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WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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WiFiTech

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[AR] AR-Rogers-Post Meadows Dr. 5-31-12 to date.


5-31 10:15AM Connection

5-31 10:15AM Logs
 

5-31 10:15AM PingTest
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5-31 10:15AM Weather

5-31 10:15AM Speedtest
I will be posting my experience using Cox HSI. I am letting last years issues, and the winter's no issues for 4 months all be in the past.

Previous Posts (This thread is replacing the other two threads)
1) »[AR] I am within Parameters but massive uncorrectables, WHY?

2)»[AR] Customer Continuity of care, or lack there of, any thoughts

This post is going to be about my HSI and how we are handled as customers. We started our Cox service in March of 2010. The first year was without any complications, and we used TV, HSI and phone. We moved to Post Meadows in March of 2011 and as of 5-31-12 we have Cox HSI and phone, Directv due to no resolution on last summer issues.

My COX HSI Service is:
Premier 28mbps/5mbps (+7mbps SPEEDBOOST) and Premier Phone Service.

The Coax is as follows:
Dropline to Dmark,
Dmark to 3way Splitter
3way Leg 1 (3.5 loss to 2way splitter (HSI SB6180 Modem, Empty)
3way Leg 2 (7 loss empty)
3way Leg 3 (7 loss to Arris Phone Modem)

My equipment:
HSI Motorola SB6180 and Phone ArrisTM502, Router is Mikrotik RB751U-2HnD ROS v5.15

Prior to the Tech's Visit (RS initials) there were no problems at all, the service was working as good as it have ever worked. The images above are from 10:15am prior to the 10-12pm Service Tech arriving.
WiFiTech

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WiFiTech

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5-31 9M Connection

5-31 9PM Logs
 

5-31 9PM PingTest
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5-31 9PM Weather

5-31 9PM Speedtest
Spoke with Jeff at Cox and we decided against the 3rd Party company being involved at this time as everything is working, and we didn't feel it would shed light on the subject. We did notice a surge in correctable/uncorrectable during that call.
Around 7:20 during a Full Sail University "Go To Webinar" class degraded to a point of failure. Browsing came to a halt (Facebook, Full Sail Platform, and a couple others, I was playing SWTOR MMO and didn't notice anything definitive, but I was also unable to load Facebook, and upon trying another site, everything began to work again.

As I am only now able to do all the screenshots over an hour later we won't see what was happening at that exact time. Images above are from around 9pm. The only real change is the correctable/uncorrectable numbers and maybe 1db downstream.

SIDE NOTE: on the SB6120 modem if any of the 4 channels on the downstream reached the +4 or the -4 then we could no longer browse the web, and shortly thereafter the TLV-11, T3 and MDD Timeout and reboots would show up in the logs. At these times I would either place or remove a 3.5 splitter on the line to the SB6120 and resolve all problems until the next time.
WiFiTech

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Mikrotik Interface List
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Mikrotik DHCP Server
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Mikrotik Firewall Connections

Mikrotik WAN Information
I feel it is only fair to divulge a little about my home network so questions like; is it set up correctly? maybe something on it is causing a problem?, etc could be answered. First my Router is a Mikrotik. It is a Router Operating System, running on a Routerboard configured with 5 ethernet ports and a wireless card (A/B/G/N).
www.mikrotik.com (free download of their v5.15 OS)
www.routerboard.com (all different types of PCB's and configurations)
www.mpl.com (configured and sold me my Mikrotik RB751U-2HnD)

The images above are a very small portion of the things that this device can do.
WiFiTech

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5-31 1:50PM Connection

5-31 1:50PM Logs
 

5-31 1:50PM PingTest
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5-31 1:50PM Weather

5-31 1:50PM Speedtest
The service tech (RS) showed up in a timely fashion around 10:20am and conducted himself professionally the entire time. I informed him that everything was working great and the only issue we were seeing was the steady increase in the correctable/uncorrectable numbers. After doing several different things, the outcome was RG6 coax line run from the pedestal at the neighbors, over the fence and into the dmark. In the dmark the line is connected to a 2way splitter (leg 1 to 10dB loss barrel connector- I think, leg 2 to Arris Phone Modem). The *Barrel Connecter connects to the SB6180 (a new one) and to my router by Ethernet Cable.

"How does upstream packet loss relate to codeword errors? That’s another “it depends.” First, if uncorrectable codeword errors exist, that means that packet loss is happening. However, uncorrectable codeword errors do not necessarily track lost packets on a one-for-one basis. For instance, one can configure upstream operation such that packet length equals the number of information bytes in a codeword. One also could have a configuration in which the packet length is longer than the number of information bytes in one codeword, but less than in two codewords."
-Link referencing FEC (Forward Error Correction, RS codewords and Errors) »www.cable360.net/ct/sect ··· 938.html
Again, I am concerned with the correctable/uncorrectable numbers incrementing. At this point the service tech (SM) offers a phone number to a 3rd party Home Network Support company and leaves around 1:30pm. There will be more done in regards to the RG6 drop line over the fence next week.

