Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY
 ·AT&T Southeast
edit:
May 15th, @07:47AM
| [Line Problem] What do I have to do to get this fixed?
5/12/2008 9:24AM | 
5/12/2008 11:05PM |
When I call the Help Desk with a problem it magically goes away before I get to speak to a human. I will have no problem while on the phone with the tech or while he is running tests on my line. He will reset my port and send a tech to my house and I will have no problems until the day after this tech checks everything out and declares that everything looks great and I should not be having any problems with my connection.
The tech can not find any problems because I do not have any problems while he is here, but the day after he leaves my connection will turn to crap.
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This is what my line would look like before my call to the Help Deck and after the tech has came to my house and checked everything.
This is what it would look like while I'm on the phone with the Help Desk and until right after the tech has left my house.
When they are looking for problems I don't have any.
When they are not looking then I have all kinds of problems.
I have read through the FAQs and done all the troubleshooting that I can do.
I have problems when connected directly to the test jack in the NID. I have tested with 7 different modems and all of them can't be bad.
The tech has seen the modem logs that I have saved and he believes that I'm having problems but said that it is hard form him to find out what is wrong when my connection problems are not happening while he is looking for problems.
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It looks like the ghost of the problem I had before has came back to haunt me.
»It's finally got to the point where I can't take it anymore
Everything ran so good since this old problem was fixed and about 4 weeks ago it seems to have come back.
When mechanics work on a car that has problems that can't be found sometimes they will throw parts at it to see what sticks.
Is this what will have to be done to get my problems fixed.
Can someone swap me to another port?
Can someone swap me to another line pair?
Can someone replace my drop?
Can someone replace my NID?
Can someone from AT&T Southeast stand in my yard and yell at the DSL and tell it to quit messing up?
What do I have to do to get this problem fixed. |
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Press2Esc
join:2005-07-03
US
·AT&T Southeast
| AW7, just to verify the sometimes not so obvious - are you a subscriber of 6MB plan & you have filters on each phone? No line noise when you hookup a phone to that line?
Other than the DSL working before you call the ISP help desk support, is the problem at all predicable? Is it totally intermittent/random? Does it always/mostly occue in the AM, mid-day or PM problem? Does it (only) happen on weekdays, weekends, etc?
Is the DSL is located in a home, business, or MTU/apartment?
If applicable, when you are having surfn problems - have you ever tested the DSL signal/footprint at your NID - with your inside phone wiring disconnected?
P2E |
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Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY
·AT&T Southeast
edit:
May 21st, @08:24PM
| 
2210-02-1006 after tech visit on 5/17/2008 | 
3347NWG-006 after tech visit on 5/17/2008 | | 
3347NWG-006 DSL Statistics 48 hours after Tech visit. | | 
3347NWG-006 DSL Statistics 72 hours after Tech visit. | | 
AlcaTool Graph Old Line. | 
AlcaTool Graph New Line. |
I have had the modem directly connected to the "Test Jack" in the NID for about 5 weeks now.
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I'm most certain that my problem was fixed by an excellent technician that visited my home on Saturday.
After many calls to the Help Desk and tech visits I figured out what it takes to get my problems fixed.
It takes a tech that will actually get out of his truck and wants to actually fix the problem.
Lucky for me that I got that kind of tech on Saturday.
This tech tested things with his laptop and Netopia Pocket modem and called DSG and got them to remove the Noise Profile so he could test some more.
He and DSG tested things from both ends and DSG told him to switch me to another port. He told me after he got off the phone with DSG that he could not switch me to another port because he needed some other tech to do it and this tech was not there on a Saturday.
He told me that he was going to test my pair some more because he saw some things that he did not like.
He tested with his fancy yellow meter then he disconnected my pair on both ends and tested some more.
He said that my line looked like it was about 6000 feet long, that the capacitance was to high, and it had a slight ground on it. He said that the plats said my line was 2880 feet long straight copper, but there was no way that my line was 2880 feet long because he followed it from my house to the CO and it was barely over a quarter mile.
He searched through the pairs and found one that he liked that was about 1580 feet long and he swapped me at the CO to this line. He then climbed up the pole to swap my drop over to this pair. He said "I hope there aren't any wasps in here." then he opened the cover and said "There aren't any wasps in here and your line is not cut dead, it runs all the way up the street."
I guess that explains why my Motorola 2210 showed this "Estimated loop length: 5860 feet (bridge tap)".
It showed "Estimated loop length: 2860 feet (straight loop)" one single time after DSG put me on a Noise Profile last week, but it used to show a loop length between 3500 feet and 8500 feet always with a bridged tap.
Since the tech left I restarted my Motorola 2210 a dozen times and it always shows "Estimated loop length: 1564 feet (straight loop)".
I asked the other techs about my Motorola 2210 showing the long loop length with a bridged tap and they said that the modems can't read that statistic very accurately.
The tech said that my new loop is straight copper about 1580 feet long so I guess that the Motorola 2210 doesn't do to bad of a job estimating the length and determining if there is a bridge tap or not.
After the tech had finished swapping my line over he tested it again and showed me how everything was much better with the new line as compared to the old line. He said that the capacitance was much better and it did not have that slight ground on it like the old line.
He said that my line had a lot better "Bandwidth" on it now. I asked him what that meant and he said that my bandwidth percentage was better, whatever that means.
I noticed while I was looking at the statistics on his equipment that it showed my Downstream SNR Margin at 18.00dB and it Upstream SNR Margin at 16.00dB. It also showed my Downstream Line Attenuation at 8.00dB and the Upstream Line Attenuation at 6.00dB.
