dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
913
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol

Member

[DSL] New'ish Frontier DSL subscriber with issues.

As stated I'm a fairly new Frontier DSL subscriber (around 8 months) and have been having constant connection issues.

I moved from the boonies to a place even more boonier and my DSL connection is the only thing I dislike about this place, I started off at a 3 meg connection and have been cut down to 1.5 meg in hopes that I would stay connected with less frequent disconnects, halving my speed didn't seem to help my connection issues at all and I'm willing to go even lower if it would keep me online longer, I completely gave up on streaming youtube or watching anything on NEtflix I just wanna stay connected and not have to constantly reset my router.

Info from my router is as follows:

DSL Speed (Kbits/Sec) 1789 445
Margin (dB) 6.4 22.9
Line Attenuation (dB) 57.1 28.9
Transmit Power (dBm) 16.5 12.6
FEC Errors 1051216 626
HEC Errors 8 7
CRC Errors 39 0

Uptime on that info is around 20 hours from last reset, it's a Netgear 7550 if that even matters.

I have had a tech out here twice, says the line looks good leading to my house and should not be having the issues I'm having, it never goes out while he's here either.! I have put in a new phone line from the box outside with heavier gauge wire, new phone line from a new phone jack to the router and still I get kicked, I also have just one phone with a new filter on it, tech put a new one on both times he was here.

With the above numbers what would you pro DSL guys think a stable connection speed be.? Anything faster than dial up will be acceptable for me.!

When I do a speed test I get low latency numbers and flatline at close to my connection speed on DL but UL looks to be a bit choppy, below is my last test result and chose the cincy server as I get better pings from it than one closer to my physical location (piketon Ohio).

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 2503.png

My physical location is just south of West Union Ohio, we're considered Manchester but we're actually a little North of there.

Thanks for any and all help.!

Doug Huffman
join:2007-07-27
Washington Island, WI

Doug Huffman

Member

Sorry, I will not be any help. I must speak up for Frontier in the boonies. Frontier 1.5 mbps streams just fine.

AMDUSER
Premium Member
join:2003-05-28
Earth,

AMDUSER to jnickol

Premium Member

to jnickol
Based on the downstream line attenuation (dB) 57.1- you are about 3 miles from the DSLAM.

Try checking with the regional manager for your area to see if there is a DSLAM closer that your could possible be connected to.
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol to Doug Huffman

Member

to Doug Huffman
I agree 1.5 is fine but would be even better if I could stay connected long enough to use it. I have tried for a couple days to respond to my thread but is hard when I keep getting red lights on my DSL router.
jnickol

jnickol to AMDUSER

Member

to AMDUSER
AMDUSER - The DSLAM I am on is the closest to me and from what I have been told it routs a large amount of traffic as well, from what I gather it's at capacity or even overloaded but can't get a clear answer if it will ever be upgraded to something that will handle more traffic or another unit added to work alongside it.

Doug Huffman
join:2007-07-27
Washington Island, WI

1 recommendation

Doug Huffman

Member

Isolated boonies means sparse and expensive infrastructure. Groom what you have.
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol

Member

It is rural here but we do have access to county water, our old home had a cistern fed by rainwater, we had DSL there as well but we were about a quarter mile away from the DSLAM at the beginning of our driveway and rarely had any issues.

I would be fine with what speeds I get here but the consistent outages are wearing thin, today internet has been out all day and when it did come back to life I can only connect at 424K, it does try to connect at 1.5 meg but retrains down to whatever the router decides is stable.

Nights seem to be better for internet as when it's sunny, rainy or windy out I am lucky to connect at all, if I do it's nowhere near my allotted 1.5 meg.

On very rare occasions I do get a good solid connection, great pings and flatline 1.6 meg on speedtests on 1 gig MP3 files, if I would get that type of connection more often I wouldn't be so bitter about paying for internet service that rarely ever works..

Hank
Searching for a new Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21
Burlington, WV

Hank

Premium Member

Sounds like you may have a physical problem with the line.
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol

Member

I have thought that myself but at night it can be raining cats and dogs wind blowing etc. and at times I can hold a constant connection with good pings and speed..? My internet works 100% when a tech comes out to do a line test or whatever he does, but just before he arrives and soon after he leaves my internet goes full retard again, I'm close to shelling out the extra bux to go 3G/4G and hope I won't be pounded too badly when I start to pull a bit of bandwidth.

Hank
Searching for a new Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21
Burlington, WV
ARRIS NVG443B
Ubiquiti NanoStation loco M2

Hank

Premium Member

I have two lines here and on one line I had the same issues that you have described. I finally insisted that they move me to a different pair and that resolved the issue. Like you I would have periods where it worked just fine for a couple hours and it would consistently check good when the techs looked at it.

