AT&T Midwest → Frustration

We have a long history of random disconnects on this line.
Several calls to tech support have been made with no real success.
Most of them have been non-helpful. A couple have granted fleeting relief, or the illusion thereof.
First, there was the 2wire 2701. I have no complaints about the appliance, but it went out on me months ago due to one thing or another.
Moved on. Rather than pay AT&T $100 I went to Best Buy and purchased a netgear dgn2200. It cost $100 but that was my choice. It works fine, as far as I can tell.

Anyhow. When the disconnects come, if i'm watching the stats on my modem, I can watch the Signal Margin drop steadily, service remains until it hits 3.0dB or under. Usually, it stays there until I manually reboot the device. The last time I called in, 2 days ago, the tech told me that something was wrong with the authorization on my modem. She tries to tell me that though I may be putting the right password in one field, there may be other pages on my modem/router GUI that have the wrong information. Is this even possible? Is there consumer hardware that does double-dsl lines? I thought I was pretty savvy so I'm pretty confused as to why that sort of thing can be blamed on non-supported device issues. I question that AUTH issues can even cause a drop in signal margin - but I know that most techs are reading from a script and don't really have any technical training, so I give up on her and put in the new password she gave me. I seriously feel like my problem isn't being taken seriously because there are no other options in this area. We don't get cable. Satellite isn't an option because I'm a gamer. That adds tons to the frustration, by the way. So many times I've lost connection in the middle of a game and suffered some kind of loss or penalty for it.

She also mentioned that we have "poor line parameters" in the area but said it was nothing out of spec. It's a long loop, but I can go for days at a time without a disconnection. The line supports the speed I'm paying for.

I guess two things:
I'd like to know if there's a good, cheap modem that ATT supports so I can get treated decently when I call in
and I'd like to know if anyone has any ideas what can be causing these disconnects. There's only one jack in the house, btw, filtered with a phone and the DSL modem on it. 99.9999% sure it is not a bridge tap.

Starting from the last: AT&T only supports the modems they issue; and they usually aren't cheap (unless you by used from Craig's List or eBay).

How many stars in the night sky? How many grains of sand at the beach? Maybe 1/10th that many causes of random disconnects.

Blaming the equipment: Usually means the CSR doesn't know, but doesn't want the customer to think she doesn't know. Nine times out of ten they can blow smoke for a non-tech-savvy user. Most of the comments your CSR made sound like "Bluff and Bluster".

If the equipment is not an AT&T (or SBC/Bellsouth) issue device, the CSR should just be up front and explain that they aren't to provide assistance for unsupported equipment.

When the SNR goes below 6.0 dB there will trouble with the connection. The recommendation is to check again at the NID.

»AT&T Southeast Forum FAQ »How to check modem stats, synch rates & speeds from test jack at the NID.

This will point to either the premises wiring (good, solid numbers) or plant wiring (no difference in the numbers). The attenuation figure can give a rough idea of the loop length; assuming it doesn't reflect a line fault masquerading as a long loop.

You have lineshare with voice. Is there the least sign of static, buzz, or crosstalk? Such faults in the voice service often affect the DSL service. I've had DSL faults cleared by fixing concurrent voice faults.

I can do a test at the NID, I have before, but the numbers when I'm not getting disconnected are more or less the same as when I test at the NID. The one phone jack we have connected in the house right now was installed by an AT&T tech a couple years ago, and previously we had daisy-chained other jacks off of it, but only to change the position of the modem/router for wifi reception. There's nothing else hooked up to it for the last month or so.

AT&T's online shopping tool tells me i could sign up for uverse, at a severely reduced speed. I've read a few posts about uverse on here, and while I realize it's still just a different kind of DSL, it seems to use different equipment on the telco end, so i'm wondering if that might "fix" things for AT&T. I understand they wouldn't let me go back to regular DSL at this point. Is there also a good chance I can upgrade to a speed closer to what I have with DSL once i have uverse service in place?

The fact that U-verse HSI is only available at a "severely reduced" speed suggests that you may be trying to get more speed than the loop length will allow.

You could try a post in the AT&T Direct forum. Give the techs the numbers you are getting. If there is trouble in the outside plant, they may be able to get it fixed. But you may just be too far out for the speed.

How about a used Speedstream 4100B or 4100 or Netopia 2210 or Motorola 2210? »[Modem] 4100 v. 4100b

»www.ebay.com/itm/AT-T-Mo ··· 36399386 would be one example.

