erratic DSL connection

I have an erratic DSL connection, that sometimes doesn't work at all, so
I installed Bitmeter, a free program that shows visually both
downloading and uploading rates.

I have it set to adjust the scale, so that if the rate is consistently
low, it makes the graph higher, so I can't really tell the rate. But I
can tell when it's zero.

It's often zero for 10 seconds out of every 50, or maybe it's 9 seconds
out of every 45. The point is that it's off for a while, then on for 4
or 5 times as long, over and over. What could cause that? It's not me
is it? It's the provider, right? Verzon DSL.

But everything works okay when it's like that. A much much bigger
problem is when it's zero for 10 minutes or, esp. in the middle of the
night, when it's zero or almost zero for hours at a time.

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true -- and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

When it's working it works well. I can stream a Vimeo video while only
using 1% of my capacity (based on Task Manager).

In article , micky
wrote:

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true --

no.

and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

sounds like it's time to clean house.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

nobody does, but if you're not getting the service you're paying for,
they need to fix it so that you do.

micky wrote:
I have an erratic DSL connection, that sometimes doesn't work at all, so
I installed Bitmeter, a free program that shows visually both
downloading and uploading rates.

I have it set to adjust the scale, so that if the rate is consistently
low, it makes the graph higher, so I can't really tell the rate. But I
can tell when it's zero.

It's often zero for 10 seconds out of every 50, or maybe it's 9 seconds
out of every 45. The point is that it's off for a while, then on for 4
or 5 times as long, over and over. What could cause that? It's not me
is it? It's the provider, right? Verzon DSL.

But everything works okay when it's like that. A much much bigger
problem is when it's zero for 10 minutes or, esp. in the middle of the
night, when it's zero or almost zero for hours at a time.

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true -- and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

When it's working it works well. I can stream a Vimeo video while only
using 1% of my capacity (based on Task Manager).

You should watch the "Sync" LED on the modem.

It's probably dropping Sync, then re-acquiring Sync.

And the problem is not always the provider. I had an
Antec ATX power supply, that was injecting noise back
onto the AC power. The spectrum went up high enough in
frequency, that a CRT TV set showed a herringbone pattern
on the screen, when the Antec supply was running. That
was one of my "debug hints", and that gave away
the game. That level of AC noise, could punch its
way through two layers of DC regulation, and hit the
-60dB inputs and wipe them out.

When I replaced the Antec with another supply (an Enermax),
the problem stopped. The modem would stay in Sync all the
time, instead of dropping out at 9PM or so. And the old
NTSC TV channel I was watching, was then noise free. Since
we've switched to DTV here, I would not have the same
opportunity today.

*******

Both dialup modems (56K) and ADSL modems, support the
notion of instrumented frequency bins. On a dialup modem,
after the session is ended, you could dump a "table" of
values, and from that you could determine whether there
was a particular frequency of impairment on the phone line.

The DMT software shown here, uses something like a Telnet
session, to pull the same style of data from an ADSL modem.
The software logs into the modem and talks to it. If you insert
any networking equipment that prevents you getting to the
modem, then no DMT output for you...

https://kitz.co.uk/routers/DMTv8.htm

I think some flavor of VDSL, goes up to 30MHz, whereas
that graph shows bins up to 1MHz. This implies an older
version of ADSL standard.

https://kitz.co.uk/routers/images/DMT4.gif

The program doesn't work for all modems. The "version
numbering scheme" is actually "modem families". A single
instance of the program, might support three or four
model numbers of equipment.

On my modem, if I were to upgrade the firmware,
one thing I would lose is the DMT interface. The
newest firmware removes the statistics. The odds
of getting something working are pretty slim.

Still, the provider does something like that from their
end, to buzz out the line and determine whether an impairment
is present.

Normally, the provider adjusts conditions on the line,
so that more than 6dB of SNR margin is present. This means
that Sync should be "almost bulletproof". Like, my first
ADSL was rated at "up to 5Mbit/sec" and due to giving
an excessive SNR, the delivered rate was 3Mbit/sec.
(The slower you cap the line, the more SNR margin there is.)
But they can't afford to do that now, because in some
cases the standard used is practically flat out to
meet the service rate, and they're not really holding
back any margin.

If you had DMT capability, you could review performance
yourself. My guess is, a significant impairment is
present. But you have to get lucky, as I did with
my TV set, to notice something electrical failing
in the room. And just by chance switch off that
PC and notice the problem goes away. I opened up the
Antec supply, and there is no visual damage (nothing is
burned, no bad caps).

Verizon can wring out the line from their end,
if you raise a trouble ticket. Would they be
honest about the condition of the line ? Now, that's
a good question. Our telco here, probably would tell
the unvarnished truth, because they regularly have
people working on the poles out here. It's not a big
deal for them to send someone out to change a line.
They have spares, and swapping in another line isn't
a problem. They even measured the line performance on
the lines in my neighborhood, so they know in advance
if there are any "really good ones". They give the
"really good ones" to the triple-play customers.