Techhelpingh
@70.192.5.x

Techhelpingh to jnickol

Anon

to jnickol
Ever ask the tech what your margin is outside at the NID? That 6.4 is your issue as the port is set to target margin of 6 which really means anything 6 or below is going to drop you. If that's the margin outside and you were using 3meg at some point I'd say there is an issue with the line.
You could also ask about a booster unit like an actelis.
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol

Member

Sorry I haven't kept up on this thread but I was completely without interned from the day I last posted here.

I had what I hope to be a final visit from a tech this afternoon as I threatened to cancel my DSL if it wasn't fixed, he replaced something in the NID and so far (knock on wood) I have a stable 3 meg connection, the best it has been in the 8 or 9 months I have lived here, I can actually watch a youtube video without me losing my connection.!

He replaced something that would only pass DSL through that line, this new part seemed to do the trick so far, I have never had internet for hours at a time and I'm hoping it stays this way.!

aggravated
@184.14.172.x

aggravated

Anon

I've had nothing but trouble out of this Mickey mouse outfit, and if you're thinking of subscribing, be prepared to overpay for a whole lot of shoddy service to go with the lackadaisical customer service/tech support. I called to take advantage of a 'sale' advertised by mail the same day it arrived, and was told that the offer had expired. The rep set up a 'comparable' service for over $60/month, with free installation. Then hit the bloody roof when the first bill was over $200...that included a hundred dollar plus fee for installation that I could've done myself!!!!! When I called, they credited the price, but it'd be on the NEXT bill (which they actually did, to my surprise); but the bill afterward was over 80 per month!!! Customer svc. swore their hands were tied, and raked in 500 extra over the course of the contract. Now the blasted thing won't stay connected more than 20 minutes at a time, tech support are snide little toads, on top of the bold-faced lie that there was no contact info to corporate. I used my mobile data to send an email to the regional manager: who responded asap and got the bill fixed (turns out my service was set up wrong to start), and has credited a couple months of the 6 we've been without internet....but it's 50/month now (yay). The legend is that they're upgrading the infrastructure, and it'll be done in June. If it isn't, I'm taking a bat to this modem and they can eat their termination fee like one more collection notice is going to cost me sleep. Avoid these clowns at all cost, or prepare to get to know your local tech personally (at least they do their jobs and don't lie to you), and keep the regional manager's number on hand. They'll rob you blind, overcharging for shoddy service, and don't do Jack to remedy things even after they claim the fault lies with them. And don't expect anything but condescension from tech support, either. Sorry for the rant, but their school yard extortion business plan is enough to make a saint go stark raving mad. Caveat emptor...big time.
jnickol
join:2014-05-04

jnickol

Member

I believe everybody who has Frontier knows that it's either them, wireless (cell tech) dialup or satellite broadband when you live out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm not too sure about dialup now-a-days.

I agree with you about tech support and my local tech does a very good job, he's knowledgeable, courteous and sympathetic to the problem that I was having and he did finally fix my issue by replacing another old piece of an outdated puzzle.

I was also a victim of added charges, my account mysteriously acquired their top tier security program and since my bill is paid every month automatically I hadn't noticed it until a tech told me I had that on my account the last time I called for support, I almost had to argue with the guy over the phone to have it removed and was told there was no way I could get a refund even though I never wanted it added in the first place so they managed to get about 90 bux more out of me for that.

I believe Frontier is mostly a broadband provider for rural areas so we have to expect outages, I'm pretty sure that they do upgrade hardware on a consistent basis, I know that they have upgraded equipment out by me to relieve congestion as my pings have gone from 400ms+ to around the 60ms range and my speeds are a constant 3Mbs when I'm DLing large files now even though "on paper" I should not have DSL at all.

I don't have the speeds I did when I lived a few hundred feet from my DSLAM but since I chose to live where I live I can't expect perfect internet every day of the year, most of the infrastructure that Frontier is using was probably outdated before they bought out whomever was doing it before they come along.

I have chose to live in the country for many great reasons but one of the downfalls of doing so was that I could not play my favorite online game, I know this may sound trivial but I have played a game called Eve Online for many years now and the day I moved out here I had to stop as I could not maintain a constant connection to the internet, I doubt I'll be able to regain my corps membership base like I had in the past but I'm excited to be able to play again.!

I'm not trying to defend Frontier but I can see why they are having issues with providing reliable broadband service, I absolutely did not want satellite broadband and wireless is too expensive so kept faith that someday my connection issues would be solved which they seemed to have done, I'm coming up on a week of solid internet now.!