I did touch base with "Ben" at Cox Comm. Center during the install to update the use of a new modem, as it is my understanding we are on some type of monitoring (SolarWinds).

The signals are within the acceptable parameters, excluding the correctable/uncorrectable numbers incrementing. The images above are from around 1:50 PM.
WiFiTech

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WiFiTech

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@ 11:30am the service is still running very well. Temperature is below 70 degrees still. Not posting any images, but I do have the screenshots if someone needs them. As for the order of the posting, I did an edit and it seems to have put the order of the posts (10:15 AM, 9 PM, 1:50 PM, home network) sorry don't know how to get them put back in order.

The correctable/uncorrectable number counts are still climbing.
2400+/400+ @ 12 noon.
nickphx
join:2009-10-29
Phoenix, AZ

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I have far more 'uncorrectable' errors on all 4 bonded channels. If your service is not experiencing problems, why waste your time and Cox's time with trouble calls?
WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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WiFiTech

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Because my functioning so far has been related to the weather. During the cooler temperatures, I can browse, skype and game. The codewords, cor./uncor. stay the same. When it warms up, I can't browse, skype or MMO game. Have you tried calling tech support to tell them your service doesn't work when it is warm outside? This problem began last year, lasted all summer and fall. Then it reappeared this spring and is still continuing. I don't have TV anymore because it didn't work. I hope that answers your question.

I am unsure of how long your modem has been on, but your ratio of sent vs. uncor. is low. I would hit 10k in about 4-6 hours.
nickphx
join:2009-10-29
Phoenix, AZ

nickphx

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Living in phoenix where temps hit 115+ during the summer, I've had this problem before many years ago.. After several "truck rolls" one guy decided to check the pedestal that served the street.. Turns out one of the main connections was loose and the cabling was damaged. He replaced the connectors and reconnected the cabling. No problems since then..

digiblur
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join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

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Why all the empty legs on the splitters? Either terminate them to prevent ingress or do away with the splitters. Just asking for interference to come along and get ya!

DocDrew
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join:2009-01-28
SoCal
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DocDrew

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said by digiblur:

Why all the empty legs on the splitters? Either terminate them to prevent ingress or do away with the splitters. Just asking for interference to come along and get ya!

Open legs on splitters don't allow ingress. If anything they may cause signal reflections, but that is relatively rare that they're strong enough to cause any problems.

Wiring with damaged or no shielding and loose connectors allow ingress. Not open ports.

digiblur
Premium Member
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

digiblur

Premium Member

said by DocDrew:

said by digiblur:

Why all the empty legs on the splitters? Either terminate them to prevent ingress or do away with the splitters. Just asking for interference to come along and get ya!

Open legs on splitters don't allow ingress. If anything they may cause signal reflections, but that is relatively rare that they're strong enough to cause any problems.

Wiring with damaged or no shielding and loose connectors allow ingress. Not open ports.

It's the same thing as damaged cable. I've seen an ingress issue with my own eyes with open splitter ports.

If it was my setup, I wouldn't want them, as anytime I had a problem I would wonder if that was the culprit or not.
WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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Residential Subdivision

Pedestal to D-Mark
Just a little information on this neighborhood. It is by itself on the opposite side of the road from the main line. There are 112 Homes of approximately 1600 sq ft on about 7000 sq ft properties. My pedestal is less than 150 ft from the dmark and in the yard of the neighbor behind me. There are at least 49 homes with Dish/Directv dishes I can see, and over 10 installs of AT&T u-verse. That is over 1/2 of the neighborhood not using Cox in a 6 year old neighborhood. Of the 4 neighbors I talk to regularly, 2 say they don't waste their time calling they just reboot or wait and one just goes to Chic-Fil-A. They all have satellite tv.

In regards to the splitters, it is how the Cox "In House" Field Techs configured it. Don't forget, my problems are usually in the evening @ or after 8PM until roughly 7-8AM. All technicians that are rolled to my home show up from 10am to 5pm when the service is experiencing few to no problems. I used to Place/Remove a 2way splitter to alleviate the problem about once a week, this started be required 1-2 times a day. After the 5-21 "REPAIR" nothing functioned reliably for over a week, except the phone.

With all that being said, the last Home Roll by a technician, and with whatever changes have been have done on their network, and with the weather being in the low 70's; Service on phone and data has been working very well. Even the codeword error rate of incrementation has slowed significantly.

