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Untame
join:2015-03-01
Galesville, WI

Untame

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[CenturyTel] S L O W connection (ADSL)... need modem recommendation

Supposedly we have Centurylink's "512" ADSL service. Our modem reports that we are linked up to DSL at 576/288 kbits. Speed tests report a mbit down/up of 0.47/0.23. Modem/router is a Westell D90-327W14-06, and it is beyond its service life for Centurylink.

This is the fastest DSL we can get out on our farm (unfortunately). What newer modem would give us the fastest possible use of our limited ADSL line? I also am looking for something with greater WiFi range.

At times we have as many as 8-10 devices connected wirelessly -- I understand that seriously hampers bandwidth on the DSL line service -- but a lot of this is for wireless printing, so I'd like a modem with a high speed wireless router for occasional high traffic.

Thanks,
Untame

Brett C
join:2004-08-03
Olathe, KS

Brett C

Member

Westell VersaLink D90 eh? Haven't heard that one in a fair while now. Unfortunately, I do not know where the Remote/DSLAM/Central Office is to you. Google Maps and Google Streetview didn't help me in locating such buildings/objects. Only information I can go by is Galesville, Wisconsin. As a reminder, please do not post your exact address on the forums. (I did find a nifty TV station tower east of your town though!)

I assume this is the central office [link].

At the minimum, without knowing your DSL sync rates/stats, myself and others will be unable to give guidance on if you can even get faster speeds.

As for DSL modems, I've been fairly happy with my Zyxel 660 series DSL Modem over the past years. Very solid DSL Modem. Now, my personal preferences, a hybrid Wireless access point + a modem never floated my boat.

With the 660, the old DSLAM had me about 3300 meters, which is about ~2 miles. I was able to hold a modified profile of 5mbps down and 512kbps up. If the upload was sync'd any higher than 684k, my dsl would lose sync.

Since you've stated that your download speed is at 512kbps (youch!), that would put your line length right near 6km (3.75miles) at a best guess estimate. The upload sync of 288 (~384kbps raw sync) would further solidify that you're at the edge of ADSL2 coverage. However, i cannot say this for sure, as myself and others do not know your DSL sync stats.

Also, I would recommend a Wireless Access Portal due to how many wireless devices that you have rather a built in modem+wireless support. Newegg [linked here] has a nice list of WAP's.
gapmn
join:2013-11-10
Saint Paul, MN

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Order this and you should be all set: »www.ebay.com/itm/Century ··· 49c3a053

I have used them in the past and they have been simple and very reliable to use.
coryw
join:2013-12-22
Flagstaff, AZ

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576/288 is almost certainly the set profile speed for your product tier. If you are very far from the DSLAM (which it sounds like it is, with words like "farm" being involved) then you're never going to get a higher sync rate than that, ever.

0.47 megabits is about what you should expect out of 512 kilobit service, due to PPPoE and ATM overhead.

That being said, if you want better local-to-local speeds, the ZyXEL C1000z that gapmn See Profile linked will do very well. It has a four-port gigabit Ethernet switch and 802.11N wireless networking built in.

The other thing you could do is drop your existing modem into bridge mode (because if it's syncing at 576/288 there's nothing wrong with it) and buy a new router to suit your needs. You won't get any better Internet speeds out of it, but LAN will be faster.

Devices speaking to one-another on the local network shouldn't(1) slow down the Internet(2), but most devices and software applications these days presume that you have a solid, and (relatively) very fast internet connection, at about 10/2 or so megabits. As such, a device like a game console or a phone or a tablet will, almost immediately upon being connected to the Internet, start to upload backups to a cloud service, download software updates, check a bunch of e-mail and social media accounts, and so on.

It's useful and endearing when you have a fast Internet line, and it's annoying as all get-out when you sit down at your desk and realize that the four device with wifi that you have on your person all just connected and are downloading and uploading data.

(1) Really old DSL modem/routers with WLAN interfaces such as the 2wire 2700 and 2701 are said to be pretty bad with busy LANs. Heavy wireless to wireless traffic on one of those devices will bog down the CPU and may actually cause problems with the DSL connection. I don't know what the Westell D90 is like in that regard, but it's old enough that it's very possible that its CPU can't handle a very high number of wireless devices. If it was new in 2004, remember that when it was new, most people had one or two wireless computers and no cell phones, video game systems, or tablets that were using WiFi.

(2) But unfortunately your Internet connection is so slow that troubleshooting what's making it slower than it "should" be is going to be nearly impossible. I have this problem even at 1536/896 kilobits.