*None* of the telecom wires rest on the ground here.
People aren't driving over them with lawnmowers. They
take care of their lines, in terms of lines "touching dirt".
That's not allowed.

However, other practices are just as lax as anywhere
else. There are a ton of pedestals here, that have
lost the covers, and the punchdown blocks are exposed
to the air. I've seen more than one POTS pedestal sitting
in a pool of water (you can't do that, because there
is 48VDC on those wires!). Nobody ever fixes that ****.
I've yet to see any sign of a telecom truck coming out
to "resuscitate" a pedestal that has fallen on hard times.
They get swapped out when a section of line "goes digital".
My old, unreliable POTS cable (big bundle, hundreds of pairs),
they replaced that with fiber optics. And then, they no
longer had to dry the huge cable, with tanks of dry
nitrogen. With fiber, if the cable got wet, so what...

My corner facility has its own AC connection, so is not
dependent on power from the Central Office (48VDC). There
is even a meter, so the power company can measure and
bill the telecom for the power used. So that's one
more potential "failure zone" that was made digital
and (almost) bulletproof. They can still knock
out our service with a backhoe. The equipment is
elevated at least four or five inches above grade,
so it would take a big puddle to get this one :-)

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 15:33:58 -0400, nospam
wrote:


and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

sounds like it's time to clean house.

Definitely.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 15:41:51 -0400, Paul
wrote:

micky wrote:
I have an erratic DSL connection, that sometimes doesn't work at all, so
I installed Bitmeter, a free program that shows visually both
downloading and uploading rates.

I have it set to adjust the scale, so that if the rate is consistently
low, it makes the graph higher, so I can't really tell the rate. But I
can tell when it's zero.

It's often zero for 10 seconds out of every 50, or maybe it's 9 seconds
out of every 45. The point is that it's off for a while, then on for 4
or 5 times as long, over and over. What could cause that? It's not me
is it? It's the provider, right? Verzon DSL.

But everything works okay when it's like that. A much much bigger
problem is when it's zero for 10 minutes or, esp. in the middle of the
night, when it's zero or almost zero for hours at a time.

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true -- and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

When it's working it works well. I can stream a Vimeo video while only
using 1% of my capacity (based on Task Manager).

You should watch the "Sync" LED on the modem.

I don't have a Sync light on my modem. Just has Power, Status, WAN,
WLAN and 1,2,3,4. It's 10 or 12 years old, but I don't want to buy a
new one because it will be of no use when I get FIOS.

What I think is interesting is that even when there is no data
connection, WAN, 3, WLAN, and Status** keep flashing just as much as
when there is. I had assumed there was a relationship between the
flashing and data transmission. WAN and 3 blink the quickest, Status
the slowest.


It's probably dropping Sync, then re-acquiring Sync.

And the problem is not always the provider. I had an
Antec ATX power supply, that was injecting noise back
onto the AC power. The spectrum went up high enough in
frequency, that a CRT TV set showed a herringbone pattern
on the screen, when the Antec supply was running. That

Interesting.

was one of my "debug hints", and that gave away
the game. That level of AC noise, could punch its
way through two layers of DC regulation, and hit the
-60dB inputs and wipe them out.

When I replaced the Antec with another supply (an Enermax),
the problem stopped. The modem would stay in Sync all the
time, instead of dropping out at 9PM or so. And the old
NTSC TV channel I was watching, was then noise free. Since
we've switched to DTV here, I would not have the same
opportunity today.

I still have a 15" CRT about 8 feet away, but something went wrong with
my connection to it, from my DVDR, and I don't watch it anymore. The
bathroom tv works and assuming a co-ax cable wouldn't just break, maybe
it's the connection at the splitter in the attic. I had climbed up
there but I didn't think to check.


*******

Both dialup modems (56K) and ADSL modems, support the
notion of instrumented frequency bins. On a dialup modem,
after the session is ended, you could dump a "table" of
values, and from that you could determine whether there
was a particular frequency of impairment on the phone line.

The DMT software shown here, uses something like a Telnet
session, to pull the same style of data from an ADSL modem.
The software logs into the modem and talks to it. If you insert
any networking equipment that prevents you getting to the
modem, then no DMT output for you...

https://kitz.co.uk/routers/DMTv8.htm

I think some flavor of VDSL, goes up to 30MHz, whereas
that graph shows bins up to 1MHz. This implies an older
version of ADSL standard.

https://kitz.co.uk/routers/images/DMT4.gif

The program doesn't work for all modems. The "version
numbering scheme" is actually "modem families". A single
instance of the program, might support three or four
model numbers of equipment.

On my modem, if I were to upgrade the firmware,
one thing I would lose is the DMT interface. The
newest firmware removes the statistics. The odds
of getting something working are pretty slim.

Still, the provider does something like that from their
end, to buzz out the line and determine whether an impairment
is present.