The problem is intermittent disconnects. the 90% of the time I'm connected, I'm getting full sync (3008), with max theoretical syncs in the 4800 range. The line supports the speed. I had the 1.5M package for a while and the problem remained.

That's a good question.

During the time connection is good, no. There's no noise except the slight humming you'd expect, that dial tone covers up completely. Tested at the NID and the in-house jack.

Next time I get a problem i'll hook it up to the in-house jack and see what's waht.

I wish more people would acknowledge that. Primarily because if there is noise on the phone line itself it means the line is compromised. No one bothers to check this crucial element.

To stop the dial tone for a while so that you can listen, press 3 (or some other digit). There should not be a hum.

That's how I found the hum, pressing a digit.
it's there when I plug the phone directly into the NID, so it's either the phone or AT&T's problem. it's an old phone, but the only corded we still have. The cordless doesn't have the hum, but that might just be some kind of filtering on the unit. it's a 5.8ghz.

There's also hum, btw, when the corded phone is plugged in through the filter, but it's a distinctly different sound.

There is static on the voice line when the DSL link is lost.

If your wanting to get a AT&T supported modem, I have a 2wire 2701 I'd sell you for a flat 50.00, comes with the original box and was working at the time it was "retired". AT&T thought it may of been a modem issue and replaced it with the Netgear one, but it ended up being capacity/utilization issues on their end.

I'm not too worried about having an AT&T supported modem, not $50 worried anyway. With the static on the voice line causing my DSL disconnects, I'm now more interested in find out how to get them to take that seriously and fix it.

because they obviously don't take it seriously when you just call up with a problem to your DSL line. I guess they assume you're some internet-addict taking it out on them because you can't get your fix.

We'll the $50 was a first offer, which is half what AT&T wants for it. It's just sitting in the basement not being used, so I figure I'd offer it up to ya, I'd take almost anything that at least covered shipping of it and a lil for me.

Line shares are trash.

The CO's generate way to much noise on their pots side.

Also half the time the issue is at the crossbox, because the tech leaves the old pots jumper which is not very twisted because pots will work over any piece of trash wire in existence.

Ok, Line shares are trash.

What can I do about it at little or no cost to me?

Cancel pots and ask a tech to run a new jumper if you have a crossbox. Possibly a new drop line too.

Remove any splitter filters you have in the nid and make a cat5 home run from there.

There is only one slight downside to that. Typically on longer loops dry loops don't get as good of rates as line-shared ones do. This has something to do with relying on the modem and DSLAM for power only.

I find a lot of the longer loop ones as soon as they go to dry loop they just don't achieve the rates at the longer loops than they did with lineshared circuits. Sure, for short loops it isn't much of a problem. Longer loops... it's hit or miss. Even being moved to a different DSLAM and different shelf in the office/remote don't help.

David, I don't doubt you have seen those results in person.

But it most certainly has to be attributed to coincidence from other factors.

( I have experienced almost exactly the opposite, at least with IP DSL, and VDSL )

POTS is pretty much mandatory (by decree of the head of the household), so it isn't going anywhere.

Bursts of static on the POTS side of the line (or the line in general) are causing me to be disconnected at irregular intervals. I assume there's pretty much nothing to be done about this except wait for AT&T to deem it bad enough to replace the lines?

I agree, Vdsl and IPDSLAM (VDSL/vdsl2/vdsl2+/adsl2/adsl2+) gets more bits per channel so achieving 3008/512 or even 3008/1024 is easier to do at longer ranges.

I wouldn't be surprised as DSL grows and vectoring becomes popular if you can achieve more bits per channel over time. Who knows it's entirely possible our version of DOCSIS 3.0 is still yet to come.

Can't help them (or any DSL provider) for trying.

It may not be coming from the lines.

When you have POTS you are connected to different switching equipment which includes banks of batteries which are generally in the same room as mechanical equipment ( such as air pumps ect..) and line noise creeps in.

If the bursts of static are there when the modem is off and it's present at the nid/Sni (or if you have line backer/line protection) you can file a report for free on the phone service only at

»www.att.com/repair

pretty much the nuts and bolts is, if the intermittent static is at the nid/sni with...

1.) the DSL modem not on/connected..
2.) common phone plugged into the test jack at the nid/sni..

you can pretty much determine right there if you will see a field tech charge or not. If the problem happens with a Yes on the 2 conditions above (linebacker/protection or not) it would still be repairable as it's happening at the common interface point. It still has to be good to that point.

they still have to advise of possible charges (they all have to), but it doesn't guarantee that says "YES YOU WILL BE BILLED". If you have line backer and such there would be very little you would be charged for left.