.
Pm me if you have any questions, I don't mind talking business.
Well, I have little control over the way BT chooses to wire my connection from the exchange. To be honest, I have no idea exactly how long the extension cable is from the main socket to this computer and the dsl router, but it is probably around 20ft - it goes from the hall into this front room right to one of the corners. It's not really worth worrying about when I get in excess of 5Mb and other wiring options are totally impractical. The router has to be near the computer and they all have to be near an electrical socket.
When AOL made me plug the router directly into the main socket I had to unplug Sky, leave the router in a positon where it was likely to get stood on in the hall and I had computers on the floor in the middle of the room. As a setup it was rubbish and I noticed no difference in speed. Their justification was that if no fault was found and I hadn't wired it up "just so", BT wouldn't have been prepared to pay for the call out.
It's a shame you've had to go through all of that trouble. I do not agree with BT's way of doing business. It sounds like the same policy as the local cable company here. "Pay your bill and shut up". If your getting 5mb then you are doing good. The minimum for BST's 6mb is a best effort of 4.6mb. It's stable at that speed and should be fine for surfing. Is there any reason why you want the 6mb and not a slower more stable speed? I know that when you go for the highest its normally for a reason.
I have had all 4 of BST's speeds. I had the 256 (lite) the 1.472 (ultra) the 3.552 (extreme) and the 8.128 (6mb extreme). I actually went back down to the 3.552 because I didnt see any difference in surfing and there wasnt much noticable difference in the downloading either. Both speeds worked fine here and were stable. I just didnt think it was worth the extra cash for such a small change. But to each his own. Hope everything works out for you.
Yeah, I agree. If the phone extension cable would be ideally 2 ft shorter then that's too bad - the theoretical benefits of not having such a lengthy extension just do no outweigh the benefits of having the comuter in a convenient place in the house. There are many fluctuating factors that affect speed, and I noticed no difference at all when I was told to change everything round for the line to be tested.
When I first got maxdsl, the initial 10 days were horrendous - yes, it connected at over 7Mb on the odd occasion but the disconnects, especially overnight were numerous. It simply wasn't stable at that speed. Eventually I got interleaving on the line and it was set at the highest stable speed they'd been able to find. As you say, it makes no difference for surfing - any webpage that doesn't load quickly at speeds of over 2 meg should be redesigned or hosted on a faster server.
You just said something that triggers a response. You said that it cuts off overnight. That is normally related to what is called a high resistance open. If BT has the technology they can do something called a Tip Ring short to ground from the central office and then measure the line at your house. If they get a resistance values more than 4ohms difference between tip ground and ring ground, then you have a HRO. And that will kill your speed. When it cools off at night that wire starts to separate and connect over and over. That can give you static noise on the line and it will interupt your service. Of course when it warms back up some in the morning your wires expand and make a good connection again and then your online.
Just food for thought
That's interesting Boodymantroy ... I used to wonder why overnight was so much worse, not just for me but for everyone new to maxdsl when it first came out! It's not a problem now, although overall I'd say there are probably more overnight disconnects than daytime, but not enough to pay any attention to. I'd always thought it was for the same kind of reason speeds drop at night, ie overuse of contended bandwidth or whatever.
Just a small point - are connections inherently flakier then in the winter? When the copper must be in a fairly contracted state all the time?
We have the problem at all times of the year. But typically during the winter the wire opens enough to where we can measure and fix it. On a cold enough day the wire wont even let dial tone pass. So someone will call in the outtage and we can measure the wire to see how long it is. Most of the time it can be found easily. But to give a direct answer, yes during the winter the copper contracts more often and gives us more work to do.
I have ASDL and my ISP recomends no longer then 5 feet. I have also done some tshooting for a friend who was experinceing many cut offs as well as extreamly slow preformance. The solution in her cas was a bad modem, once replaced the problem disapeared.
I have also made the mistake in the past of puting the line filter conected to the modem, this is wrong, the line filters install on each phone and not the modem.
Your line could be noicey or afected by bad weather. On an off note a cable broadband customer I tested for also was haveing conection problems which I could not solve, we made an apointment for the cable tech to come and it was weather had shorted out some connector on the outside.
All true - I should point out that I'm not currently experiencing any problems at all :) We had a fault on the phone line at the weekend, which was very quickly sorted out by BT and I was very impressed with their service! Calls were directed to my mobile until the fault was repaired, at no extra cost to the caller. The engineer called at 8 am Sunday morning to tell us it had all been sorted - considering I only reported it Saturday night, that isn't bad at all!
I've been known to clean out some insect homes from the older style Telco connection boxes. Then you have to clean all of that green stuff and make the connections clean.