Normally, the provider adjusts conditions on the line,
so that more than 6dB of SNR margin is present. This means
that Sync should be "almost bulletproof". Like, my first
ADSL was rated at "up to 5Mbit/sec" and due to giving
an excessive SNR, the delivered rate was 3Mbit/sec.
(The slower you cap the line, the more SNR margin there is.)
But they can't afford to do that now, because in some
cases the standard used is practically flat out to
meet the service rate, and they're not really holding
back any margin.

If you had DMT capability, you could review performance
yourself. My guess is, a significant impairment is
present. But you have to get lucky, as I did with
my TV set, to notice something electrical failing
in the room. And just by chance switch off that
PC and notice the problem goes away. I opened up the
Antec supply, and there is no visual damage (nothing is
burned, no bad caps).

Verizon can wring out the line from their end,
if you raise a trouble ticket. Would they be
honest about the condition of the line ? Now, that's
a good question. Our telco here, probably would tell
the unvarnished truth, because they regularly have
people working on the poles out here. It's not a big
deal for them to send someone out to change a line.
They have spares, and swapping in another line isn't
a problem. They even measured the line performance on
the lines in my neighborhood, so they know in advance
if there are any "really good ones". They give the
"really good ones" to the triple-play customers.

*None* of the telecom wires rest on the ground here.
People aren't driving over them with lawnmowers. They
take care of their lines, in terms of lines "touching dirt".
That's not allowed.

However, other practices are just as lax as anywhere
else. There are a ton of pedestals here, that have
lost the covers, and the punchdown blocks are exposed
to the air. I've seen more than one POTS pedestal sitting
in a pool of water (you can't do that, because there
is 48VDC on those wires!). Nobody ever fixes that ****.
I've yet to see any sign of a telecom truck coming out
to "resuscitate" a pedestal that has fallen on hard times.
They get swapped out when a section of line "goes digital".
My old, unreliable POTS cable (big bundle, hundreds of pairs),
they replaced that with fiber optics. And then, they no
longer had to dry the huge cable, with tanks of dry
nitrogen. With fiber, if the cable got wet, so what...

My corner facility has its own AC connection, so is not
dependent on power from the Central Office (48VDC). There
is even a meter, so the power company can measure and
bill the telecom for the power used. So that's one
more potential "failure zone" that was made digital
and (almost) bulletproof. They can still knock
out our service with a backhoe. The equipment is
elevated at least four or five inches above grade,
so it would take a big puddle to get this one :-)

Paul

I'm not up to this level, but thanks.

micky wrote:


I'm not up to this level, but thanks.

One thing you should be aware of, is while the
Verizons of this world are hardly heroic, many times
it is corrosion and install problems on the "spider web"
of wires inside a house that makes up the phone distribution.

My signal quality went way up, when I disconnected the
demarc from the existing wiring, and ran a single fresh
wire to the computer room. Examination of one wall box with
an RJ11 on it, showed corrosion on the connector contacts.
This could be a condensation issue in winter.

What is the make and model number of your modem ?

Some of the older designs were really nice, in that
environmental factors hardly ever affected them. But
bad wiring could do it. My Alcatel "metal box" modem
was as stable as can be, and the Antec couldn't tip
that one over. I'd have kept the modem but the telco
wanted it back. My ADSL2 modem is a lot more susceptible
to things around it.

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 22:57:25 -0400, Paul
wrote:

micky wrote:


I'm not up to this level, but thanks.

One thing you should be aware of, is while the
Verizons of this world are hardly heroic, many times
it is corrosion and install problems on the "spider web"
of wires inside a house that makes up the phone distribution.

Well, funny you should bring that up. When I first got here, the
previous owner, from Louisiana, had tried to make his bedroom warmer, by
putting a layer of cork, then a layer of sheet rock over the two outside
walls (and something similar over the back of the closet, although that
was mostly for sound damping). In doing so he hid the phone jack.

I bought, for not much money, a set of blueprints for the house, one of
109 almost identical townhouuses. From the architect I think. The
houses were only 4 years old then. And I learned that the phone jacks
would not be on the blueprints. So I went to seem my neighbors, and
concluded I couldn't be sure my jack would be in the same place as
theres. So I ran my own wires to my bedroom, to the floor-less,
unfinished attic, to the bathroom, and to one of the two rooms in the
basement. (And I ran quite a few burglar alarm wires, and co-ax cable
so the VCR would play the same thing in 6 rooms and the attic, and an
electrical circuit for a workbench, light, a roof fan, and an outside
light in the attic.)

And everything was fine for 10 or 20 years.

Then the phone started not working. I disconnected lines looking for
the problem with no success, and it was about then that I decided to
move the computer from the basement (close to where the phone lines came
in) to the second floor, farther in terms of wiring from where they came
in. And I ran a wire up the front of the house into the window and
everything was fine again.

Later, I worked on the original phone wires again and found the problem
had gone away, so, not for the computer but for the phone, I went back
to the original phone wires (plus the ones I'd put in.) But a year
later, they stopped workign again.

