[Phone] Well, I ordered it.... in Mediacom http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21165080 en Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:57:14 EDT Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:57:14 EDT Re: UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21245109 mattmag :
As some others have suggested, I called and got my package changed to the VIP+ version. It didn't end up changing the price any, the rep apparently ran the numbers a few different ways and came up with a good deal.



Most definitely can see a change in the speeds, that's for sure! Of course it may not have any effect later on in the day when things get lazy, since that's not related to DL speed, but it's not a bad bump.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21245109 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:12:54 EDT Re: UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21219571 burner50 :
said by mattmag See Profile :

Hopefully Mediacom responds to the load change appropriately, and can stay in place as the superior product to DSL for our town.
They will start by "load balancing" Moving the nodes around to different ports on the UBR to try to find a sweet spot. But if they keep installing modems then it will eventually get to a point where load balancing wont work anymore. After that it may be some time before they come up with a permanent solution. It depends on the local management and how much they scream and throw a tantrum.

Shortly before I left we were in this situation where I worked. My local manager was anal-retentive about everything, including network utilization. So it didnt take as long, only a few months from start to end... But I spent many evenings in the OTN moving nodes around the combining setup.

We had 1 ubr with 3 cars in it. The plan when I left was to get a second ubr with 3 more cards in it. They have the capacity for 4 cards.

UNLESS you are having a different problem.

If there are too many modems on one node then that is a whole lot more difficult to change. Then you start getting into "node split" territory which takes alot more time and money to design the system and get the changes made.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21219571 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:57:33 EDT Re: UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21217301 mattmag :
Well it looks like the current speed issue is not related to my equipment or the new modem. Ran several different tests about 0400 today, and they flew like crazy, right up where they used to be ALL the time.

I'm guessing our little burg is finally hitting some saturation, and bogging down during the peak use periods. We avoided that when Mediacom first fired up the HSI product, but it appears it is going the same direction that the DSL service here did--downhill!

Hopefully Mediacom responds to the load change appropriately, and can stay in place as the superior product to DSL for our town.

Oh yeah, the phone still works great! :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21217301 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:13:05 EDT Re: UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21213814 mattmag :

Yep--confirmed per your post. I think my Motorola modem only flashed when the LAN was moving traffic, which is why it caught my eye. The WAN LED on my router blinks all the time it is connected, as it did with the old modem, so that one I was used to!

Still not happy with the speed though-- Thought it was just a router reboot issue, but things were very laggy on the speed tests. It would go in spurts, then delay, another burst, etc in the speed tests. May have to try some tweaks, as I am stuck with a provided modem... urghh.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21213814 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:15:44 EDT Re: UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21213094 Anonymous : Link LED will blink as long as you have something connected to the modem. It's normal. Go ahead unplug the ethernet cord and LINK will be off.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21213094 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:15:16 EDT UPDATED--It's installed! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21212915 mattmag : OK, here's the update scoop---

Tech (contracted, not Mediacom employee) arrived today and set up the new modem. As Anonymous predicted in another thread, I got an Arris TM502G modem. Well, actually he started out with a 402G, but he couldn't get it to synch after Mediacom provisioned it. Had 2 lights flashing all the time, "Link" and "Telephone 1".

He called Tier II, they said it all looked fine from their side, so he took out the 402G, went outside and came back with the 502G. Had Mediacom provision that one. That helped---dial tone now, can make calls, it sounds great. Still have constantly flashing "Link" light however...he said "that's unusual, but since it works, let's see what it does" and he was done.

Alrighty then! Made a few phone calls, all OK. Anything to worry about with the "Link" light? Everything else is super, no problem. Had a speed issue for awhile, but a router re-boot cured that!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21212915 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:32:46 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21177613 Anonymous : That's not a problem. If the NID is outside (regardless of the style, new box, old tiny one etc) it needs to be protected.

On a side note I used to have one of the really old fashion lighting breakers and the connection at the pole was not protected so I was having problems, a tech showed up and updated the NID and she covered the connection at the pole.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21177613 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:22:30 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176669 iowaboy : I have had the telephone from Medicaom every since I was able to get it. Other than a couple of times when the whole system went down I couldn't ask for anything any clearer. i told the wife that I really didn't know just how cra**y our local telephoen company's phone system was till we got thsi phone. The local company had put in fiber to all their customers but the equipment at the office must really be bad cause I never thought fiber would be that noisey. I can now understand why the dsl and dialup is so slow now. I love my cable phone and internet.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176669 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:51:14 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176574 mattmag :

I'm aware of the benefits to everyone to have a NID present, and was looking forward to having that improved grounding and the diagnostic aid. The telco had publicized that they would be installing them as an upgrade throughout town on somewhat of a schedule, or ahead of that schedule if a person had a service issue that brought a tech out sooner.

