[X4U] Testing conection

[Stroller]

On 12 Jul 2006, at 12:54, Jan Melichar wrote:

> I'm living with a long term problem with the internet connection at  
> my office - connection keeps dropping. I have have had a lot of  
> visits from telephone engineers who tell me that I have a very good  
> quality line but the line keeps dropping....

What kind of modem do you have?

 From your talk of telephone engineers I assume you're on DSL (and if  
you're in the UK then you're either quite persistent or have a great  
ISP, as it can be very difficult to get such visits from the average  
ISP) in which case I recommend the Netgear DG834G for logging the  
problems.

I can't guarantee the DG834G will give you a more stable connection  
but I use it for nearly all my customers and its logging is great  
(under the "security" or "firewall" section, I think) and will give  
you comprehensive details of line drops to the second for a number of  
days. If this router doesn't resolve your problem and you already  
have a router then I'm sure you could resell the DG834G on eBay for  
nearly as much as you paid for it, so the logging you ask for  
wouldn't cost you very much at all. In fact, considering eBay prices  
you might even get MORE than you paid for it!! I get mine from  
BroadbandBuyer <http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp? 
ProductID=1407> as I believe them to be as cheap as anyone in the UK  
and I live local to them (Milton Keynes) so can collect the same day  
I order.

It's strange to hear that you have a good quality line yet it still  
keeps dropping. How far away from the exchange are you? If in the UK  
then I assume you've tried removing the faceplate on the master  
socket and connecting to the socket behind there? In the UK this is  
the point to which BT are responsible for your line, and removing the  
faceplate disconnects your internal extensions, ensuring that they  
cannot be responsible for any problems. If this resolves the problem  
then UK residents can demand  that BT install a splitter-faceplate;  
this means that the ADSL is only available to that socket, so if you  
need to connect your modem or router in another room from the master  
faceplate then a friendly local telephone fitter (the sort of bloke  
who advertises in the local paper offering to fit extra extension  
sockets - many of them are former BT engineers, and these ones seem  
to be particularly good) may be able help instead, but this is not  
guaranteed.

In the UK two new technologies are now available to improve line  
performance:
My ISP offers MaxDSL, as do many others depending upon the exchange,  
and I get a very stable 3.5meg down, 448k up; MaxDSL (could be  
"DSLMax", I'm not sure) is supposed to improve line stability and it  
seems great for me, but I am not really so far from the exchange and  
only suffer from dodgy line-connectivity once a year (so it is yet  
too early to say if MaxDSL will improve the stability of my  
connection). A customer of mine is at the far distance limit from the  
exchange, and surprisingly MaxDSL has just toasted his connection  
with line drops between a few seconds and a couple of minutes after  
connecting - he is moving back to regular old 512k ADSL as soon as  
his ISP can switch him over.

Also available in some (many now?) areas is ADSL2. It offers line  
speeds of up to 22meg or so if you live within pissing distance of  
the exchange (this drops off rapidly so that after a mile or two it  
is only about as fast as regular ADSL) and extends the range of the  
exchange by about 10% (pi x r^2 means quite an increased coverage - 
area-, tho'). My understanding is that MaxDSL is the same technology  
as regular ADSL, basically just some vendor cleverness to push it to  
its limit, but that ADSL2 is based on the same technology yet  
designed as a new specification now that DSL is understood better by  
the engineering Dilberts. Whereas MaxDSL works with your old router,  
ADSL2 requires a new one, which many ISPs provide as part of their  
connection package; I have not tested ADSL2, and in the UK it is only  
available from ISPs who have installed the hardware at the exchange  
on a "local-loop unbundling" (LLU) basis but my understanding is that  
extending the range of the broadband, reconnecting more quickly and  
better stability were prime requisites in the ADSL2 specification.

Stroller.