By this time, I'd bought a base phone with 3 cordless phones, one for my
bedroom, one for the kitchen and one for the basement, and so the phone
wire goes straight to the DSL box where a Y connector runs part to a DSL
filter and my base station phone. And everything was pretty good.

But I wanted to close the window fully, especially in the winter. So I
drilled a hole up from the right spot outside into the guest bedroom
floor and ran the wire that way, and everything was fine, for 3 months.
Then that stopped working, so I went back to coming in the window.

At one point, I was using the web more I guess, so it married more and I
noticed my connection was slow and I concluded the 4-conductor white
phone wire I was using was cheap and thin and I replaced it with higher
quality, and connections speeds tripled. And that's where we are now.

My signal quality went way up, when I disconnected the
demarc from the existing wiring, and ran a single fresh
wire to the computer room. Examination of one wall box with
an RJ11 on it, showed corrosion on the connector contacts.
This could be a condensation issue in winter.

So maybe I had something like you had. The original phone connection
in the basement used sort of like metal combs,one for each wire, with
two teeth of the comb right next to each other so you could push the
wire between them and it would cut through the insulation. I used the
same thing for the two phone circuits I added and this made
disconnnecting and testing pretty difficult.

What is the make and model number of your modem ?

A D-Link DI-524

Some of the older designs were really nice, in that
environmental factors hardly ever affected them. But
bad wiring could do it. My Alcatel "metal box" modem
was as stable as can be, and the Antec couldn't tip
that one over. I'd have kept the modem but the telco
wanted it back. My ADSL2 modem is a lot more susceptible
to things around it.

Hmmm. When I cancelled my cable TV, I asked if I could keep the box
because I truly thought I would miss it and sign up again, and they said
yes, and that was 25 years ago and I'm sure it's obsolete now. The
channel selector is a dial connected by a cable to the box. But it was
so convenient to change channels that way, with no waiting to lock in,
that I'd sacrifice having some of the new channels if I could still use
it to change channels.

That was interesting too. I wanted to put the cable box in the closet,
only 8 feet from the TV, instead of next to the TV, and the installer
wasn't sure it would work. Later, when I was putting a TV in the
basement laundry room, the wire ran 20 feet down to the basment, 30 or
more feet forward to the TV (and during installation, testing, or
something) it ran 50+ feet back to the cable box, and 50+ feet to the TV
again, 150+ feet, and it worked fine, but he was reluctant to put it 8
feet away. (I have two signal-amplifier splitters in order to give a
decent signal to all the tvs, but during that test it was the only one
connected. The tv signal amps have been running 24/7 for 34 years with
no problems.)

Paul

micky wrote:
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 22:57:25 -0400, Paul
wrote:

micky wrote:

I'm not up to this level, but thanks.
One thing you should be aware of, is while the
Verizons of this world are hardly heroic, many times
it is corrosion and install problems on the "spider web"
of wires inside a house that makes up the phone distribution.

Well, funny you should bring that up. When I first got here, the
previous owner, from Louisiana, had tried to make his bedroom warmer, by
putting a layer of cork, then a layer of sheet rock over the two outside
walls (and something similar over the back of the closet, although that
was mostly for sound damping). In doing so he hid the phone jack.

I bought, for not much money, a set of blueprints for the house, one of
109 almost identical townhouuses. From the architect I think. The
houses were only 4 years old then. And I learned that the phone jacks
would not be on the blueprints. So I went to seem my neighbors, and
concluded I couldn't be sure my jack would be in the same place as
theres. So I ran my own wires to my bedroom, to the floor-less,
unfinished attic, to the bathroom, and to one of the two rooms in the
basement. (And I ran quite a few burglar alarm wires, and co-ax cable
so the VCR would play the same thing in 6 rooms and the attic, and an
electrical circuit for a workbench, light, a roof fan, and an outside
light in the attic.)

And everything was fine for 10 or 20 years.

Then the phone started not working. I disconnected lines looking for
the problem with no success, and it was about then that I decided to
move the computer from the basement (close to where the phone lines came
in) to the second floor, farther in terms of wiring from where they came
in. And I ran a wire up the front of the house into the window and
everything was fine again.

Later, I worked on the original phone wires again and found the problem
had gone away, so, not for the computer but for the phone, I went back
to the original phone wires (plus the ones I'd put in.) But a year
later, they stopped workign again.

By this time, I'd bought a base phone with 3 cordless phones, one for my
bedroom, one for the kitchen and one for the basement, and so the phone
wire goes straight to the DSL box where a Y connector runs part to a DSL
filter and my base station phone. And everything was pretty good.

But I wanted to close the window fully, especially in the winter. So I
drilled a hole up from the right spot outside into the guest bedroom
floor and ran the wire that way, and everything was fine, for 3 months.
Then that stopped working, so I went back to coming in the window.

At one point, I was using the web more I guess, so it married more and I
noticed my connection was slow and I concluded the 4-conductor white
phone wire I was using was cheap and thin and I replaced it with higher
quality, and connections speeds tripled. And that's where we are now.

