Re: Why is ADSL so finicky?
- From: Nicholas Thomas <ku.gro.snagap-erihskroy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:12:59 +0100
David M wrote:
Sorry, this is just a letting-off-steam grumble..
Why is ADSL so finicky?
For the past few months my broadband connection, which was previously
rock-solid, has been somewhat temperamental. It started off that
occasionally the router would lose sync, and take a little while to come
back up, before continuing merrily. I could live with that.
Then it happened that the router would lose sync, and would only come
back up again after having been physically powered-off for a few minutes.
So, as recommended, I tried using the master test socket, sometimes with
a little improvement, sometimes not. My ISP has said that line tests
revealed nothing wrong with my line. So I bought another router (prices
fortunately having dropped further in the meantime), and it was happy
for a couple of months.
But now I'm in the situation where my new router has not only started to
suffer the same problems as the first, but has recently almost completely
given up the ability to achieve sync in the first place (although, just
occasionally, it surprises itself into activity ..for a short period).
The old router has been dug up, and usually manages to sync quickly, but
again flails around if (*when*) it loses sync. To make things worse,
this old router has developed a habit of hissing relatively noisily,
making it unsuitable for leaving on overnight. And finally, it's now
come to the stage where the router can only keep sync for about 6 - 8
minutes at a time, before, again, having to power-off (in this case,
yanking the power line out - just how much would it have cost them to
add an on/off switch <sigh>?) for a few minutes before starting again.
Both routers use slightly different versions of the Conexant firmware
which I suspect is familiar to many of us (the new router seems to have
the latest firmware available for it). Is this generally a reliable
setup, or are some ADSL router-modems somewhat better than others?
(Or are they pretty much just all near-identical equally-crap commodity
items, all based on the the same chipset?)
The other possibility, of course, is that there may be something less
than ideal with the installed (when built [1]) telephone wiring within
my flat, although telephone service works just fine on both the main
socket and pre-wired extension. But as I said, using the master test
socket only seems to make a difference occasionally, which may just be
pure luck.
As you can imagine, I'm starting to find ADSL's finickiness as to when
it will and will not work rather exasperating.. :-(
[1] In the case of modern flats with pre-installed telephone wiring, do
BT install all of the wiring in the flat, or just to the master socket,
leaving any extensions to the (possibly less-professional?) builders?
Would asking my ISP to screw my line back down to 1Mb or 0.5Mb (if it is
possible to do such things now) be likely to make any difference?
What about Telewest cable? Obviously you're then stuck with a single
supplier, but is cable broadband any more reliable/less finicky than
ADSL? (And can you still use dial-thru call services with a Telewest
line?)
If your ADSL is disconnecting every few minutes, and you've eliminated
your internal wiring & set-up, then your ISP really, really should
accept a fault to get the line tested. It could be all sorts of things -
I was in a similar situation recently and when the BT engineer came
out, it transpired that there were some joint boxes that had gotten
water in & been quietly corroding the copper away... not ideal if you're
running MaxDSL ;).
Which ISP are you with?
Of course, since you've used two routers with the same chipset, it could
just be that they've developed the same fault. Conexants are notoriously
cheap and nasty; although some people swear by them, I've had several
fail on me in quick succession. Other popular chipsets are TI (routers
like ZyXEL, MicraDigital), Sangoma, and I think Broadcom do one as well.
Definitely a difference between them.
If you can get details of SNR/Margin, attenuation, sync speeds, etcetera
from your Conexant (generally they're pretty good for reporting this
sort of thing), and an idea of the variance of them (SNR especially),
then that can give you ammo when you're speaking to your ISP about faults.
Switching down to a lower speed might help if it's a line problem; then
again, it might not. Best looked at as something to try if all else
fails (personally, I'd try MaxDSL before that, but I like my speed. If
worst comes to worst, you can always get Zen's 288-synching DSL).
IIRC, typically for new builds the builders install the internal wiring,
and present it to BT who connect it to their network. But don't quote me
on that ;).
ADSL is a more complex technology than cable, and it works over a
network that wasn't really designed for high data transmissions, so
there are all sorts of things that can go wrong. Most of them can be
fixed, the majority of the time... the hard part is working out what's
wrong, and getting your ISP to listen (if their tech support happens to
be really cr*p)...
xF,
....Nick
.
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