[ale] [rant] I dislike "we only support winblows/OS X" AT&T internet

[Jim Kinney]

Dropping DSL line is one of several things:

1. line noise - that will not get fixed by the phone co until it fails
completely since it requires they roll a truck. You need a signal
strength meter to verify. Phone co will only guarantee line quality to
demarc site. Bad house wiring is often a problem.

2. Bad modem. Semi-frequent occurrence. Only way to verify is with
another modem. If service is keyed to MAC then it requires MAC spoofing.
Phone co is reluctant to replace it as they can't RMA it anyway.

3. Half-bad modem. Frequent occurrence. I've seen many that were flaky
and felt rather warm. Pop the case off (you have no warranty so who
cares) and "look" at the chip top with a non-contact thermometer (reads
IR signature). Anything over 60C is not in a good range. Often after a
thunderstorm, the modems go into half-crap stage due to line surges that
cause non-fatal damage.

4. Old phone wires with cruded up connections or failing line fuse. Look
for a hex topped screw on a black dual screw terminal block. The hex top
is a "fuse" between tip and ring. Normally those blow during a big surge
from lightning but they also age and introduce noise on the DSL signal.
Move the wires to a new block without the fuse device. Removing the fuse
will cause the phone line to go out in many cases.

Good luck. The script-reading dweebs are useless and really don't care
if you have service or not. As long as they read their script, they
don't get in trouble. They also have no ability to run a line test from
their end.

Speakeasy tech support can and will run a line test first thing to see
if there is a problem. Rather than argue with you, the person sending
them money, the presume that you wouldn't be spending the time to call
for help if the stuff was working. I've was terrified when Best Buy
acquired Speakeasy but so far it is still the same Speakeasy I have been
super pleased with for years.

On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 9:36 PM, Thompson Freeman <
tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:

>
> The subject pretty much says it all in the short form. I need to blow
> steam so you can delete this with my appreciation for the use of your
> bandwidth.
>
> My girlfriend has BellSouth/AT&T dsl service at home, although she
> doesn't much use it prefering to do her thing at work. I built her a
> box and loaded Ubuntu 7.10 on it, which connects through a Westell
> router/dsl modem. There are connectivity issues with the internet
> however, so I went over for a troubleshooting session this evening.
>
> Now, I do know better than to admit to these script reading tech
> support people that I've got linux running, but I've got a big mouth
> also. Strike one on me. Actually two and three, end of inning, also but
> the script reader was willing to fool along.
>
> The problem is that the modem will not stay linked up (and this is
> influenced by the OS HOW??), but drops the connection. I can access the
> web setup stuff on the Westell box just fine.
>
> Basically I got told (eventually) to get an expert on my end of the
> line with Windows, or forget it.
>
> Jerks.
>
> I'll take the laptop over tomorrow, with Wonders 2000 on it, and see if
> the next mouth breather can see reason.
>
> Trouble is, my only other option for her seems to be RoadRunner (I get
> to fight with them for my daughter), for three times the money. Doesn't
> seem to be worth the effort.
>
> Thanks for letting me bitch for the moment. I'm feeling slightly
> better.
>
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>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
CEO & Director of Engineering
Local Net Solutions,LLC
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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