My signal quality went way up, when I disconnected the
demarc from the existing wiring, and ran a single fresh
wire to the computer room. Examination of one wall box with
an RJ11 on it, showed corrosion on the connector contacts.
This could be a condensation issue in winter.

So maybe I had something like you had. The original phone connection
in the basement used sort of like metal combs,one for each wire, with
two teeth of the comb right next to each other so you could push the
wire between them and it would cut through the insulation. I used the
same thing for the two phone circuits I added and this made
disconnnecting and testing pretty difficult.

What is the make and model number of your modem ?

A D-Link DI-524

Some of the older designs were really nice, in that
environmental factors hardly ever affected them. But
bad wiring could do it. My Alcatel "metal box" modem
was as stable as can be, and the Antec couldn't tip
that one over. I'd have kept the modem but the telco
wanted it back. My ADSL2 modem is a lot more susceptible
to things around it.

Hmmm. When I cancelled my cable TV, I asked if I could keep the box
because I truly thought I would miss it and sign up again, and they said
yes, and that was 25 years ago and I'm sure it's obsolete now. The
channel selector is a dial connected by a cable to the box. But it was
so convenient to change channels that way, with no waiting to lock in,
that I'd sacrifice having some of the new channels if I could still use
it to change channels.

That was interesting too. I wanted to put the cable box in the closet,
only 8 feet from the TV, instead of next to the TV, and the installer
wasn't sure it would work. Later, when I was putting a TV in the
basement laundry room, the wire ran 20 feet down to the basment, 30 or
more feet forward to the TV (and during installation, testing, or
something) it ran 50+ feet back to the cable box, and 50+ feet to the TV
again, 150+ feet, and it worked fine, but he was reluctant to put it 8
feet away. (I have two signal-amplifier splitters in order to give a
decent signal to all the tvs, but during that test it was the only one
connected. The tv signal amps have been running 24/7 for 34 years with
no problems.)

So you have some experience with wiring then.

The DI-524 is a wireless router, so the ADSL box
must be something upstream of that. My original box,
I think the model number was a plate on the bottom.
They were a bit shy about printing the info on
a public facing surface on the metal box.

*******

TV signals span a large range of amplitudes.
In analog cable TV days, the target level might
have been measured in millivolts. The AGC on the
TV amplifier can go into the microvolt range. And
for TV sets near the TV transmitter on broadcast,
the amplitude they see can be measured in volts
(probably up to around 10 volts or so). In the
microvolt region, you tend to get snow (audio
may still work, video starts to snow out).

The cable equipment probably aims for somewhere
in the middle of that mess. So the RF amp in the
TV set doesn't overload on the sum total of signals.
The longer the coax line, the more attenuation there
can be. And with the old analog, you had gradual
degradation.

A lot of the picture problems with the older cable,
would be things like inverted sync, which is
intentional damage to prevent reception. In the
digital age, any content they want to protect
or control, is done with encryption and "cable cards".
And that makes for a cleaner "go-nogo" response
in terms of channels available. And the amplitude
still needs to be controlled for best results
(the digital version winking out over a
smaller range of dB levels). Digital doesn't fade into
snow nearly as nicely as analog did.

Paul

On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 10:00:18 -0400, Paul wrote:

A lot of the picture problems with the older cable,
would be things like inverted sync, which is
intentional damage to prevent reception.

Somewhere around 1989 I built a sync inverter, just mocked up with
discrete components on a breadboard, to see if I could get free HBO. It
worked, but there was some drift so you'd have to tweak a choke every
20-30 minutes or so to prevent picture tearing. It was way too annoying
to actually use, but a buddy offered beer money for it so I sold it.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 10:00:18 -0400, Paul wrote:

A lot of the picture problems with the older cable,
would be things like inverted sync, which is
intentional damage to prevent reception.

Somewhere around 1989 I built a sync inverter, just mocked up with
discrete components on a breadboard, to see if I could get free HBO. It
worked, but there was some drift so you'd have to tweak a choke every
20-30 minutes or so to prevent picture tearing. It was way too annoying
to actually use, but a buddy offered beer money for it so I sold it.


Aha!

So you were that one guy who was stealing all the cable.

I remember quite a few years ago, some cable dude in my
driveway, "scanning for RF leakage". I presume he's
lost in the woods somewhere now, still scanning
for leakage. I told him he could tear all the
cable TV wire off my property, but he promptly
declined and left.

People like to dress up on Halloween here, and say
"boo" to you, just to see if you'll jump.

Cable TV guys now, only show up to do maintenance
on the street, like if they still have customers
or something.

Paul

On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 13:02:38 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 10:00:18 -0400, Paul wrote:

A lot of the picture problems with the older cable,
would be things like inverted sync, which is
intentional damage to prevent reception.

