AT&T DSL Issues

[shopbruin]

I just moved into a new apartment, and I have AT&T everything, not really by choice.
AT&T Home Phone
AT&T DSL (this was by choice, just to make life allegedly easier)
AT&T Home Entertainment with Direct TV (they have a master dish, we couldn't get our own dish to point in the correct direction off our balcony.)

The Direct TV works perfectly fine, and has since Tuesday when they came to hook it up. That has been the only flawless thing I've had happen so far.

AT&T Home phone worked on the day they said it would, but the modem didn't arrive on time. Once I fixed that issue, I finally managed to get online after 20,000 calls to tech support.

Now my home phone is losing it's dial tone during the evenings (and only during the evenings) and I have a lot of static on the line. However, whenever AT&T runs a test on my line, they only test during the day, which is when I have a dial tone. I had the building test our lines (to the extent of their responsbility) and it comes up fine on their end too. Here I'm convinced it's an AT&T wiring issue, and they won't fix a damn thing because they claim it tests fine.

My DSL is not working properly. It will work during the business hours, but once it hits 6pm and beyond, it starts dropping. First it will drop and reconnect. Then the reconnect periods get substantially longer (anywhere from 5-10 minutes to reconnect, for another 20 minutes on.)

Then I can't even get online. Yesterday from the afternoon to the evening I could not get back online - the modem has four lights that need to turn on, and I was getting 2 solids, and one blinking green on DSL. The Internet light would NOT turn on. (I have the Motorola 2210.)

I have called AT&T on several occasions. They've stored my log on into the modem, had me reset it, reconfigure it, and I still have these issues (and ONLY at night does the droppage occur.) I'm getting seriously tired of waiting on hold for them, only to have them tell me it's the phone line, and to call repair, and the phone line repair to tell me that there's no problem on their end!

What are my other recourses? From what I've read, I can try to get a new modem or ask them to downgrade the speed (right now I'm paying for 1.5mb down/384k up) and see if that helps. The other is to finally force them to come out and check my wiring and lines (it is not the jack, I've tested every jack in the apartment, and I have the same issues) which they refuse to do since it would just be work for them.

Has anyone had this happen to them? I've done a few google searches, but I can't really pinpoint the problem anywhere, except that other people have this problem, and to try a new modem. This modem took over two freaking weeks to arrive because AT&T and UPS are bleeping idiots and I don't want to wait anymore. We are almost ready to head out to best buy and just buy another modem.

 

[boomerang]

The first thing that comes to mind after reading your post is that I feel you need to get higher up the food chain at AT&T. The low level support you are dealing with does not care. They just want to get on to the next call.

The problem is in the phone lines IMO. A different modem isn't going to solve the problem. The key is that you can get no dial tone, static etc., in the evenings.

I wish I could offer more.

 

[dmcowen674]

These daytime vs evening issues I've read about are the most puzzling.

Fluorescent lighting taking out DSLAMs?

 

[shopbruin]

The only fluorescent lighting I have is in my kitchen, which is nowhere near this jack the modem is plugged in. Hell, I just moved into this apartment - I didn't even have a functional lamp on that side of the living room until last night.

AT&T seriously knows how to mess with my emotions. I spent most of last night crying waiting for the repair people on the line. One might think it's nothing to cry about, but I've been bandied about tech to tech for nearly 2 weeks with issues with the modem and phone line.

 

[vailr]

Call the ATT DSL tech support line at night, when you've lost (the land line) dial tone, using a cell phone.
They can run a line test on the DSL & POTS connections from their end, while you're speaking to them.
That way, you'll have proof of a line problem. Hopefully, that should provide the (daytime) repair person with a better idea of where the problem is located.

 

[ScottMac]

Some CFL bulbs are especially evil with producing radiated or power line noise.

 

[Rafael]

Other option is measure, whe you are connected to the internet, the Signal-to-Noise Ration (SNR) in the DSL modem if you can access it.
And basically your problem is that your DSL modem is not synchronizing with the DSLAM, that is why the DSL LED on the modem blinks, and it should be solid. But it could be a lot of causes why that is happening, probably at night the DSLAM has more DSL connections and the strength of your DSL signal drops significantly to not synch the modem anymore.
BTW, are you using a DSL filter on the line for your phone? If you are not, you may use one just to test it.
Otherwise what vailr suggested might be your best shot.

GL!

 

[ScottMac]

The other common day/night issue is AM radio stations. When they crank up the power or steer the array over the neighborood, it can wipe DSL, especially if the cabling and / or termination is poor.

