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Level of the DSL pilot tone?

Hello Folks,

After two frustrating hours on the phone with my ISP, dodging their excuses and their "Oh, it's got to be this other problem" I want to be able to diagnose some DSL stuff for myself. IOW measure DSL signal levels versus noise. AFAIK there is a pilot tone at 276kHz or sometimes

138kHz for downstream and another one at 69kHz for upstream.

Question: What are the min-max levels for those pilot tones?

Reason why I want to be able do that is the extreme wait on the phone when something happens, questionable competence of support personnel, and their tendency to offload a problem to their HW service. "Oh, it's got to be your line" and then they try to make you pay. I know for sure that my current email receiving issues are not telco HW related but it sure would be nice to tell them "Hey, I measured these dBV levels for the pilot tones so it can't be".

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg
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"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:XQNEg.1380$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

Doubt if that makes a difference to them. But if you can surf the web, your DSL line is clearly working. That should be a strong enough argument.

I had similar problems with providers. What fixed it, was changing to another provider, and yes, it costs more. I can't really say their helpdesk is better, because everything simply works brilliant - no need to call them. Even the bills are correct and always on time.

Same thing with hosters. Tried a few cheap ones and they all really drove me mad. Now I pay a bit more, but everything works like a charm.

--
Thanks, Frank.
(remove \'q\' and \'.invalid\' when replying by email)
Reply to
Frank Bemelman

It doesn't work. If they try stalling on a "it's your equipment/line/town ..." script, I usually lie and tell 'em I'm monitoring a comm's analyser that's saying the equipment and line are OK. Just blows by 'em, they move onto the next moron script. john

Reply to
John Jardine.

Won't do you any good...

If you're too dumb to flip burgers, you pump gas

If you're too dumb to pump gas, you work for Fry's

If you're too dumb to work for Fry's, you answer phones for an ISP ;-)

I got so tired of getting the, "Did you reboot your PC", then, "Did you reboot your router", followed by, "Did you reboot your cable modem", that I wrote to executives at Cox... alluding to how I would work to get them declared a utility by the Corporation Commission, and thus subject to refunding for failure to provide service. That apparently got me on an "honesty list" where they just 'fess up when there's a system problem.

Like yesterday I received....

"Dear Cox Customer,

As part of a routine maintenance earlier today, August 15, we had an issue affecting some Cox.net email boxes. As a result, you may have had difficulty accessing your mailbox earlier today, and you may be seeing fewer messages in your mailbox at this time. By late Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning we expect all of your messages to have been delivered, including any sent during the day today. No mail should have been lost as a result of this issue. If you did not receive an email you were expecting by Wednesday afternoon, please contact the sender and ask them to re-send. At this time all restoration methods are underway, and there is no need to call. Thanks for your patience, Cox Communications"

I just loved that "...there is no need to call" ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hello Frank,

T'is what I told him. But you are right, it wouldn't have made a difference if I had the levels because this guys didn't seem to have a clue. After I finally busted my way through some corporate barrier an engineer "found" that they are having issues with a server and a whole crew is currently pulling a late shift to fix it. He also said my SNR was kind of low which I'd like to see for myself. But it's certainly not the root cause of not getting emails.

Well, it's better in the EU. More competition. Here, you are often dealing with de-facto monopolies.

I use 1and1. Very nice. Only a few hours outage in two years but the east was being pummeled by snow storms when that happened.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Hello John,

Ah, great idea!

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Hello Jim,

Maybe I should do that now.

Just received a similar one from IEEE about why the virtual communities are incommunicado for a while. They, ahem, gasp, forgot to renew the domain registration. Ouch!

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

You have my sympathies. After nearly 2 months of doing battle with my ISP, I'm off to another one.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Sounds like my ISP too ( shortly to be ex-ISP )

formatting link

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Sounds sortof like Earthlink when I had them. They had a very good system status page that I would go to thru Juno when things went south.