Somewhere around 1989 I built a sync inverter, just mocked up with
discrete components on a breadboard, to see if I could get free HBO. It
worked, but there was some drift so you'd have to tweak a choke every
20-30 minutes or so to prevent picture tearing. It was way too annoying
to actually use, but a buddy offered beer money for it so I sold it.


Aha!

So you were that one guy who was stealing all the cable.

No, there was another guy. Back when they used to install a filter on
the line to block HBO, someone in my apartment complex would regularly
tear the cover off of the cable distribution box and remove the filters
from all of the cables. By not just removing his or her own filter, it
would be harder to tell who was doing it. I suggested they put a camera
in there, even a dummy cam, but they never did. After a while, the cable
company just left it alone and everyone had free HBO.

That was when HBO was worth having. Now they play a very limited
selection of programming and they do it to death.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sun, 04 Aug 2019 13:22:26 -0500, Char
Jackson wrote:

On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 13:02:38 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 10:00:18 -0400, Paul wrote:

A lot of the picture problems with the older cable,
would be things like inverted sync, which is
intentional damage to prevent reception.

Somewhere around 1989 I built a sync inverter, just mocked up with
discrete components on a breadboard, to see if I could get free HBO. It
worked, but there was some drift so you'd have to tweak a choke every
20-30 minutes or so to prevent picture tearing. It was way too annoying
to actually use, but a buddy offered beer money for it so I sold it.


Aha!

So you were that one guy who was stealing all the cable.

No, there was another guy. Back when they used to install a filter on
the line to block HBO, someone in my apartment complex would regularly
tear the cover off of the cable distribution box and remove the filters
from all of the cables. By not just removing his or her own filter, it
would be harder to tell who was doing it.

maybe they could have gotten his DNA off the box and made everyone
submit samples of DNA.

I hear they do this with dogs and dogs poop in some housing areas.

I suggested they put a camera
in there, even a dummy cam, but they never did. After a while, the cable
company just left it alone and everyone had free HBO.

That was when HBO was worth having. Now they play a very limited
selection of programming and they do it to death.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 14:51:58 -0400, micky
wrote:


I have an erratic DSL connection, that sometimes doesn't work at all, so
I installed Bitmeter, a free program that shows visually both
downloading and uploading rates.

I have it set to adjust the scale, so that if the rate is consistently
low, it makes the graph higher, so I can't really tell the rate. But I
can tell when it's zero.

It's often zero for 10 seconds out of every 50, or maybe it's 9 seconds
out of every 45. The point is that it's off for a while, then on for 4
or 5 times as long, over and over. What could cause that? It's not me
is it? It's the provider, right? Verzon DSL.

But everything works okay when it's like that. A much much bigger
problem is when it's zero for 10 minutes or, esp. in the middle of the
night, when it's zero or almost zero for hours at a time.

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true -- and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

When it's working it works well. I can stream a Vimeo video while only
using 1% of my capacity (based on Task Manager).

WRT sentence just above, how does Task Manager determine what my
capacity would be, in order to say I'm using 1%?


Well, calling Verizon was worse than I anticipated. I'd forgotten that
there were more reasons to not want to call.

Reasons I expected.
Time on hold. Not too much but played advertising so it interfered
with listening to the radio. Later hold only played music or in some
cases silence (the best).
Time spent altoghether (an hour, and counting.)
Getting nowhere.

Reasons I sort of new but I'd forgotten about.
They are so constantly polite it's time consuming and annoying.
Thanking me every time I answer a question or wait on hold for even a
few secodns, and using 2 or 3 sentences plus extra adjectives to thank
me. I think it's everyone who does this, not just the Indians.
She was easy to understand much of the time, but sometimes I couldn't
and I just agreed with her.
My deciding they could fix it but didn't want to.
Therefore my even greater unwilingness to switch to FIOS, because
they're forcing me, and at the same time denying they are.

IIRC, there is a law that prohibits them from taking out the copper
wires, that this law is sometimes ignored. But is there anything that
requires them to continue to provide DSL? Don't dial phones still
work in most places, because the hardware is in place and they normally
don't have to fix it.

Anyhow, she said that my usage was too high and therefore it cut back,
like for 5 seconds out of every 24. I do wonder why my usage is so
high when I'm not doing anything. There are no streaming tabs, I'm not
getting email or newsgroups, and I haven't loaded a webpage for 30
minutes. Yet when I have a connection, bitmeter says 102kBs down and
2KB up.

Anyhow, they are doing this to me on purpose. She says this is the way
it works (even though there are other times when I have about 100KBs for
long periods of time..

(She points out that i'm getting 786kbs which is about 102kB, and she
says using that for 20 seconds is reason enough to disconect me for 5
seconds. (and sometimes for 20 minutes, and sometimes esp at night for 6
hours.)Have you ever heard of this before.)

At one point, she was walking me through my router settings (actually
maybe she intended to walk me through modem settings but she gave me
http://192.168.0.1 and that brought up the router settings. How do you
get to the modem?

It's a Westell E90-610015-06 Is this still good to use?