Brett C
join:2004-08-03
Olathe, KS

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I did some more digging around here on DSLr, could you do this for me? »AT&T Southeast Forum FAQ »How do I access the 327W line stats & logs? What do the numbers mean?

Most interested in knowing what Section 1 shows.
Untame
join:2015-03-01
Galesville, WI

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Click for full size
Is this what you are looking for?

Brett C
join:2004-08-03
Olathe, KS

1 edit

Brett C

Member

That would be what I'm after... and bad news.

Downstream Line Attenuation is rather very high. Your upstream is a fair bit high as well. This may denote that the pair-twist that you're on is: a) old/aged, b) damage (weather, construction repairs, etc) along the lines, c) quite far from the DSLAM/CO.

You could try and see if a new DSL modem will give better stats, but I doubt a newer DSL modem will show prettier numbers. It might reduce the downstream attenuation to 52 - 57 at best case.

DSL Margin for downstream (and upstream) looks decent at least.

edit; If you were to get a faster speed profile, there would be medium-chances that the 1.5mbps package would have stability problems. Best guesstimate would be around 896k-1024k on a downstream sync under decent/good line conditions. Someone will need to correct me on that, I have a feeling I am off.

A dB reading of 59.5->60 would denote you're right around 4.30 to 4.35km (2.6-2.7mi) away from the DSLAM/CO.

edit 2; I'm going to go with the assumption that your cable loss is at 11.49dB per km at a 59.5 downstream attenuation to net ~576 sync. Which would probably denote that the cabling in your house or the buried cables are of varying AWG thicknesses.
Untame
join:2015-03-01
Galesville, WI

Untame

Member

Recently CenturyLink buried a new line from the junction box to the house. Do you think a new phone line from the box to the jack might make a difference?

Brett C
join:2004-08-03
Olathe, KS

Brett C

Member

Actually just was thinking about that in my second edit to the post of mine.
quote:
edit 2; I'm going to go with the assumption that your cable loss is at 11.49dB per km at a 59.5 downstream attenuation to net ~576 sync. Which would probably denote that the cabling in your house or the buried cables are of varying AWG thicknesses.
Untame
join:2015-03-01
Galesville, WI

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Click for full size
Today CenturyLink is installing a second dedicated data line. I tried to talk the tech into bonding the pair, but he said that someone in an office had to make that call and they probably wouldn't.

I'm planning on making this a dedicated Wi-Fi access point with an aerial (L-com WLAN-LCCPE28-1)

What would be the best DSL modem to use with this access point? Am I better off with a modem that does not have integrated Wi-Fi or does it make any difference?

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

Atom90

Member

@Untame
Your overall stats look just slightly worse than mine and I'm currently synced at 1472/288 with a lot potential bandwidth being unused. Your attenuation looks a bit worse due to some extra distance between you and your DSLAM, probably. Attenuation is usually used to judge your phone line length and overall line speed possibilities but it's not always very accurate. Having a modem hooked up on your line that can tell you your max rate/max attainable is very helpful as it can actually see how much data can really be put through your particular line.



As you can see my modem displays the highest sync that my line can support but doesn't sync that high because CL has set my rate to 1472/288. During this winter it was saying I could sync at ~2700dl but looks to have dropped a bit to ~2300dl now that it's spring and the sun is always out I guess.

Back when Centurylink was my local Embarq, I was on the 786/384 (or something close to that)

TL:DR
You probably aren't even close to the max rate your line could support because CenturyLink is limiting you to your current tier. I think there is a decent chance that your line could support the 1.5Mbit tier. It's just a matter of convincing CenturyLink.
coryw
join:2013-12-22
Flagstaff, AZ

coryw

Member

No confirmation yet, but on the ActionTec/ZyXEL/Technicolor devices from Qwest/CL, it's believed(1) that the "Max Sync" is what you can get if you allow SNR to drop to 0, so there's probably a little less overhead there than you think.

The other thing is that in ultra-rural settings, or just forgotten pockets of urban or suburban areas, there are still a fair number of T1-fed DSLAMs. It's possible that Qwest/Embarq/CenturyTel has put the OP on one of those systems and isn't upgrading their speed because the system can't easily handle it. (i.e. it would create congestion that doesn't already exist, or already exists but in a manageable level.)

Qwest upgraded a lot of those users to 1.5M, but I bet a system with a lot of heavy users would be better at a lower classic tier. (These are 48-port DSLAMs with 12M of total backhaul.)