DocDrew
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join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
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2 edits

DocDrew to digiblur

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to digiblur
said by digiblur:

said by DocDrew:

said by digiblur:

Why all the empty legs on the splitters? Either terminate them to prevent ingress or do away with the splitters. Just asking for interference to come along and get ya!

Open legs on splitters don't allow ingress. If anything they may cause signal reflections, but that is relatively rare that they're strong enough to cause any problems.

Wiring with damaged or no shielding and loose connectors allow ingress. Not open ports.

It's the same thing as damaged cable. I've seen an ingress issue with my own eyes with open splitter ports.

It's not the same as damaged cable. I've worked with that for years, along with thousands of open ports and splitters.

It open splitter ports are causing "ingress" issues, then something is wrong with the splitter or the signal hitting the ports is really strong, enough so that the reflections are interacting with the original signal.

Here's a good read:
»www.cable360.net/ct/oper ··· 296.html
DocDrew

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said by WiFiTech:

JDon't forget, my problems are usually in the evening @ or after 8PM until roughly 7-8AM. All technicians that are rolled to my home show up from 10am to 5pm when the service is experiencing few to no problems. I used to Place/Remove a 2way splitter to alleviate the problem about once a week, this started be required 1-2 times a day.

Sounds like an outside plant cable or connector was damaged or defective causing low end(return) signal attenuation due to temperature related cable expansion/contraction. Another possibility would be mis-adjusted auto gain controls in the distribution plant amplifiers causing excessive signal changes and/or distortions.

There are other possibilities, but those are the two most common related to time of day and signal changes where the addition or removal of a house splitter might make a difference.
WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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I started a smokeping on Friday, 6/1/12. I hope the link posted shows June 1st, 2012 00:01 AM till now.
»/r3/sm ··· enerate!
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6-4 SB6180 Connect 10AM

6-4 SB6180 Log 10AM
 

6-4 Pingtest 10AM
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6-4 Weather 10AM

6-4 Speedtest 10AM
The HSI has been working very well. The cable is still hanging over the fence, and so far only two hiccups in service that corrected themselves. No rebooting or changing a splitter was required. Also, it seems that they are going to put in a new MTA Modem and combine the Phone and Internet into a single Cisco device. I am putting up the images, and may do so again before the 3-5 visit, if there are any changes. Also I, was on a 15 minute call and left the "Connect" page up on the modem and so the 5000 increment in the codewords is not from anything other than my mistake.

So as long as, the new modem today, the drop line in the future and the weather don't cause any negative impact then I will be happy with the quality of the service as it is now.
WiFiTech

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It is amazing how much effort has to go into checking things that you would think would be checked first. With the equipment we have today, and the inability for people to risk their jobs taking time off, that these companies would just hire some people to call their customers thank them for using the service and put up a form to fill out on their experience. I have been using hardware/software that texts my phone when it has a snag then it fixes itself and sends me the change. Just saying.

@3:30 Cox Tech called and we discussed the swap of the Docsis 3.0 modem and Arris modem for the Cisco MTA phone/HSI modem and decided against it. It would make the 4th modem in a year, and then we would have to start over on watching if any of the fixes are working. So at this time we are waiting to see if the service evens out and performs or if it starts to falter as it warms up through out the week. One outage on the 2nd and one midday today so when temp went over 80 degrees. The DS signal dropped from 3.x to .x and the US went from 45.5 to 46.5. Service was interrupted for about 5 minutes but returned. So far no power cycling or signal modifications needed or done.
WiFiTech

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6-7 SB6180 Connection 10:45am

6-7 Log 10:45am
 

6-7 PingTest 10:45am
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6-7 Weather 10:45am

6-7 Speedtest 10:45am
Status Update:
- Modem - SB6180 (installed May 31st, 2012. 2 outages lasting over 5 mins, self corrected)
- Router - RB751U-2HnD (6 days, 21+ hours Up time)
- Service Quality - Pingtest.net A or B* (No more C and D's)
- Weather - Mostly in the low and mid 70's (outages occurred at 80+ degrees)
- Performance - Pings ~40ms, 50+Mbps/6+Mbps correctable/uncorrectable under 350/100 a day.

I believe there are only 3 things that have had an affect on the service. The first is lower temperature range changes. The second is a new dropline, and third is some repair on the mainline.

I hope the service stays at this level after the temperatures increase and the cable is buried.
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6-9 SB6180 Connect 11:30 AM

6-9 SB6180 Log 11:30 AM
 

6-9 Pingtest 11:30 AM
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6-9 Weather 11:30 AM

6-9 Speedtest 11:30 AM
The Temperature hit 83 (higher at my home). The signal levels changed a little and speeds and reliability just became unstable. It hasn't required an equipment reboot, but it is definitely having a few issues.

