US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T Midwest > Pay For A Modem With A New Account?

reply to jsinaiko

Re: Pay Ofr A Modem With A New Account?

Hi Doc!

Yes, although when the COVAD guy was there he claimed he got 700 down at the NID, in practice they are not getting better than 300 down, usually somewhere around 100 - 200. There was some sort of issue with the connection at the CO, and ATT fixed it yesterday - no change at the house though.

It's COVAD. It is ADSL - 1.5 down and 3-something up. They are getting full bandwidth upstream. Static IP.

I hate to go Comcrap, but unless they can do something about bandwidth, I have very little choice.

Oh yeah, heavy static on the POTS. We've called it in, but ATT will only "send out a tech" to check things outside the house. My guess from experience is that the static is caused by a bad connection or wet cable in an underground vault somewhere close - probably beneath Fullerton somewhere. If the tech doesn't find something that may be incorrect. And I promise you they are not going to go inside the walls of their lovely Lincoln Park townhouse.

Ironically, the client is a major lawyer whose biggest client is Verizon - he's buddy-buddy with Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO. Doesn't help him in this market.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

Is this line shared?

LOL, re: Ivan. Figures doesn't it? I know a couple of retired (very) high level execs whose names would raise an eyebrow but that doesn't do me a bit of good at the gas pump...
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Toolmaster of La Grange.

Well, I keep telling the guy to somehow get us exclusive FIOS accounts. No joy to date.

Yeah, it's a line-share. The first thing Speakeasy did was send them a new modem and filters. I hooked up the modem and swapped all their old filters for the new ones. No difference.

Both the ancient Xycel and the new Broadextent (sp?) work the same - they get some sync, then they lose it, then they get it, then they come up with sync for about an hour, then they go down, and on and on.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

Not that it would probably matter but ATT does have a little more interest in fixing lines for their own DSL customers. The 'direct' forum here may be able to do things that the phone-in trouble folks can't (or don't wanna).

Of course that requires taking the plunge.
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Toolmaster of La Grange.

Well, I was on the verge yesterday - woulda dine it if it hadn't been for the no-free-modem thing.

I already have Wolfdragon at Direct doing a pre-qual. I replied, mentioning the POTS situation. We'll see if they come up with anything this week - the tech will be out between now and Friday. Meanwhile, I coaxed the Speakeasy account back up at glacial speeds, so at least they can read their email.

I'll report back as soon as we know if they have made a good-faith effort to get rid of the static. If it is in the house they are SOL and we are better off removing the ISP from the POTS. This is all for the wife - the hubby/big-shot is a crackberry addict and doesn't bother with anything else.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

reply to RadioDoc
OK, the static is gone from the line - and a tech is supposed to go into the NID (which is in the basement) tomorrow.

So it seems there has been some outside work done. Downstream speed has increased from about 100kbps to over 300, and ended up hovering at about 700kbps.

SO there has been improvement on it.

Now the question is, should I switch her over to ATT (they won't promise more than Express, which is what Speakeasy has her at, on the hope that ATT can do better than Speakeasy/Covad.

They are 10,000' from the CO.

Some other differences, that may or may not matter:

Speakeasy uses a static IP, and doesn't use PPPOE. That's about it.

Think I should switch them? Stay with Speakeasy? Hold my nose and move em to Comcrap, which would be easy because the router is very close to where the TV cable comes in.

My recent experiences with Comcrap on the TV side, and several other recent situations with clients Internet connections staying unstable because it took them several months to admit they had to boost the signal - endless, pointless, bad tech visits, missed, appointments, the usual, certainly recommend against it, but damn - these folks aren't getting any bandwidth at all - always well under 768.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

Can you get any stats out of that modem?
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Toolmaster of La Grange.

Nope - it's an old, dumb Xycel.

I mean, maybe, like you can coax them out of a 5100A, but there isn't any firmware in there that I know if.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

Damn, that's too bad. Would be really nice to know what the attenuation, et. al. is now after the repair. 700something sounds reasonable for a line running at 896 raw sync.

I may have a modem I can loan you that can cough out line specs if you want to try it.
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Toolmaster of La Grange.

I have an old westell wirespeed around here somewhere, and a 5100b. It's just a straight DHCP connection so I can just plug it in and see what shows up.
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Illegitimati non carborundum

That would be helpful. I suspect that the line stats have significantly improved.
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Toolmaster of La Grange.

No question - it's reflected in the improvement in the POTS. Static gone, voice quality is high.

I'll be up there again on Monday afternoon.
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Illegitimati non carborundum