<tt>Dropping DSL line is one of several things:</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>1. line noise - that will not get fixed by the phone co until it fails</tt><br>
<tt>completely since it requires they roll a truck. You need a signal</tt><br>
<tt>strength meter to verify. Phone co will only guarantee line quality to</tt><br>
<tt>demarc site. Bad house wiring is often a problem.</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>2. Bad modem. Semi-frequent occurrence. Only way to verify is with</tt><br>
<tt>another modem. If service is keyed to MAC then it requires MAC spoofing.</tt><br>
<tt>Phone co is reluctant to replace it as they can't RMA it anyway.</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>3. Half-bad modem. Frequent occurrence. I've seen many that were flaky</tt><br>
<tt>and felt rather warm. Pop the case off (you have no warranty so who</tt><br>
<tt>cares) and "look" at the chip top with a non-contact thermometer (reads</tt><br>
<tt>IR signature). Anything over 60C is not in a good range. Often after a</tt><br>
<tt>thunderstorm, the modems go into half-crap stage due to line surges that</tt><br>
<tt>cause non-fatal damage.</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>4. Old phone wires with cruded up connections or failing line fuse. Look</tt><br>
<tt>for a hex topped screw on a black dual screw terminal block. The hex top</tt><br>
<tt>is a "fuse" between tip and ring. Normally those blow during a big surge</tt><br>
<tt>from lightning but they also age and introduce noise on the DSL signal.</tt><br>
<tt>Move the wires to a new block without the fuse device. Removing the fuse</tt><br>
<tt>will cause the phone line to go out in many cases.</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>Good luck. The script-reading dweebs are useless and really don't care</tt><br>
<tt>if you have service or not. As long as they read their script, they</tt><br>
<tt>don't get in trouble. They also have no ability to run a line test from</tt><br>
<tt>their end.</tt><br>
<br>
<tt>Speakeasy tech support can and will run a line test first thing to see</tt><br>
<tt>if there is a problem. Rather than argue with you, the person sending</tt><br>
<tt>them money, the presume that you wouldn't be spending the time to call</tt><br>
<tt>for help if the stuff was working. I've was terrified when Best Buy</tt><br>
<tt>acquired Speakeasy but so far it is still the same Speakeasy I have been</tt><br>
<tt>super pleased with for years. </tt>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 9:36 PM, Thompson Freeman <<a href="mailto:tfreeman@intel.digichem.net">tfreeman@intel.digichem.net</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
The subject pretty much says it all in the short form. I need to blow<br>
steam so you can delete this with my appreciation for the use of your<br>
bandwidth.<br>
<br>
My girlfriend has BellSouth/AT&T dsl service at home, although she<br>
doesn't much use it prefering to do her thing at work. I built her a<br>
box and loaded Ubuntu 7.10 on it, which connects through a Westell<br>
router/dsl modem. There are connectivity issues with the internet<br>
however, so I went over for a troubleshooting session this evening.<br>
<br>
Now, I do know better than to admit to these script reading tech<br>
support people that I've got linux running, but I've got a big mouth<br>
also. Strike one on me. Actually two and three, end of inning, also but<br>
the script reader was willing to fool along.<br>
<br>
The problem is that the modem will not stay linked up (and this is<br>
influenced by the OS HOW??), but drops the connection. I can access the<br>
web setup stuff on the Westell box just fine.<br>
<br>
Basically I got told (eventually) to get an expert on my end of the<br>
line with Windows, or forget it.<br>
<br>
Jerks.<br>
<br>
I'll take the laptop over tomorrow, with Wonders 2000 on it, and see if<br>
the next mouth breather can see reason.<br>
<br>
Trouble is, my only other option for her seems to be RoadRunner (I get<br>
to fight with them for my daughter), for three times the money. Doesn't<br>
seem to be worth the effort.<br>
<br>
Thanks for letting me bitch for the moment. I'm feeling slightly<br>
better.<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-- <br>James P. Kinney III <br>CEO & Director of Engineering <br>Local Net Solutions,LLC <br><a href="http://www.localnetsolutions.com">http://www.localnetsolutions.com</a><br>
<br>GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)<br><<a href="mailto:jkinney@localnetsolutions.com">jkinney@localnetsolutions.com</a>><br>Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7