Will continue to monitor it. Images above are for 11:30 AM 6/9/12 and the unstable service occurred 15 minutes prior. However, couldn't reach the sites/modem interface to do the tests/screenshots for a while.

digiblur
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join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

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I would still terminate or get rid of those open ports. Just one of the variables in the mix that I would want to remove.

I would have brand-new coax from the drop to a 2 way splitter and that's it.
WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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said by digiblur:

I would still terminate or get rid of those open ports. Just one of the variables in the mix that I would want to remove.

I would have brand-new coax from the drop to a 2 way splitter and that's it.

It is now set up with just the 2way. Also they line crew just showed up and put the line in the buried conduit. I am posting the oddities of that in just a few.
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6-12-12 SB6180 Connection 6:15PM

6-12-12 SB6180 Logs 6:15PM
 

6-12-12 PingTest 6:15PM
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6-12-12 Weather 6:15PM

6-12-12 SpeedTest 6:15PM
Today, June 12th @ 5:00pm, the line crew showed up to put the cable into the conduit. I believe they placed RG6 into the conduit and not RJ11. I cautioned them to do it slow and easy or they would be doing it a second time. So of course they had to do it a second time. LOL.

With the Temperatures in the mid 80's or lower this last week the cable that was over the fence has been performing much better than prior to its being placed. Due to the better quality of service I have posted fewer times.

I rebooted the SB6180 and the RB751U-2HnD and the HSI seems to be doing very well. I will continue to monitor it over this next week and if God willing maybe the quality of service will stay at this level or higher.

Also, just FYI the Arris Modem and the DOCSIS 3.0 Modem are showing approximately the same levels 0.5 DS and ~46.0 US.

jchambers28
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join:2007-05-12
Peculiar, MO

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any upstream bonding?

digiblur
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join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

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said by WiFiTech:

said by digiblur:

I would still terminate or get rid of those open ports. Just one of the variables in the mix that I would want to remove.

I would have brand-new coax from the drop to a 2 way splitter and that's it.

It is now set up with just the 2way. Also they line crew just showed up and put the line in the buried conduit. I am posting the oddities of that in just a few.

I was expecting a signal gain after that was corrected. Weird...
WiFiTech
join:2012-05-26
Rogers, AR

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6-24 6pm Connect

6-24 6pm Log
 

6-24 6pm Pingtest
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6-24 6pm Weather

6-24 6pm Speedtest
I realize it has been a long time since post. This means things have been going well for about a week or two. Around 6pm on the 24th of June was our first Disruption of Service with a change in the norm. The Signal levels went up 1 46.5 to 47.5 and the Downstream went from the positive .05 - .09 to the negative side of - 0.2 to - 0.8. Everyone was bumped off for about a minute or so. Didn't see the modem so not sure if it rebooted, but logs say no. Service again seems to have auto corrected and the correctables/uncorrectables are not climbing by more than just a few. Will let you know more as time goes on, but seems we are on a path to dependable service.
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6-26 Connection 10AM

6-26 Log 10AM
 

6-26 PingTest 10AM
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6-26 Weather 10AM

6-26 Speedtest 10AM
It is 10 AM on Tuesday and we experienced another DNS sites failing to load. The Signal levels are again moving about. I rebooted the modem and the router this time. I looked at the Router and it has been up 1d 16 hours. Which coincides with the 6pm sunday issue. I am going to monitor the Router a bit closer to be sure it is not under any type of barrage.

The images above are after the hang up and before the reboot.
The DL levels are 1.0 to 1.2 and the upload signal is 46.5
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6-27 Connection 7AM

6-27 Log 7AM
 

6-27 PingTest 7AM
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6-27 Weather 7AM

6-27 Speedtest 7AM
Just doing an update based on the morning temperatures. It took 3 tries and a homepage reload to get the weather.com page to load. The Download signals are a bit higher than usual in the 2.8 to 3.0 range and the Upload is at 46.0 which is where we seem to have the least Hangs, Server not found and other issues related to making requests for data from the web. As the modem has only been online for 20 hours and the correctable/uncorrectable seem to be at the 100/20 with 2-4 people using it most of those night into this morning. Again, not expecting perfection from the internet, and so far the service has been much, much more useable with less hassle. I would like to thank Ben (Cox Wichita) for his dedication, professionalism and staying in contact with us during the quest for a solution to the service issues we were experiencing. Also, thank you to those that posted ideas on things to try.

Sidenote: the Line Test from DSL Reports is showing a 2% packet loss to our IP. I am unsure of how much of the Physical Network this is, compared to the logical network. The link is »/pingt ··· /2916294