DSL Connection Dropping Intermittently.

[MisterTechnical]

Hi there. I am currently having an issue that appears to be commonplace among users in my area, as of late.

My problem is with a Westell 7500 series  (A90-750015-07). This router is new, only a month old or so, and is a replacement for an older Westell 3000 series that I had swapped out for the same issue (which actually may be working fine, see below.)

My DSL connection (Paying for High Speed Internet Enhanced) Is consistently dropping my net connection throughout the day, in such a manner that it interrupts Web Browsing, uploads, downloads, and games.The internet drops are not for long periods of time, but they are constant and this constant disconnection makes it difficult (if not, at times, impossible) to use my internet service.

I have made several calls to Technical Support, but apparently they have absolutely no idea as to what could be causing this issue. 

Rebooting the Router does not help solve the intermittent connectivitiy issues for any length of time, and neither does power cycling. My network adapter configuration settings are set so that my laptop may not turn off the adapter to save power; this does not work either.

I have tried multiple channels (even though there are no other LANs in my immediate area) , updating my drivers for my adapters, and even had multiple technicians come out and examine the wiring, to no avail.

I'd really like to believe verizon is a reputable and reasonable company, but that hope is quickly fading and being replaced with lividity. 

Can someone here help me troubleshoot or make some tweaks to my connection settings? The DSL light  on my router is solid, but my wireless connection continues to drop.  My connection works correctly and consistently at other wireless locations, though (College campus, for instance).

This is my transceiver stat sheet.

Transceiver Revision A2pB020b3.d20h Vendor ID Code 4D54 Line Mode ADSL_ANSI_T1.413 Data Path FAST

Transceiver Information Down Stream Path Up Stream Path DSL Speed (Kbits/Sec) 3360 608 Margin (dB) 33.0 6.0 Line Attenuation (dB) 36.0 31.5 Transmit Power (dBm) 19.6 11.3

[MisterTechnical]

They gave me a follow up call regarding whether my internet was working properly. It was and is not. 

[pist0ns]

Same issues in zip code 20010. I am absolutely convinced this is a fault on their end. Verizon, do something about the issue.

[DCGypsies]

pist0ns,

I am in 20010 and seeing this very issue.  The issue is very definitely with Verizon and not with our equipment.

[Bron5]

I am in Richmond VA area (232xxx) and have been having the same problem for last several months.  Gave up on useless Verizon Tech Support.  They are clueless.  Definitely a problem at Verizon end and I have talked to people in other areas both nearby (i.e.. within 25 mile radius) and farther away having same issues.  Something wrong with Verizon DSL service itself.  At this point, I will be looking for another service provider.  Verizon FIOS is available, but not sure I want to keep dealing with Verizon after this.  May go back to Comcast which I had at another location and which was much better overall.

I should say, for 9 months or so my DSL service was fine.  Others told me they had great service for years until recent;y when they began having similar problems.  So apparently something major happened at Verizon and/or they are for some insane reason content to drive away their DSL customers.  Someone who might know told me that Verizon wants to terminate DSL service and "get rid of copper completely."  No way of knowing if that is true.

At any rate, I am fed up and will be going elsewhere as soon as I can arrange it.

[The_Toddler]

Well, after the Verizon rep failed to make her promised second follow-up call, I contacted them again. The new rep said he couldn't detect any trouble, but would escalate the issue to his networking team or whatever. He couldn't get them on the line, so he said they would monitor my line (and that I shouldn't turn the modem off) be in touch within 24-48 hours.

This morning I got an automated call to say that their tests show an outage in the area and that I should keep my modem turned on while the tests continue, and that I'd be notified when the problem was fixed. I'm extremely skeptical, but I report back when I have any news.

Anyone else have any updates? 

[Bron5]

Still having the same problems in RIC VA area.  Running at 640 Kbps vurrently.  Occasionally I will get good speeds for a short time but it inevitbaly drop and goes back into the slow speeds. And then it will drop and connect back at a higher speed and so on until it just starts the whole cycle all over again.  I did have about 8 hours stable yesterday.

