Re: Do DSL filters wear out?

Previously CJ <cjmartin04@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> My Verizon DSL connection has been acting very badly this past
> week. I've tested it twice and it's running between 79-80 kbps
> download and 62 kbps upload. The performance has been horrible from
> email to web browsing and especially downlaods. This is at 11:30 pm
> ET. I also tested it on Wednesday at like 7:30 pm ET and got the
> same results. I've heard that a bad DSL filter could be the cause
> of my problem. I've had these DSL filters for approximately a
> year. Do they wear out after about a year of use? I've got one
> because my phone line connects into the same outlet as my DSL modem.

Very, very unlikely. The only thing that could wear out is
the capacitors, and they are usually long-life ceramics that
should give you several decades or reliable operation. It is
something different if you had a lightening strike. But that
would be damage and not ageing.

> Also, in the past two years living in my building I've had people
> physically steal my phone line and cable line from where it enters my
> floor. They just took the whole line and plugged it into their
> apartment. Is it technically possible somebody could have figured out
> how to leech off my DSL?

Very, very difficult. A governmental intelligence agency may be
able to do that (but they would not have a motive). One thing
that is possible is that somebody tried to steal your line
again, discovert it did not work anymore (the DSL company usually
need to configure for each specific modem on each specific line
with a serial number or the MAC address) and reattached the line
shoddily. Contact problems in the phone line will give you
bad data rates.

> I do not have a wi-fi connection. I don't
> know if this means anything, but the "wireless" light is lit up on my
> DSL modem continuously now.

Interesting. Does your modem support wireless? Then somebody could
indeed be stealing bandwidth that way. You bets turn the wireless
off. Should be in the modem's manual how to do that.

> The E1 light flickers every once in a while.

> If my other option is paying Verizon to come out, would a new DSL
> filter be a good thing to do before calling them?

Very unlikely to help.

Arno
.

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