said by heels_fan :

The only time I have ever lost sync is when a city brush truck reached up a little to high and snag the Bellsouth line overhead.

said by brandon :

When I first got DSL at this residence, I had a Westell 2100, about 4 years or so ago. It was rock solid, never dropping unless I pulled the plug on the UPS. It even held up through Hurricane Ivan and Katrina. But the modem belonged to my parents, and they took it with them when they moved out and I bought their house from them.

Thus, Bellsouth sent me not one, but two Westell 6100s. The reason? The first one they sent, every time it rained, or even thundered, the modem would lose sync. They sent a second one, and it did the same thing. I resigned myself to believing something had happened to the line, but since it was an intermittent thing that only happened during a storm, I didn't worry about it too much. This lasted for a year.

I finally went on ebay about a month though and picked up a netopia 3346 on a good deal ($15 shipped). We've since had only two major storms (including this one tonight that I'm posting during) and the netopia has been rock solid, not dropping sync since I hooked it up. The Westell would have definitely dropped by now tonight--the lightning is horrible. But not even a hiccup.

I've heard tell of the 6100s being somewhat flaky on holding sync. Has anyone else noticed this pattern?

said by Pashune :

Many users (including myself) have had problems with 6100s through thunderstorms.
I replaced it with a Netopia 3347-02 and it works like a charm when it storms.

said by Surfinusa :

Sound to me your line is causing it, especially because it is intermittent or during storms.

said by brandon :

I'm not denying the line is not perfect, as I'm sure if it were a perfect line the Westell would do fine. And as Pashune said, I know that the Westell is supposed to sync very well compared to other modems. However, I have seen people in this forum complaining time and time again that the Westell drops sync during a thunderstorm.

Compared to the 6100, my 2100 and now Netopia 3346 were simply much better able to hold sync during a storm. I agree it's because the line is not perfect, but that doesn't change the fact that the Westell is not performing as well as the others.

said by RJ44 :

There's definitely a difference in how the modem chipsets handle noise on the line. There is some funky intermittent noise on my line that no one seems able to fix, and the ONLY modem I've found that can handle it is the old STH. None of the Westells or 2Wires can hold sync more than a couple of hours at a time, but the STH goes usually 1-2 weeks without a resync. When my last STH dies I think I'm gonna have to move...

said by Pashune :

There's probably no way I can help you out here, but out of curiosity, where do your stats stand?

said by RJ44 :

Last time I checked was about a year ago. With the STH I sync at 8128/512 with attenuation around 35 and SNR in the 8-10 range. The Westell was about the same with a slightly higher (10-15) SNR. I don't remember what the 2Wires gave me.

Stats are decent, but every now and then something slaps me offline unless I'm using the STH - I'm assuming there's a T1, or some alarm, or something generating noise bursts fairly frequently. I've had decent (and some not so decent) techs out here quite a few times and they pretty much did all they could. They improved my stats quite a bit, but nothing changed the sync loss every couple of hours except plugging in the STH. If not for it, I'd be pretty much screwed.

said by Pashune :

I'll be sure to help you out in finding another if the STH happens to die anytime soon.