Got any AM radio in your neighborhood?

If it doesn't happen consistently, it could also be Ham radio guys on 160, 80, or 40 meter bands.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ScottMac
The other common day/night issue is AM radio stations. When they crank up the power or steer the array over the neighborood, it can wipe DSL, especially if the cabling and / or termination is poor.

Got any AM radio in your neighborhood?

If it doesn't happen consistently, it could also be Ham radio guys on 160, 80, or 40 meter bands.

Only problem with this is that AM radio stations crank down the power at night, not up.

 

[kevnich2]

Do you have any other options for internet in your area, such as cable? Those DSL issues, I've heard them before. I used to work for a CLEC and am all too familiar with DSL line issues. The issue I would say is in your phone line itself. Have you tried testing a phone directly at the dmarc box at night when you lose dialtone and see what happens? If there is still no dial tone, make note of the times and demand that a tech comes out to test your line. Telco is responsible for anything from their colo to the dmarc box. Now if you test it at dmarc and find out that you do in fact have dial tone, the problem is somewhere in your inside wiring. Also look for moisture or anything at the dmarc. Moisture can wreck havoc on phone lines.

 

[Lemon law]

I recall a similar issue and it was an electric eye on a streetlamp. They found it when they noticed the flickering of the streetlamp was synced to their modem outages.

One thing you could try is have AT&T switch wiring pairs. And I agree, it must be tested at your dmarc box so it by passes your inside wiring.

 

[ScottMac]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
I recall a similar issue and it was an electric eye on a streetlamp. They found it when they noticed the flickering of the streetlamp was synced to their modem outages.

One thing you could try is have AT&T switch wiring pairs. And I agree, it must be tested at your dmarc box so it by passes your inside wiring.

We've seen some issues with some flavors of day/night sensors in the home as well. The general scenario is this:

Unshielded / unguarded / surface mounted photocell / CDS cell/ sensor, and little or no threshold time in either direction ...

It's starts to get dark, the sensor flips on the light, now it's light, the sensor flips off the light, now it's dark <flips on> ooops now it's light <flips off> (repeat for a long time)

Regardless of how fast the light on/off cycles occur, it generates a helluva lot of electrical noise that can wipe out operation of various electronic devices that aren't well filtered.

Also as I mentioned above, we've captured some noise profiles on some CFL bulbs that kill damn near everything electronic with a power cord.

When the new spectrum analyzers (Tek) & noise sniffers (Radar Engineers) arrive, I'll try to get some profiles posted.

"Its a noisy world out there"

 

[shopbruin]

A brief update:

We were more annoyed our home phone wasn't working, as it worked the first two days we were in the apt and then it just completely stopped. Dead, no dial tone, static on the line.

It took a supervisor in LA, who found a tech but the tech bailed on us (like literally. She assigned him the task and magically he became sick) and us contacting our building and escalating to another rep in order to get our phone line repaired.

After the tech was forced to show up, he tried to leave without making sure we had a dial tone. Thankfully he was stopped by my husband, who said "let me check for a dial tone first" and when we still received dead air, had to go back and continue repairs. They said the problem was between our unit and the main switchboard of the complex.

We're not sure how this happened - the person who lived in this apt before us was there for three years, but we're not sure if he had a landline or not, but now we have working DSL and a working phone line.

Cable is a no go - we can't install it. The building has a master satellite dish through AT&T (it's like my own personal AT&T nightmare, but thankfully cable has worked since the day it was installed. Now paying for PPV apparently might be an issue...) We weren't planning on cable in the first place - we've had DSL for years and more than happy with it, but we were dreadfully close to pulling the plug and finding some other provider, but agian, problem boiled down to the faulty phone line.

DSL hasn't dropped at night since. WHEW.

 

[ScottMac]

Cool. Thanks for the update.

 

[ScottMac]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: ScottMac
The other common day/night issue is AM radio stations. When they crank up the power or steer the array over the neighborood, it can wipe DSL, especially if the cabling and / or termination is poor.

Got any AM radio in your neighborhood?

If it doesn't happen consistently, it could also be Ham radio guys on 160, 80, or 40 meter bands.

Only problem with this is that AM radio stations crank down the power at night, not up.

For most AM radio stations, they either go off the air, or significantly reduce power at night (roughly sunset) to not interfere with so-called "clear channel" stations, which are permitted to operate at high power all day, everyday, as they choose.

Some have steerable arrays, some have a single antenna. The stations with steerable arrays usually change their pattern at night, and tend to be lower power (but still blowtorches by comparison to the non-clear channel stations).