Dial-up modem connect speed?

See if you can call different numbers - perhaps a friend. If it's consistent as to speed it's pretty much the line.

Legally the phone co. is only obligated to provide 9600bps. I get a minimum of 49K, usually 50K from Earthlink dialup, but there are 11 local access numbers from where I live.

Not quite following you. Have you tried from an immediate neighbor's house?

Does your ISP offer any other local access numbers? If so, try them. Or just for a test, use a number that's not local and see if there's any difference.

One guy here went and soldered all the connections right out to the pod on the street, the cable is usually just spliced into jack points etc. That worked really well.

JD

"Jim Adney" wrote

We all had modem problems at one time. Find out from your telco TS what is the distnace from your house to their equipment. Overk 10K feet will not give you good connection.

I know it worked well before, but something has changed. They could have re-routed the lines, although unlikely.

Changing local service providers over the same POTS will not help. You will connect via the same lines and hardware. If you can get phone service via cable company, that is a guarantee of 50K conneciton. Been there.

Your ISP may have changed their modems and they are not as compatible with yours - that could be the reason for speed drop

Using another dialup number may give you anther set of hardware modems. It can help that way. Putting area code in front of your number may help too, as you use different ckts in the phone company.

You phone lines could have gotten noisier over time. Loose connection, cables swaying in the wind, etc.

An finally, your modem may have deteriorated as well. They do fail - have seen it.

Modem connection troubleshooting is the most frustrating part of a PC. I have spent more time on that, than on all other things combined.

Rich

Jim Adney wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Mine is usually 48K for a 56K modem,but if the line is noisy,it drops to

Could it be that the bandwidth available to them per subscriber has reduced over the past year as the number of subscribers they're catering to has gone up?

Push down connectors are notoriously bad.

As a check to see if the problem was something to do with my home interior wiring, I went to my home's network interface and disconnected my home from the incoming line. Then I plugged my laptop into the network interface and checked to see what speed I could connect at. I got the same slow speed as from inside the house.

I have not checked with a neighbor. That's a good idea. I'll also ask them what they get.

I DID try connecting from work, and got good connect speeds: well into the 40s, so I don't think there's any question where the problem is. THe only question is whether I can do anything about it, or get someone else to do something about it.

No there's just one number, but it actually connects to probably hundreds of lines on their end.

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Hmmm, do you think they will just tell me this?

The first drop in speed occurred when they replaced a broken wire into my house. They replaced a very old single pair (looked like large zip cord, with copper coated steet wires in it) with a multiple pair cable, even though I'm only using a single pair. The service man told me that this was what they were doing everywhere, so that the next time someone wanted to upgrade the wires would already be available.

Is it safe to assume that if he didn't get the pairing right then I'd also have problems with voice? Voice is fine, and noise free.

That's what I figured about my LSP.

I don't have cable (I figure I watch too much TV already.) Wouldn't a cable modem give much more than 50k?

No, it works from work, and I know they have not changed.

Hmmm, I'll have to try adding the area code. I don't know if that will get thru on this system, but I can try it.

Certainly possible, but there's no noise on voice.

The results with 2 different modems (laptop and desktop) are the same from home, and the laptop connects nicely from work.

I think that all I know at this point is that the problem is somewhere between my home and my ISP, and not actually IN either end.

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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I have no such trouble when I dial into the same ISP from work. Granted this is usually at a different time of day, but I often dial in from home at odd times, and the result is always the same: ie poor from home, good from work.

I'll ask my neighbor if I can try it from there. That strikes me as a possibly useful test.

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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If this splitter was put on the drop wire into your house, that's likely the cause of your problem. You should call your local telco and request they remove the splitter. Tell them you're unable to get 9600bps service for faxes (white lie) and they'll be legally obligated to remove it.

is

If your lucky, they will. At one time it was no hassle. Now the people working service desks are dumber and dumber. Tell them you're considering DSL and have to know. Some will tell you yes/no, but insist because you want to know if the DSL signal will be of good quality.

I doubt, that's the reason, but if you remember it happening, then it cold be.

will

via

Cable modem - YES. I was referring to using the cable company to provide phone service. They install a small box (strangly called a modem) at your house and connect your phone lines to it. Your distance to the box becomes zero - it's in you basemet, so your modem connects at full speed.

Rich

There's no splitter to my knowledge. They just replaced the old 2 conductor cable with a multiple pair cable but only connected 1 of the new pairs. It is my understanding that the other pairs are just sitting there for possible future expansion.

The new pair is smaller diameter, but solid copper rather than the old large diameter copper covered steel. The drop is about 80 yards long. I wouldn't expect this to be significant.

Would the presence of the unused conductors in close proximity have any bad effect?

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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But at what point does the mutiple pair cable begin? It is likely being divided (split) all the way from the telco's drop wire, since splitting after the drop wouldn't allow for any expansion. This means the signal strength on your phone line is much lower than it was prior to the multi-pair cable being installed. You wouldn't be able to hear a difference, i.e. the phone line might still sound ok.

No. But again, the likely problem is signal strength, not interference from unused pairs. A call to your telco will (or at least should) get you answers to these questions.

The multiple pair cable IS the drop from the pole to the house. It is my understanding that the unused pairs have been left disconnected at both ends. I am only able to personally verify that the ends at my hose are not connected to anything.

Now that you mention it, I guess I could verify that the free conductors at my end do not seem to be connected to anything else by just checking them for voltage and resistance.

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Does your phone wire line provider also provide DSL service & is it available in your area? If so, you need to play their game at their level. Tell them you want their DSL service but only if they will guarantee satisfaction with money back warranty. when they get DSL working, your dialup will be fine. What you do after that is implied in the requirement for that money back guarantee.

Charlie veteran in dealing with 'the phone company'