[ale] Cablemodem problems (Charter); DSL maybe
James P. Kinney III
jkinney at localnetsolutions.com
Tue Aug 21 08:33:51 EDT 2007
Sounds like grounding is OK. The only other thing I can think of is to
check, clean and use no-corrode grease on the threads of the incoming
ferrule. That should _not_ be an issue as the metal on that stuff is
generally quite weather resilient.
Another factor I have seen is a center conductor cut slightly too short.
As temperature and wind make the hanging wire move, expand and contract,
the connection would vary enough to act like a notch filter. The pole
end was where my issue was.
On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 23:17 -0400, Ken Cochran wrote:
> >From: "James P. Kinney III" <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
> >Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:23:22 -0400
> >Subject: Re: [ale] Cablemodem problems (Charter); DSL maybe
> >
> >
> >For reasons best left to <rant> formatting, cable modems are apparently
> >very picky about grounding. To add to that, they are also very poorly
> >installed in most situations. The best thing _you_ can do is to get a
> >groundrod from the hardware store and pound it in yourself. Then run
> >appropriately sized bare copper from the ground in your power breaker
> >box to it. Repeat for the ground connection from the cable feed. Be sure
> >to use solid mechanical connection and use the anti corrosion grease.
>
> Both telco & cable enter the house by "their" NIDs, each on the
> outside wall nearby the electrical service/meter. All are
> common-grounded (per code) to a single deep-driven rod directly
> below the power box (constructed in early 1970s). It's on a
> lake, so there is a high water table; I'd think that would make
> for very good grounding. (?) Grounding has been inspected
> before, by both telco & cableco techs & by me & my electrician(s)
> and they report no problems. And it looks good to me now. {shrug}
>
> Services are underground in plastic conduit from the house to a
> pole, about 75 feet, and from that pole to the street pole, in
> the air about another 75-80 feet. The "middle" pole is *not*
> grounded, neither for phone nor cable nor power; also, it's on
> "their" side of any NIDs, so any grounding there is utilities'
> responsibility. I think the "street" pole is grounded for
> everything. (Hmm, it'd have to be, it has a power transformer
> too and the power people here *always* ground transformers.)
>
> Internal house cabling is RG-6 with "snap'n seal" conectors.
> >From the house to the street is RG-11, with similar connectors.
>
> Any other ideas? I just can't believe the cableco's outside
> plant is so temperature sensitive that they have to have a
> crew "retune" it seasonally. But right now I'm not getting
> more than about 30 minutes at a time of ip-connectivity.
> Then it's out for roughly another 30 minutes, "cycling" like
> this all the time.
>
> -kc
>
> >On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 16:21 -0400, Ken Cochran wrote:
> >> Hi ALErs:
> >>
> >> Sort of a 2-part question/problem, cablemodem problems vs DSL:
> >> (Lesser of 2 evils?)
> >>
> >> 1. (Charter) Cablemodem service problems: You folks in the
> >> cableco/outside plant world can maybe help me with this?
> >>
> >> I've been having problems with Charter (cablemodem) for a long
> >> time now (a couple of years or more, I track the tickets) and I'm
> >> wondering if now that I can get dsl at my location, it might be
> >> time to change.
> >>
> >> At roughly regular intervals of every few months, I get sporadic
> >> loss & restart of IP, TV works fine, usually the cablemodem
> >> itself (& subsequently the dispatched tech) reports good signal
> >> levels/s:n ratios, etc. What happens is a loss of Internet
> >> communications every few minutes, lasting for a few minutes.
> >> Netstat reports non-zero send-Qs when this is "underway."
> >> Traceroute doesn't even make it as far as the 1st hop. A little
> >> while later, things resume as if nothing ever happened. This
> >> repeats all the time. Currently, this has been happening since
> >> Friday afternoon and has not been corrected. Last time (mid-May
> >> 2007) also took several days to correct. The cablemodem itself
> >> reported a borderline signal level; repair took a line tech.
> >>
> >> Last couple of times (& now, still experiencing this), the
> >> visiting (house services) tech says he has to dispatch a "line
> >> tech" to "rebalance" (?) the neighborhood lines (along the
> >> street). He says it is because of the change in (weather)
> >> seasons and/or ambient temperatures (going either hot or cold)
> >> that causes this & line techs have to come out & rebalance these
> >> a few times per year (roughly seasonally). Any idea(s) as to
> >> just what is happening here? Sounds like BS to me; I find it
> >> hard to believe that a cableco has to go out & redo its outside
> >> plant 2-4 times a year to correct for what sounds to me like
> >> design deficiencies in said outside plant.
> >>
> >> Some local setup details:
> >> Cablemodem is a Motorola SurfBoard SB4101. Distance from service
> >> entrance to the "node" (coax to fiber converter) is about 2000
> >> feet via coax that's about as big around as my thumb. Outside
> >> plant is from Scientific Atlanta.
> >>
> >> 2. DSL: Location, Alexander City, Alabama (east central AL),
> >> ILEC & my local service is Bellsouth/ATT and DSL has only
> >> recently become available at my location. It looks like my
> >> pickins' are slim wrt carriers. I'm about 6500 feet from the
> >> "remote" box (or pair-gain mux or whatever they're calling
> >> that thing nowadays...) that serves my area.
> >>
> >> a. Recommended (or not) carriers
> >> Unless some things have changed/added, I think Bellsouth/ATT
> >> might be my only option for DSL but I need to check further.
> >> Any recommendations for/against alternatives? I think my
> >> available options *might* be HiWaay (hq in Huntsville AL) or
> >> maybe SpeakEasy (but last time I checked, they don't serve
> >> here) or EarthLink/Mindspring (also an unknown right now).
> >> Looks like I *can* get the $10/month DSL here (with the 1yr
> >> committment of course); anyone besides Bellsouth/ATT doing
> >> anything similar? Naturally I have problem(s) with ATT's
> >> customer monitoring but I may have to put up with this
> >> nastiness just to have Internet access that works at all. :-(
> >>
> >> b. NAT issues
> >> I see the little Westell modems from Bellsouth at customers'
> >> homes & notice the following:
> >> - The modem itself handles the PPPoE/PPPoA stuff nowadays,
> >> so no need for that on the client computer.
> >> - The client computer gets a gets an RFC1918 private
> >> address, 192.168.100.x iirc.
> >>
> >> My own internal private network is also RFC1918 & 192.168.x.y.
> >> If I change to DSL with its required PPPo{EA}, it appears
> >> that I'll become "double-NAT"ed; is this a problem? If so,
> >> how do I deal with it?
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--
James P. Kinney III
CEO & Director of Engineering
Local Net Solutions,LLC
770-493-8244
http://www.localnetsolutions.com
GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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