DSL Outages

[TRexx]

I've had DSL through my local TelCo for years and have been very satisfied.  BAsed on reports from my neighbors it is a lot more reliable than the local CATV company's offering. But for the past month I've been experiencing outages.  They happen at exactly 9:30 AM, almost every day.  Usually the connection resets itself within 2 minutes, but sometimes I have to power the modem off and on.

Today I called the TelCo. A very nice lady assured me that they do not do scheduled maintenance at 9:30AM and she has no record of an outage in my area.  Then she asked me if I or any of my neighbors have a wireless device, such as an automatic door opener, burglar alarm or a lawn sprinkler that broadcasts a signal at this time every day.  According to her, when these devices send a signal, it may be powerful enough to mess up my DSL connection.

Does this make any sense?   How can a wireless signal disrupt my wired connection?

[The Original Henry]

It's highly unlikely that this is the case. More likely would be if you had a power line in close proximity to the DSL line that was pulling a lot of amps through it. I've seen this situation create enough crossover interference to disrupt digital signals in the weaker line, but really we're talking about a lot of power (like a big induction motor) in very close proximity (within inches) of the DSL signal.

It's possibly your modem has gone bad, but the most likely cause is the phone company. They may have made a line configuration change recently that is causing interference in the line or possibly their DSLAM is cycling itself for some reason every morning. Good luck getting the phone company to take you seriously though - to them every problem is solved by rebooting your modem or blaming it on your unapproved router.

[TRexx]

Thanks,  I suspect there's something in the local office that is recycling itself every day.  The problem is too regular to be some random interference.

And of the problem was some peak load on the power line, wouldn't there be additional evidence, like all my lights dimming?

[The Original Henry]

Not necessarily. If your A/C (for example) pulled 40 amps through a 50 amp circuit during startup then you probably wouldn't notice anything on the electrical side. But if those 40 amps were pulsing right next to a DSL line then the magnetic field created by the electrical line could be strong enough to disrupt the much weaker DSL signal.

I would bet that there is equipment in the CO that is stuck in a recycle loop, as you said.

[datagirl]

TRexx, you are having a problem somewhat similar to one we had here. 

Intermittently for the past few months, our ADSL would drop, then come right back or not.  I noticed a connection to the weather, such as rain or heavy humidity.  I figured there was a problem in the line somewhere between the house and the CO a few miles down the road.  It finally reached the point where it was down more than up and placed a trouble report.  The tech came out and found two places where lightning had hit the wire on the side of the house.  A quick splice solved the problem.  The other thing he did was install some sort of filter thing-a-ma-bobby at each phone jack to tamp down line noise.  Supposedly now I can plug the modem into any phone jack and have service.  Hmmm. 

I would say you should be persistent that they need to send a tech to your house to play detective.  Lots of times the field techs have a better idea what's going on than the folks in the support call center.

Good luck.

[Richardk]

I just had the same problem.

My signal was dropping for about the last 3 months and they found all sorts of little problems that would temporarily fix the issue. I was also losing my signal between 5pm and 6 pm and it was taking longer and longer to re-establish or when it rained. I finally replaced the modem and everything is now fine.

Reviewing this with ma bell, there were small issues and they got fixed but in the end, the modem was failing since it was very old and just couldn't maintain the signal. They concluded that when conditions were OK, I had a signal but since my modem was so marginal, any small disturbance would knock me off. So more kids getting online after dinner, rain, wind, anything that would slightly degrade the signal would be enough.

My issue was why did it take so many phone calls? Why couldn't they have checked everything up front, fixed all the issues and then said, 'well, it must be your modem'? This slow death was painful because we thought we solved the problem then we'd lose our DSL signal once again.

Good Luck.

[I D Shukhov]

I was constantly having DSL problems with Verizon.  FIOS is rock solid -- never had an outage in 5 months.   When I was having the DSL problems I was suspicious that Verizon didn't want to make the service too reliable because they wanted everyone to move to FIOS.

[TRexx]

I was constantly having DSL problems with Verizon.  FIOS is rock solid -- never had an outage in 5 months.   When I was having the DSL problems I was suspicious that Verizon didn't want to make the service too reliable because they wanted everyone to move to FIOS.

I'd switch to FIOS in a second if it was available. Unfortunately I live in a part of NJ that is outside the area covered by the old Bell system. FIOS won't be available here any time soon. 

My mother has Verizon DSL and it's not very reliable. She has experienced total outages (DSL & POTS) that have lasted more than a week.   When she complains they try to switch her to FIOS.   

[Walter Mitty]

I am in a zone that has yet to be reached by FIOS, unless it became available when I wasn't paying attention.

DSL has been solid where I live.  When a storm knocks the lines down, or we have a power outage, I'm out.  But they put it back up relatively quickly.  My gear has been solid, if unremarkable.  When my DSL router died,  they sent a tech out fairly quickly to diagnose the problem.  I had to boost my cost by something like $2 a month to get a replacement DSL router, but it beats owning my own.

The people who answer the help line speak English.  The screens they are loking at make them useful.

It's good enough for home usage.  It might not be good enough to support a business.  I'm basically in "why should I change" mode. 

I started logging into Verizon's community forums for mutual support.  BTW,  their BBS user interface really sucks.   Judging from the questions asked,  there are people who have major recurrent problems with every area that I've judged satisfactory.  Most of the problems have to do with the last mile.  Or speed.  Or both.

The alpha techies on the forum operate in a very old school,  "tell me all you model numbers, and then I'll help you"  mode.  The people with the problems vary wildly,  from people just coming up to speed with computer networking to people way more technical than I am, at least in this arena. 

The most common recurring problem is people trying to find out how to put their DSL router (which they call a DSL modem) into "bridge mode".