Cheers

Reply to
Martine Riddle

"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:NnOEg.1538$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

I don't know if you are far away from the hub. Here, when you apply for (A)DSL they first measure/test your line, also to see what the maximum possible speed will be. The highest speed abo's aren't possible when you're too far away from the hub, or when there is some other issue with the actual copper wires ;)

--
Thanks, Frank.
(remove \'q\' and \'.invalid\' when replying by email)
Reply to
Frank Bemelman

In article , Joerg wrote: [snip]

Do you have a router? I just point my browser at the router's dq address and it returns all its measured connection diagnostics, as a web page....... upstream/ /downstream connection speeds, transmit/receive power levels, SNR's, round trip ping time to my ISP, etc.

It is presently showing.

Reserved Bandwidth (kbit/s) up/down = 288/2272.

Output Power (dBm) up/down = 12.0/18.0.

Attenuation (dB) up/down = 26.0/41.0.

Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 28.0/20.5.

Ping Time (20 bytes) = 14mS.

--
Tony Williams.
Reply to
Tony Williams

Joerg, your internet appears to be working. Why don't you just get another account ? Such as from gmx ?

formatting link
Costs nothing, and they also provide an SMTP for authenticated remote users and a web interface.

Rene

--
Ing.Buero R.Tschaggelar - http://www.ibrtses.com
& commercial newsgroups - http://www.talkto.net
Reply to
Rene Tschaggelar

Hello Frank,

Same here. I looked at the analyzer when they did the line check before signing me up and the SNR looked surprisingly good. However, in the US there is an unfortunate habit in that contractors often bury the phone lines in the same trench with the power lines. All it takes is a noisy new load on the power grid (not necessarily in your own house) and the SNR goes to pots.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Hello Tony,

Interesting. I don't know if my router (SMC Barricade) has that feature, have to check. The Westell Wirespeed modem is a separate box and AFAIR not very "talkative" to end customers.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Huh? That's certainly not legal in Arizona.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hello Rene,

Well, I have a web site hosting provider and email through there. It's currently set to forwarding and probably this weekend I'll swing it around to a direct connection into my email client because they are more reliable.

Email through a web interface would not work for me as they typically limit files sizes to 1-2MB. CAD stuff is larger than that.

Surprise: Just got an automated message that they have fixed my line. I did hear a truck rumble at the end of our street, maybe some connection got a bit loose. But it has nothing to do with missing or returned email and I wish their customer phone support folks would be a bit more educated about how things work. Wanted to look at the online site they mentioned to see what the problem was: "The online Repair Center is currently unavailable." Duh! Guess the next thing broke :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Hello Jim,

Before building a fence a few years ago I dutifully called Digalert (wish all the "pros" would also do that, sigh...) and when the phone guys traced it along the same path as the utility I asked them whether that means it's the same trench. "Yup, like usual".

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

"Tony Williams" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@ledelec.demon.co.uk...

Hey, that is interesting, I have this:

DSL Flavour = ADSL over POTS Reserved Bandwidth (kbit/s) up/down = 512 / 3072 Uptime = 19d 20:36 kBytes Tx/Rx = 258885 / 1967996 Output Power (dBm) up/down = 11 / 20 Attenuation (dB) up/down = 10 / 21 Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 23 / 30 Vendor Id (local/remote) = ALCB / BDCM Loss of signal (local/remote) = 0 / 0 Loss of power (local/remote) = 0 / 0 Loss of framing (local/remote) = 0 / 0 Errored Seconds (local/remote) = 0 / 0 Loss of link (remote) = 0

Not that I have any idea how to interpret this.

--
Thanks, Frank.
(remove \'q\' and \'.invalid\' when replying by email)
Reply to
Frank Bemelman

http://192.168.100.1/ gives me some data about my cable modem:

Name WebSTAR DPC2100 Modem Serial Number 201455763 Cable Modem MAC Address 00:11:e6:c6:f5:1b Hardware Version 2.0 Software Version v2.0.2r1244-050319 Receive Power Level -5.4 dBmV Transmit Power Level 38.5 dBmV Cable Modem Status Operational

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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