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Posted: 11/23/2014 9:08:40 PM EST
Sadly AT&T DSL is my only option for high speed internet in my area.

For most things, including VPN for work and gaming it works well. It has, however, become so unreliable I'm about to smash kitten and take a dump on a butterfly.

It will go along for a period of time, maybe hours, just fine. Then suddenly it will drop service for just a few seconds. Just long enough for the red light on the modem to turn on. Then service comes back and I'm back in business. Only problem is this service interruption is long enough to kick me out of online games or a VPN. Screws up video conferences and internet phone calls too.

AT&T has come to the house a few times now. They swear service into my house is 8 to 12 megs when I'm paying for 6 (or whatever their "top end" DSL is called). They can see the dropped service on their end and I've gotten credits off the bill because of it.

Here's some of the things I've done in an attempt to solve the issue.

* New modem. Tried a Netgear N6000 and now using the AT&T standard Netgear 7550.
* Disconnected every other phone line in the house except the one leading to my computer
* Had AT&T "clear the line". This typically helps for a day or two then the disconnects happen again.

Figured I'd check with the arfcom experts especially after seeing another thread tonight mentioning changing from shitty ISP DNS servers to google. Not sure if this would solve my problems, or is even remotely related in any way.

Next step is to call the facility technician back and have him start crawling my attic and/or the aforementioned duce on a butterfly. I will hound them to the point they either identify the problem or disconnect my service for being a PITA customer. Just thought someone here might have a simple answer.
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:13:26 PM EST
[#1]
try a cat5 home run to the modem and a dsl splitter in the NID
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:13:37 PM EST
[#2]
this happens on rare occasions here with as well (ATT&T Uverse) I'd love to nip these little disconnects in the bud.
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:15:43 PM EST
[#3]
How many people in your area are on the same DSL
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:17:00 PM EST
[#4]
AT&T's plant sucks and they don't care. That's my experience anyway.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:19:08 PM EST
[#5]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
How many people in your area are on the same DSL
View Quote


I'm the first house in the sub-division and I'm guessing there's maybe 10-15 homes max that have the service.

Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:19:35 PM EST
[#6]
This is the very reason I dropped AT&T DSL. Unfortunately my Charter is not much more reliable.
Link Posted: 11/23/2014 9:30:53 PM EST
[#7]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
This is the very reason I dropped AT&T DSL. Unfortunately my Charter is not much more reliable.
View Quote


I take it they were never able to explain why the disconnects were happening?

Trust me, if there was anybody else offering real high speed internet I'd off mailed a box of used cat litter back to AT&T a while ago.
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 8:28:32 AM EST
[#8]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
This is the very reason I dropped AT&T DSL. Unfortunately my Charter is not much more reliable.
View Quote


yep, I have Bright house at my business and it's worse.
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 2:04:13 PM EST
[#9]
So it dropped yet again this morning...in the middle of a vacation day BF4 game.

Called in and they are showing 114 disconnections in the past month but claim they are nearly all modem related.

She paused when I told her it was an AT&T supplied modem, and that the personally supplied netgear did the same thing prior to switching to the AT&T modem.

So we changed a few settings on the modem and she called it good. Very nice and friendly but I'm pretty sure she didn't understand that the issue isn't service speed when the damn service is running. It's that the service drops out altogether.

Sure enough...started up another bf4 session after we got off the phone and the service went all of about 15 minutes before dropping out again.

FML
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 3:53:07 PM EST
[#10]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
So it dropped yet again this morning...in the middle of a vacation day BF4 game.

Called in and they are showing 114 disconnections in the past month but claim they are nearly all modem related.

She paused when I told her it was an AT&T supplied modem, and that the personally supplied netgear did the same thing prior to switching to the AT&T modem.

So we changed a few settings on the modem and she called it good. Very nice and friendly but I'm pretty sure she didn't understand that the issue isn't service speed when the damn service is running. It's that the service drops out altogether.

Sure enough...started up another bf4 session after we got off the phone and the service went all of about 15 minutes before dropping out again.

FML
View Quote

Go outside and take a picture of your NID on the side of your house.  They are doing direct runs now for uverse and you probably need to have your's changed out.  Have they even checked the wires?  If they are lose...etc...this does happen (but rarely) if they didn't leave any slack.

This is what I would do.  Tell them that you want a new run into the house, straight into the modem, from your NID to one of these

Then from there you can make a new run from that punch down they use, back to your old phone wiring, where it was split off and tie it down to another one of those biscuits.  This will remove any inside wiring issues and prove that the issue is outside wiring.  Also, ask them to move you to another two post inside the cross box.
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 3:57:46 PM EST
[#11]
Please post your dsl modem's stats.  This should include things like line attenuation, estimated distance to CO/RT, power levels, etc.  Next, plug the modem in at the NID, then post the same stats again.
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 4:00:14 PM EST
[#12]
Cisco 2851 does my dsl

and it STILL retrains

but not nearly as much as on a plastic box from ATT

ATT's physical plant is worse than shit

Wire in the ground since the 60s

they do not care

Before I got the 2851 - I had on average a truck roll a week

No change in service

Link Posted: 11/24/2014 4:08:21 PM EST
[#13]
wow......an att rep came to my door thurdays and swore me that att just spent millions upgrading thier hardware....Told me time warner was shit and att was soooo much better.

LOL told him thanks but no thanks....i read threads like this every so often and it reaffirms my decision to stay with 50meg time warner.
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 7:08:34 PM EST
[#14]
I guess OP's connection is down, so he can't respond..lol
Link Posted: 11/24/2014 7:11:28 PM EST
[#15]
urban or rural
Link Posted: 11/26/2014 8:28:26 AM EST
[#16]
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Quoted:
urban or rural
View Quote


Semi rural. I live in a small sub-division with 75 =/- homes but it's in a fairly rural county of 16k people total.

Link Posted: 11/26/2014 8:29:56 AM EST
[#17]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
I guess OP's connection is down, so he can't respond..lol
View Quote


I'm sort of in the holding pattern now waiting on the new modem (not that I think it will solve a damn thing).

That said, I didn't notice any disconnects yesterday so maybe some of the settings changes we made had an effect?

Link Posted: 11/26/2014 9:40:02 AM EST
[#18]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


Semi rural. I live in a small sub-division with 75 =/- homes but it's in a fairly rural county of 16k people total.

View Quote View All Quotes
View All Quotes
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
Quoted:
urban or rural


Semi rural. I live in a small sub-division with 75 =/- homes but it's in a fairly rural county of 16k people total.


If you are far enough away from their switch it will always suck

any alternatives like fixed wireless  or LTE ?
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