In terms of the dedicated access point -- are you doing anything special like trying to use WiFI from far away, or are you bridging two buildings on a property, or providing service to a neighbor? If none of those things are true, there's no really good reason that the built-in WiFi on something like a PK5001 or C1000 type of modem would be insufficient for Internet purposes.

Another issue with pair bonding: The DSLAM must support it, and pair bonding wasn't added until ADSL2+, and not all ADSL2+ DSLAMs support it.

(1) EDIT: I should clarify my wording here. I personally believe this, I don't know if anybody else also has this theory or agrees with me on my theory.
Untame
join:2015-03-01
Galesville, WI

Untame

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said by coryw:

In terms of the dedicated access point -- are you doing anything special like trying to use WiFI from far away, or are you bridging two buildings on a property, or providing service to a neighbor? If none of those things are true, there's no really good reason that the built-in WiFi on something like a PK5001 or C1000 type of modem would be insufficient for Internet purposes.

We are actually moving into a house we built across the road from the shop. The service address property belongs to my inlaws, but we don't want to bring service onto our property because we are completely off-grid. This is why I am installing a dedicated access point with the antenna.

The tech said that the farm house at the end of our lane talked Centurylink into opening it up to 1.5mb, but they were on/off with their service so Centurylink canned that idea. I have a feeling it had more to do with them not paying the bill than service being unreliable.

Yesterday I got an official phone-call response from Centurylink that they aren't able to offer me more than 512k. I asked them to elevate it with a request to permit pair bonding.

I picked up a refurbished Actiontec C1000A on Ebay. It was cheap, so I'll see how it works. I could not find the Technicolor anywhere, and that is too bad because it seemed to have good reviews and a lot of scalability. If I talk them into bonded I'll need a different modem.

After I get my equipment in I'll run some tests and post the results. One thing I'll have going for me is that it will be all new wire. My inlaw's house is quite old and patched together. I think their wiring might be part of the problem.

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

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said by coryw:

No confirmation yet, but on the ActionTec/ZyXEL/Technicolor devices from Qwest/CL, it's believed(1) that the "Max Sync" is what you can get if you allow SNR to drop to 0, so there's probably a little less overhead there than you think.

I use a 2Wire 2701HG-B provided by At&t.
said by coryw:

The other thing is that in ultra-rural settings, or just forgotten pockets of urban or suburban areas, there are still a fair number of T1-fed DSLAMs.

OP apparently lives outside of a small town in a Centurytel/Emabarq area, not Qwest. Really kind of doubt they are on a remote DSLAM with that high of an attenuation. And with an upload speed of 288, a kind of smoking gun for Embarq, I doubt a remote DSLAM even more. From what I have seen on this forum Centurytel provides 320 upload vs 288 for Embarq.

OP's town is slightly larger than mine and I only have the CO to provide DSL service. Why build a remote DSLAM when you can require people to pay for phone if they want DSL.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

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To the OP:

Just call and get advanced tech (or level 3) to "try" a 1.5Mbps tier to see if it works.

They can swap the profile on the fly and they'll usually resist doing it, but with persistence you can find someone who will do it

Just let them know you're doing it so you can see if it's worth pressing for higher speed. Although, i'd doubt your line will do a full 1.5Mbps but if it does then you might as well push for it! If nothing maybe get upgraded to 768kbps - still way better than 512kbps

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

Atom90

Member

said by brad152:

If nothing maybe get upgraded to 768kbps

I don't get why OP is not already on that to begin with, they can certainly sync at that speed.

John_P
@embarqhsd.net

John_P

Anon

I would recommend the Technicolor C2000T for ADSL2+, even though it is really for fiber optic GPON, and also bonded VDSL2, and bonded ADSL2+, you can run it in single line mode for ADSL2+ by changing the connection parameters in the router's graphic user interface (GUI) by typing 192.168.0.1 on a web browser and hitting Enter after that, then login with the credentials that you provide, or if first time setting the C2000T up, use the default credentials located on the bottom of the router/modem combo.

I have found this modem to be very forgiving on marginal lines than other models! I have Fastpath mode on bonded ADSL2+ at 25/2 speed, and I get no errors most of the time, sometimes I get just one or two CRC errors, but that is about it.

Mine trains at the MEDR (maximum engineered data rate) of 29440 down and 2304 up and I have Fastpath on both the upload and download on both lines! Pretty good modem in my opinion if you ask me!