Hi Folks,

One of my sites has had a stable 512K broadband connection for about 3
years, but all of a sudden it's starting to drop and reconnect in a
regular basis - like 2-3 times a minute throughout the day. Sometimes it
has good periods of perhaps 30-45 mins and then it starts to play up again.

The site's some 45 miles from me and I've not been there yet, but when I
managed to make a remote connection to the router, the first thing that
set alarm bells ringing was the S/N ratio - it's between 1.5-3dB.
(attenuation is around 47db). There's no other devices on the line.

My first action was to ask one of the people on site to power the router
down for 3 mins and unplug/replug the phone cord to clear any possible
mucky connections (the router is well out of anyone's reach and so
unlikely to have been disturbed for ages).

When this didn't make much difference, I asked the line provider (it's a
BT line contracted out to another phone company) to do a line test which
they said came back OK.

I next asked the ISP to check their figures and do whatever
ADSL-specific tests they could do; they came back and said the line
'passes' but sort of hinted it was not brilliant.

Someone on site had plugged a phone into the filter and made a call,
which they say sounded OK.

My gut feeling is that it's the line at fault, but I can't get anyone
interested in taking things further - I appreciate that it may be the
router or its power supply or the ADSL filter, but can anyone suggest
any specific 'magic words' that may encourage either the ISP or company
managing the line to do some more signal testing before I have to make a
90 mile round trip?

Cheers!

Linker3000 wrote:

That's because it's a BT line contracted to another provider. BT will have
little interest in it. Why should they ? You'll have to ask your ISP to sort it.

Graham

In message <45db9aa0$0$28969$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk>, Linker3000
<linker3000@googleminushyphen-mail.com> writes
the people on site to be able to tell you that there's nothing wrong.
External non connected devices can add interference to telephone lines,
there could be a noisy PSU near the line, maybe someone has installed a
metal halide lighting or compact fluorescent lamps or some other
interference causing device. Anything that generates RF fields can cause
problems. It could be a dodgy router PSU, switch mode power supplies can
cause all sorts of problems and 3 years is just about the time I'd be
expecting to be having problems with one if the router has one.

another router or 'modem', 'phone the ISP from site and explain the
tests you have carried out with the replacement device. If you find
someone who has an inkling of knowledge, they'll accept your word. Of
course, if it's LLU'd then good luck. BTW, are you sure it's not been
maxed and the profile is wrong?
--
Clint Sharp

The magic words are "We will pay" because you need somne facts rather than a
gut feeeling that it is wrong. Have they used the test socket? Have they
tried another filter?

Peter Crosland