She wanted me to find "My Network" but there was no such page and I got
the idea that they should send me a new modem. I've had mine since fall
of 2007. I am sure since most people have swtiched to FIOS (optical
cable) they have plenty of newer DSL modems not being used, if in fact
there are newer DSL modems.

Anyhow, because my settings pages didn't match what she expected to see,
I thought it was because my modem was so old and thought maybe I should
have a new one. She said she could not send me one or make any changes
of service. I said, So you're forcing me to go to FIOS. She said we're
not forcing you to do anything. I said, You're giving me bad service
and the only way you offer to get good service is to change to FIOS, so
you're forcing me. She just repeated, I'm not able to make changes. I
said, I'm not blaming you. I said it was the Verizon policy. And I
talked about switching to Comcast or satellite.

After an hour, I got tired of the polite runaround, told her I would
tell everyone that Verizon was forcing me to switch, said Goodbye and
she starts in explaining again, so I said Goodby loudly and hung up.

2 minutes later, a man calls. He's polite, no reference to my annoyance
of 2 minutes earlier, and he wants to make changes at his end. Says I
can put him on speakerphone, and some light music plays for 18 minutes,
then the connection is broken.

20 minutes after that, and no improvement. That's where we are now.

micky wrote:
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 14:51:58 -0400, micky
wrote:

I have an erratic DSL connection, that sometimes doesn't work at all, so
I installed Bitmeter, a free program that shows visually both
downloading and uploading rates.

I have it set to adjust the scale, so that if the rate is consistently
low, it makes the graph higher, so I can't really tell the rate. But I
can tell when it's zero.

It's often zero for 10 seconds out of every 50, or maybe it's 9 seconds
out of every 45. The point is that it's off for a while, then on for 4
or 5 times as long, over and over. What could cause that? It's not me
is it? It's the provider, right? Verzon DSL.

But everything works okay when it's like that. A much much bigger
problem is when it's zero for 10 minutes or, esp. in the middle of the
night, when it's zero or almost zero for hours at a time.

I've heard that DSL provider cause issues with DSL on purpose so people
will change to FIOS -- is that true -- and I can't really change to FIOS
right now because that corner of my basement, almost my whole basement,
is just about inaccessible.

I guess I should complain to Verizon but I'm not looking forward to
that.

When it's working it works well. I can stream a Vimeo video while only
using 1% of my capacity (based on Task Manager).

WRT sentence just above, how does Task Manager determine what my
capacity would be, in order to say I'm using 1%?


Well, calling Verizon was worse than I anticipated. I'd forgotten that
there were more reasons to not want to call.

Reasons I expected.
Time on hold. Not too much but played advertising so it interfered
with listening to the radio. Later hold only played music or in some
cases silence (the best).
Time spent altoghether (an hour, and counting.)
Getting nowhere.

Reasons I sort of new but I'd forgotten about.
They are so constantly polite it's time consuming and annoying.
Thanking me every time I answer a question or wait on hold for even a
few secodns, and using 2 or 3 sentences plus extra adjectives to thank
me. I think it's everyone who does this, not just the Indians.
She was easy to understand much of the time, but sometimes I couldn't
and I just agreed with her.
My deciding they could fix it but didn't want to.
Therefore my even greater unwilingness to switch to FIOS, because
they're forcing me, and at the same time denying they are.

IIRC, there is a law that prohibits them from taking out the copper
wires, that this law is sometimes ignored. But is there anything that
requires them to continue to provide DSL? Don't dial phones still
work in most places, because the hardware is in place and they normally
don't have to fix it.

Anyhow, she said that my usage was too high and therefore it cut back,
like for 5 seconds out of every 24. I do wonder why my usage is so
high when I'm not doing anything. There are no streaming tabs, I'm not
getting email or newsgroups, and I haven't loaded a webpage for 30
minutes. Yet when I have a connection, bitmeter says 102kBs down and
2KB up.

Anyhow, they are doing this to me on purpose. She says this is the way
it works (even though there are other times when I have about 100KBs for
long periods of time..

(She points out that i'm getting 786kbs which is about 102kB, and she
says using that for 20 seconds is reason enough to disconect me for 5
seconds. (and sometimes for 20 minutes, and sometimes esp at night for 6
hours.)Have you ever heard of this before.)

At one point, she was walking me through my router settings (actually
maybe she intended to walk me through modem settings but she gave me
http://192.168.0.1 and that brought up the router settings. How do you
get to the modem?

It's a Westell E90-610015-06 Is this still good to use?

She wanted me to find "My Network" but there was no such page and I got
the idea that they should send me a new modem. I've had mine since fall
of 2007. I am sure since most people have swtiched to FIOS (optical
cable) they have plenty of newer DSL modems not being used, if in fact
there are newer DSL modems.