I guess that their equipment reads these statistics better then a cheap little modem does.
After he left I swapped the Motorola 2210 and the Netopia 3347 around to see how they were going to act and recorded the DSL Statistics from them. I connected the Netopia 3347 up after that and left it alone for the last three days and it has ran just perfect.
I think my problem has finally been fixed.
I thanked the Tech before he left for fixing my problem and gave him a couple more ice cold RC Colas for the road.
I hope not to have any more troubles with my FastAccess DSL in the future, but if I do I sure hope that I get this same fellow back to work on them.
He was a really nice guy.
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When I called the Help Desk I also received great support. I could not ask for any better. I was not asked to do any troubleshooting steps that would be unrelated to a DSL Sync problem. No clearing cookies or temporary Internet files.
The Help Desk support people were very courteous and professional and they reflected well upon AT&T Southeast.
The automated troubleshooting thing was clear and understandable and it had no problem understanding me when I spoke into it. It got me to the right support people and I had no wait time to speak to a human.
The Help Desk support techs were very helpful and all of them were Americans, Southerners like me.
The only thing I could count against AT&T Southeast relating to this repair experience is the fact that all of the techs that visited my house before the last guy just seemed to be apathetic to my problems. I'm most certain that these other techs were just a competent as the one that fixed my problem and they could have fixed it too if they would have just gotten out of their trucks and tested things at my NID.
I'm most sure that I will now enjoy many more years of reliable service from AT&T Southeast FastAccess DSL Xtreme 6.0, plus good voice service too.
Now if I could just get some faster service.
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Edit: I wanted to add that when I called the Help Desk late Friday night the tech could not setup the time for a tech visit because the system was down. He told me to call back two hours later and he would have it in my notes for them to setup a time for a visit. It was late and I could not stay awake. I called back at 8:00AM Saturday and they made an appointment for Monday. AT&T called me back Saturday morning and said they could send a tech to my house right now if I could be home. I told them to send him over. By 1:00PM he had fixed everything and was on his way.
You can't ask for no better than same day service. |
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VooDooMan
join:2007-02-20
Diamondhead, MS | Where do you find the info that reports your loop length? Is that in the router interface somewhere? |
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Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY
·AT&T Southeast
edit:
May 21st, @10:37PM
| You will have to access the modem's CLI.
I open command prompt and issue the command telnet 192.168.1.254 and then I issue the command show all-info.
This will dump hundreds of lines of info and will overrun command prompt's default buffer size.
You will need to fool with the settings in command prompt so that you can capture all of the info.
I forget exactly what changes I made in command prompt.
Edit: I would look at the settings for you but the computer I changed them on is in another room on the other end of the house and I'm sicker than a dog right now and don't feel much like moving. |
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VooDooMan
join:2007-02-20
Diamondhead, MS | Are we talking Mac or Windows here? Because I can open a terminal window on my mac and get a bunch of info, but I do NOT get loop length.
However, when I try this on my PC I get a message that says "telnet is not a recognized command etc..." |
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NetFixer
Snarl for the camera please
Premium
join:2004-06-24
Murfreesboro, TN
 ·Vonage
 ·Cingular Wireless
·AT&T CallVantage
·AT&T Southeast
 ·Comcast
| said by VooDooMan  :Are we talking Mac or Windows here? Because I can open a terminal window on my mac and get a bunch of info, but I do NOT get loop length. However, when I try this on my PC I get a message that says "telnet is not a recognized command etc..." I can't help with your not seeing what you expect from a Mac terminal session, but for the Windows "telnet is not a recognized command etc..." problem, are you running Windows Vista? If so, perhaps this Windows IT Pro article will help.
Where is the Telnet client in Windows Vista?
--
We can never have enough of nature.
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.
Test your firewall. |
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Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY | reply to VooDooMan
The 2210-02-1006 will show the loop length.
The 3347NWG-006 will not. |
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ruraltn
join:2008-05-16
Loudon, TN
edit:
May 22nd, @08:13AM
| reply to VooDooMan
said by VooDooMan :Are we talking Mac or Windows here? Because I can open a terminal window on my mac and get a bunch of info, but I do NOT get loop length. However, when I try this on my PC I get a message that says "telnet is not a recognized command etc..." »www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
An excellent TELNET client. Winders and other versions, and the price is right. 
--
www.east-tennessee-land.com |
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VooDooMan
join:2007-02-20
Diamondhead, MS
| reply to Airwolf7
Thanks for the replies. I am using a 3347 so that explains why I am not seeing loop length.
I'll make the changes in Vista later.
For the mac I just pull up a "terminal" window --(the unix shell in Mac OS X) and it gives me all the info (and I can adjust the buffer size).
Why is it we don't learn this stuff in Company training?
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Press2Esc
join:2005-07-03
US
·AT&T Southeast
| reply to Airwolf7
Whoa 6000 vs 2880 feet - nothing like a little margin of error, eh?
By the way, I was impressed that the 2210 provided you with an estimate loop length.... news to me. Even DSG isnt privy to distance info anymore.
Hmmm, a couple o' RCs', now I know how to win friends and influence BSTs - you sure that was colas????
AW7, regarding the tech stating you had a lot better "Bandwidth" essentially translates to bandwidth overhead. If you subsribe to 6M service and your ckt is syncing at 8M your bandwidth would be 75%. In any case, I am glad you got the mystery solved.
VooDoo: telnet is telnet - windows, mac, unix, etc.
P2E |
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