I think what happened is that this house was unoccupied and on the market for about 2 years, and got skipped because of that. After I bought it and had my DSL service moved here was when the tech told me "they wanted to change it and would be back". As noted, they didn't come back.

Of course that isn't a functional issue, and it had no bearing on my service, but you have to put it in context with their ongoing refusal to recognize that they had bad saturation problems with their backbone connection to the Web, as they were WAY over-subscribed as time went on. I guess they liked the sudden cash-flow they were on the receiving end of, and hesitated to upgrade their plant as the subscriber base grew.

Long story, yes, but as their very first DSL customer in town, I was hoping for a better result. I was very patient, and kept communicating with them about the issues. They just never took it to the next level, and I went to Mediacom in order to have a usable connection. So, that's the correlation I was drawing about them never coming back to do the NID as they said. It was just another dropped ball of many.

As an interesting side-note, they recently sold out to CenturyTel, who is spamming mailboxes with their offer of "Blazing High-Speed Internet" at the breakneck rate of 256Kbps... Oh my. I am sure there are plenty of people getting sucked into that bit of false advertising.

OK, that was a lot...but you asked... ;)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176574 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:23:45 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176155 Turbocpe :
said by mattmag See Profile :

Gotcha.

As luck (or something) would have it, the telco never updated my house with a NID, so my phone connections are all inside the house in the basement. Even when I had DSL they never did it. Said they would "come back sometime" but never did... Go figure. That pretty much reflects the telco's entire outlook on DSL and upgrading their network, hence my move to cable.
This may be getting a bit off subject, but you turned the steering wheel a bit. The NID box, technically, is for the telco to troubleshoot the issue and determine if the customer's wiring is responsible (by not detecting the issue at the NID), or if the telco side is responsible (by detecting the issue at the NID). The NID basically is the termination point between customer and telco responsibility. Of course people who visit this website are a bit more knowledgeable (or want to be) and have learned and taught each other that the NID can be used by the customer to pointpoint the issue. In addition, the NIDs are also used to ground the service.

Of course, if your service isn't grounded, or your using one of those old fashion lightning breakers, an NID box may have helped.

Otherwise, there is no reason to come and install a NID as it doesn't exactly do anything better for your service as you still use the same wiring (usually). It's actually mostly of benefit for the telco to have the NID box for testing purposes. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176155 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:46:27 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176017 mattmag :

Gotcha.

As luck (or something) would have it, the telco never updated my house with a NID, so my phone connections are all inside the house in the basement. Even when I had DSL they never did it. Said they would "come back sometime" but never did... Go figure. That pretty much reflects the telco's entire outlook on DSL and upgrading their network, hence my move to cable.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21176017 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:25:59 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21175806 Anonymous : No just 'terminated' with a scotchlock to keep the moisture out.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21175806 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:50:16 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21175189 mattmag :

Can you elaborate on that? Do the terminations need to be cross-connected or ??

Thanks.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21175189 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:00:03 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21172572 Anonymous : As long as your phone wiring is OK and a tech CUTS and terminates (scotchlok) the line at the phone demarc (not just unplugs the jack) you should be OK.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21172572 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:07:58 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21170383 mattmag :
said by Anonymous See Profile :

Did you clean up the wiring? Do you have a phone jack near your modem?
Yes, I've overhauled the whole setup with the help of my local installer/tech. Just a single splitter after the cable enters the house, one run straight to the modem, the other to an amplified 8-port splitter with home-runs to all other connections. It made a world of difference in not only my modem signal, which hasn't dropped out in well over a year, but also in the TV picture quality throughout the house.

I have a phone jack within 2 feet of the modem location, so we should be good to go there.

Thanks again for prodding me to change it back then... ;) ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21170383 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:51:07 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21170365 mattmag :
said by FormerDSMTier1 :

Whatever you do, do not try to change the install date.
The CSR warned me about that several times! She said the same thing, that the port will take place as scheduled, and any changes really mess things up beyond hope.... I'll be here.

;)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21170365 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:45:59 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21169748 Anonymous : Did you clean up the wiring? Do you have a phone jack near your modem?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21169748 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:27:28 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21168600 HSIguy : Good luck on that.....You are really going to need it. I hope you don't have an alarm system that you rely on connected to your phone line.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21168600 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:25:59 EDT Re: [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21166606 anon : Whatever you do, do not try to change the install date. I can tell you many many horror stories of people who changed the install date to later on and lost phone service on the day it was originally supposed to be switched over.

posting as anon cuz I forgot my login... :huh:]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21166606 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:52:25 EDT [Phone] Well, I ordered it.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21165080 mattmag :
Mediacom Phone service, that is.

Going to port my current number over, and I have a scheduled install date of October 3rd. I'm hoping it doesn't do something crappy to my Internet connection performance, which has been absolutely stellar for the past year or better!

Got my fingers crossed... ;)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21165080 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:03:53 EDT