Anyhow, because my settings pages didn't match what she expected to see,
I thought it was because my modem was so old and thought maybe I should
have a new one. She said she could not send me one or make any changes
of service. I said, So you're forcing me to go to FIOS. She said we're
not forcing you to do anything. I said, You're giving me bad service
and the only way you offer to get good service is to change to FIOS, so
you're forcing me. She just repeated, I'm not able to make changes. I
said, I'm not blaming you. I said it was the Verizon policy. And I
talked about switching to Comcast or satellite.

After an hour, I got tired of the polite runaround, told her I would
tell everyone that Verizon was forcing me to switch, said Goodbye and
she starts in explaining again, so I said Goodby loudly and hung up.

2 minutes later, a man calls. He's polite, no reference to my annoyance
of 2 minutes earlier, and he wants to make changes at his end. Says I
can put him on speakerphone, and some light music plays for 18 minutes,
then the connection is broken.

20 minutes after that, and no improvement. That's where we are now.

You're probably on a grandfathered account.

You are probably being charged a certain amount for service,
and the cap on your service has a certain limit. If you don't
change your account, the company is "stuck" continuing to provide
service under those terms.

How my provider handled this, is they kept raising the price
$5 a month, until I ditched them.

*******

The Westell LED table is at the bottom of this page.

https://www.dslreports.com/faq/bells...2200_6100_Info

The DSL LED is the "Sync" LED. Solid green is "Synced".
Flashing patterns on DSL imply "less than Synced".

Look at that DSL LED carefully... Determine whether it
is solid at all times, or not.

*******

The notion of "gating" a 768Kbit/sec service is ludicrous.

What's the cap, a hundred bytes ?

I'm running 15Mbit/sec here (ADSL2+), and I could easily run
over my cap (400GB). There is a period of time in
the evening, where bytes do not count towards cap,
and one user who was using the same service as me,
downloaded 1TB in a single month, using those "free" periods.

Your rate is about 15 times lower.

To be running 768Kbit, implies you are 36000 feet
from the CO and on an extended reach setup. Higher
rates are possible, with the "normal" 18000 foot
reach limit. I think 36000 feet might be 1.5Mbit/sec
nominal, but they can "cap" that how they see fit.

We stopped doing that **** here, maybe 8 years ago.
Some telecom rulings brought "honesty" to service.
If you applied for 15Mbit/sec service after that,
that's *exactly* what you got. No more bull****
and runarounds. There was no more applying for 5Mbit
and only getting 3Mbit. The Mbit rate became the
"actual delivered" bandwidth. The provider ate
the overhead. That means my link probably runs
around 17Mbit/sec, and once overheads are stripped
off, I get the 15Mbit/sec value. Every bit counts
with telcos (it's a lot like squeezing lemons).

*******

Someone here claims...

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21...r-Westell-6100

"I had a 6100 and it took me quite a while to figure out
that it was losing it's dsl connection over and over
again when I ran the file sharing program Limewire. Since
I had an old d-link router anyway, I switched the 6100
into bridge mode (with the help of this forum) and used
my existing router with the 6100 running just as a dsl modem."

Now, that sounds as reasonable an explanation as anything.
That the 6100 isn't entirely stable when routing, and
maybe the bridged mode is better.

When you run the Westell bridged, the PPPOE termination
will move to your DI-524 (whatever your router was), and
so you would need to copy the username/password from whatever
dialog exists in the Westell, so you can reuse that username/password
in the DI-524.

Personally, I'd rather have two modems, and change a second
modem and its settings, rather than "break" the existing
setup. It's one reason I already have two identical networking
boxes here, where the second one is for emergencies. I can
fiddle with one, and the other remains as a reference.

Instructions for bridging are at the bottom of this page.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/vz/4._Hardware

I run my modem (a newer model but not much newer) in bridged
mode. So I've already done this messing around with VPI VCI
0:35. Those are ATM virtual circuit numbers (as if the service
is actually PPPOA).

You would want to take note (or take pictures) of the
existing screen setup, before changing modes.

Westell DLINK Router
192.168.1.1 192.168.2.x (define a DHCP range)
You'll be setting username/password
in the PPPOE section here, as when
bridged, the Westell will spew PPPOE
packets, rather than unwrapped Ethernet
packets.

Anyway, that's the basic idea.

The DSLReports page makes mention of "cloning MAC addresses".
I thought for the most part, ADSL was policed by the deterministic
wiring of the copper pairs to your house, and it really should
not matter what modem is connected. If the provider insists
on "policing" you and "enforcing" use of the particular
Westell 6100, then it would make sense to enforce a MAC address.
Otherwise, from a practical standpoint, there's no real
additional security by enforcing a MAC. Enforcing a MAC
on Cable Broadband makes a lot more sense (to me at least).
As on Cable, there's more "media sharing" going on, and
one coax cable may service multiple customers.

Paul

On 03/08/2019 19:51, mucky wrote:
I crap snipped


Hey Mucky,

Please post a screenshot of your erotic connection!!! Perhaps you need
to cover it up with a condom. Ask these people to send you a sample packet:

https://tinyurl.com/y3ds7pfu







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