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dwinut
@qwest.net

dwinut to scottlindner

Anon

to scottlindner

Re: frequent disconnects

Thanks for this thread. I have been dealing with the same symptoms since the initial installation (at 20mbps) using the M1000 in late April. As often as a few times per day, but usually more like every day or two, the connection drops. It can always be restored by resetting or power cycling the modem. This must have been my tenth call to Qwest, this evening.

They have rolled trucks a couple of times. The first time, they confirmed that their readings were just the same with the modem outside the house as in, went over to the DSLAM, and then came back to tell me to be patient, as they were doing work over there that would take a couple of days. That work didn't seem to solve anything, which led to a second visit, but on that second trip they never got to my house. They had some sort of major screwup (their description) at the DSLAM during my appointment that had coincidentally killed most connections in my neighborhood, and when I called to find out where they were, they connected me by cell with a tech at the DSLAM who declared victory as soon as I had a working connection again.

None of that did anything for my connection stability problem. In July, they sent a replacement M1000, but if anything that one seems worse (when it drops, it usually needs to be power-cycled to get it back online). I put the old one back and called them again. They said they'd send another replacement.

I called tonight (a week later) to find out where the replacement was, and got some very strange advice. I am told that I must inquire via about the absent modem with their business office during the day. The supervisor I spoke with says the delay may be because they are sending me a Motorola 3347. According to that supervisor, this is the only modem they support that can handle 20mbps.

The best trained rate I've seen on the M1000 is a little under 19mbps down. It had degraded to about 14mbps this evening, until (at the Qwest supervisors' request) I power cycled it and it came back up to over 18. I have never tested at more than 16mbps down and 600kbps up, but until tonight, I've been consistently told this is normal. I'm past caring about the speed, but will certainly share any other information I get about the disconnects.
scottlindner
join:2008-07-21
Colorado Springs, CO

scottlindner

Member

dwinut,

How frequent are your disconnects? Mine are once a day to a couple of times a week. Every once in a while, it rapidly disconnects/reconnects several times but still is up and running automatically within a minute or so. The outtage is never very long, but is frustrating when using work applications from home that do not deal so well with the disconnection. Some take nearly 20 minutes until they are restarted and back up and running again.

Scott

dwinut
@qwest.net

dwinut

Anon

Hi, Scott. Typically just that - once a day, two or three times a week. There have been weeks when its been almost every day, and (more rarely) days when there have been three or four disconnects. We've had none in the past 24 hours, but it happened once on Monday, once this past Saturday, and twice the preceding Friday.

I have not noticed any rapid disconnect/reconnect cycles but my D-Link DIR-655 router doesn't seem interested in doing any reconnecting on its own, and neither does the M1000. When it stops, it just stops, and I have to either tell the router to disconnect and reconnect, or power cycle the modem (or, at times when I've taken the router out of the picture for diagnostic purposes, resetting the router through its web UI will also get it to reconnect).

Nothing on my LAN takes that long to come back up again after a disconnect, but that yell from some other part of the house "The internet is out... AGAIN!" has been driving me nuts. For $70/month, I shouldn't have to jiggle the handle at random intervals.
scottlindner
join:2008-07-21
Colorado Springs, CO

scottlindner

Member

Dr Smith and dsiebert,

The problem we're having isn't related to training. It isn't a physical problem. Myself and at least one other in this thread have already tried using another router to handle the PPPoE (e.g. transparent bridge) and the problem is the same. At least for myself, I know my modem is not retraining and is not loosing sync. It is failing to authenticate about once a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. It is not a physical problem. It is a backend problem and QWest hasn't been able to figure it out yet.

I appreciate your suggestions, but what you've described has been covered in the earlier portion of this thread, and isn't related to the problem we're having.

Cheers,
Scott
scottlindner

scottlindner

Member

So here's an interesting little twist. I just learned I had two DSL accounts. I found out because of an autocharge on my credit card, so this has been going on for a while now and I hadn't noticed until just now. When I called about it they said I'm supposed to be on DSL account A, but I was using the PPP credentials for B, so I switched to A. Monday they scheduled the disconnect for B so I'd stop being charged for a DSL account I don't need. What QWest did was terminated Account B, but disconnected line A. So I have no service now. This has me wondering if the other poster's comment about the port on the DSLAM being incorrect and wasn't letting the link control protocol through is my problem. I have to wait until 8am MDT today to call to have them configure my line for account A so my service will restore.

I tell ya, after last night I'm starting to loose confidence in QWest's understanding of their technologies. What happened last night is evidence their techs don't understand what they are doing. Which I suspect is related to these problems. I had zero disconnects for over a year until I switched to a new account after the port. Something isn't set up right, and I suspect loosing Internet last night because my account and line aren't in sync is related.

Scott