DSL Extreme → [Fusion] Slow speeds and connection drops

I have been a DSL Extreme Fusion customer for about 40 days. The connection in that time has been very erratic. At times the download speeds are below 1 Mbps. I have called the DSL extreme tech support and they are seeing the problems on the line
The tech from AT&T has been here 4 times to check the line. All four times no problem was found with the line. He was able to get speed of up to 7 Mbps at the MPoE. Yesterday we installed a new phone line from the MPoE using about 15 feet of CAT5 wire. The speeds were still below one and it was dropping out at least half the time. We plugged the modem into the MPoE and had the same problems. The DSL Extreme saw the same problem and the AT&T tech is scheduled to be here sometime between now and Monday.
The other times that he has been here the connection will get better before he arrives and will stay good for up to 12 hours after he leaves. We can at that time get speeds of over 5Mbps. So one of my questions is there something that DSL Extreme or Sonic does at the central office so the tech can check the line? Could the problems that I am having with the connection be cause by the DSL line being over subscribed?
Thanks for any insight you can give me.

It's not oversubscription, I can say that much (I have yet to see a single congestion issue with our Fusion customers, for that matter). Congestion wouldn't change your sync rate, whether at the MPOE or inside; the only factors which would affect that are physical factors, such as faulty phone wiring, unfiltered phones, etc.

If I'm reading you correctly, the line improves on its own prior to the tech's arrival, and stays good for up to 12 hours after he leaves - so more than 12 consecutive hours of good readings, through the middle of the day and afternoon? Usually if there's going to be an intermittent sync-based line issue, it will occur during the day, when the sun is heating up the phone cables outside - the exact opposite of what you describe.

No, we don't change anything at the Central Office when we dispatch out. If the field tech finds something wrong with the signal leaving the CO, he might phone in to the CO and have them make changes accordingly... but those would be permanent changes that they leave in place, not temporary things that they undo 13+ hours later, and wouldn't be done until after (not before) the dispatch.

At this point, two possible scenarios present themselves:

1) There's some local disturber that is turning on in the evening, when the problem starts, and doesn't turn off until early morning. This leads me to suspect equipment that would be running in the evening, such as lights. Is your modem close to, I don't know, a giant fluorescent light or AC unit or anything odd that you can think of?

2) The sync rate is fine, but the data is being diverted. If your connection is in use (for example, if you're streaming a video or downloading a file) when you run a speed test, your test results will be inaccurate. If you have a router, particularly a wifi router, it's possible another device on the network could be eating up the bandwidth (maybe a relative is watching a movie or downloading something, for example, or if your wifi is unsecured maybe it's a neighbor doing it). If any computer is infected with malware, it's also possible there could be an infected computer secretly tying up the connection.

I have my doubts regarding either of those two scenarios, however. Fluorescent lighting or ACs wouldn't be kept running into the late morning (making the first scenario less likely), and you said the DSL Extreme tech was able to see the same problem (which would suggest it was a sync issue after all, not a problem with data being used elsewhere). The other scenario that comes to mind is if we're pushing the line too hard - it could be tripping over itself, as it were, trying to overperform in the evenings, and we might just need to dial it back slightly to ensure a more uniform, stable connection. Send me a PM with your account info and I'll take a look into it.

Nick thanks for your reply. I need to wait 8 hours before I can sen you an IM message. .The connection is bad at any time of the day. There are only two of us on the connection and neither of us are streaming any movies or downloading any large file. There is no wifi router The phone connection is on the south side of the house and the AC unit is on the North. There does not seem to be any other large motors. Speed right now is .26 Mbps. I have set up a job that runs every minute. It will ping gogle from my computer . It saves the time when the ping was not successful. Starting at around 9:15 about 25% of the time the ping is not successful

There, I sent you a PM; you should be able to reply to that now.

You say pings are dropping ~25% starting around 9:15(am presumably)? When do they go up to 100%?

Nick I still can not send you a message. I just finished talking to DSLExtreme tech support. They noticed that there was static on the phone line. They will have AT&T check the phone line when they come out on Monday. I will let you know if they find any thing.

It wouldn't let you reply to the PM? Weird, I thought the site would let you do that. Anyways...

Static on the lines is definitely not-good, and definitely a sync-related issue. Important question: does the static go away if you turn off the modem? Please try that, if you haven't. If the static goes away when the modem is turned off, that tells you with a high degree of certainty that there is a filtering issue (either you have a phone, fax machine, alarm system, etc. which is unfiltered, or it does have a filter but the filter's bad).

The static was on the line when the phone was plugged into the MPoE. So it was not a modem or filter problem.

Excellent! And by that I mean 'yay we know it's an outside line quality issue, and not a problem with inside wiring, modem, or filter', not 'yay you have a problem', of course. If you're hearing static on the line as described, that means the disturber or line fault is powerful enough that it should easily be picked up by the field tech. If the tech tries to claim again that there's nothing wrong, please don't hesitate to call us immediately while he's there, because there demonstrably IS an outside line issue that needs to be fixed.

The AT&T tech was here at round 1:00 pm. Again he did not find any problem with the line. He stated the problem was with our equipment or internal wiring and again the speeds are over 5mbps tonight. There was no change to the line or the equipment since yesterday when the speeds were below 1 Mbps.
I was not here when the the tech was.
I have been pinging google every minute for the past week and recording when there are failures. At 11:15am to 11:20 am the pings were failing. Since the tech was here there was has only been one ping that has failed.
There is currently no static on the phone line. I will let you know if there problems come back tomorrow like they have in the past.

Hrmph. "No trouble found". Still, no static is good, at least. Definitely let me know if the static or other problems return; I'll be keeping an eye on your line readings from this end for a bit to see if anything seems immediately off that I can see.