Look at the forums - this is happenign to lots of people all over the country it seems.  Probably thousands or more.  Most woould enver come here to post.

Good luck!

[The_Toddler]

So only a few hours after I got the automated call saying that they knew of the problem, I got another call saying the problem was fixed. And the situation does seem to have improved. But I didn't get to spend that much time online over the weekend to give it a real workout. So far, I haven't had any dropouts through my PC browsing that I could tell, but I did have some very brief problems watching Hulu Plus content on my Roku box. (But those were easily resolved, unlike the problems I was having at the height of the trouble.) I'll continue to watch it closely.

[The_Toddler]

MisterTechnical, what happened to you? I was hoping you would come back and update us on your progress.

So after an entire week, things seem to be much better, but possibly not perfect. I haven't had any trouble web browsing or downloading files on my PC. But for some reason, when I'm watching Hulu+ content on my Roku box via wireless connection, I can't watch more than 15 minutes of streaming video without losing a signal. But what's weird is that it doesn't seem to happen with streaming Netflix. Hulu has always been more resource intensive, though. I guess service is back to a level where I can live with it, though. I suspect I'll wait until Verizon tries to raise the price on me and then jump ship to Comcast.

[MisterTechnical]

Update:

Net seems to be working decently now. The drops have stopped, packet loss is minimal/nonexistent the majority of the time.

Although the connection seems less smooth than it was before this issue, it has significantly improved.

An irritated call resulted in them offering me Fios again, but this time at a price lower than what I'm paying now for more bandwidth. I'm going to begrudgingly go with that until they attempt to raise the price on me, and then jump to another provider.

EDIT @ Above post:

^ I suppose great minds think alike. 

[The_Toddler]

Thanks for the update, MisterTechnical. After a few reboots of the modem and Roku, all systems seem go here in my household.

Unfortunately, I'm not eligible for FIOS in my area. But the last two years when they tried to raise prices on me, they've given me a $10/month discount. The second time around they said the offer wasn't valid anymore, but after I tried a few more reps, they finally gave it to me. My luck may have run out, though, with this new dry-loop grandfathering business.

[TheRoscoe]

I have a D-Link roter and it goes off multiples times a day, it used to be every 30 minutes now its like 8 minutes. I called verizon multiple times asking for a technician but to no avail they give me the same excuse, so I'm just changing my internet provider.

[ARP4]

Happening in Pa as well 19601 they had me thinking it was the house wiring but it was on their end. Drop city!

[masho95]

Acording to those tracert's you are losing all the packets on your end, which would mean either the modem or your computer. Why do you believe the problem lies with Verizon at this point?

[smith6612]

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@masho95 wrote:

Acording to those tracert's you are losing all the packets on your end, which would mean either the modem or your computer. Why do you believe the problem lies with Verizon at this point?

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Well, you have to consider all of the gear between the respondant device at the end (either the modem, or further adding equipment, the PC) and then of course what is in between the end and the edge router which in his case happens to be a Juniper ERX. Between there you have the physical copper plant, the DSLAM, ATM switches, trunk lines (can be Fiber or Copper back to the CO), more switches, more trunk lines, PVC configurations and quality of service configurations, and the trunk to the edge router itself, and the edge router itself as a culprit. There's a lot at play and unless it's a physical issue with the copper circuit or the modem not accepting data at times it's typically on Verizon's end.

[MisterTechnical]

Regarding packet loss on my end:

While that looks like the case, Real time tests with pingplotter and other polling software  show packet loss at hops between verizon equipment, most often on hop 2-4. (which are the front end router - I dont know what else).

Also, other computers in my house have the same problem, the modem is new (not even a week old), and both computers work flawlessly wired and wireless at other locations.

I cannot say that I believe, based on that, that it has anything to do with bad equipment on my end, and configuration settings are set  correctly, to the best of my knowledge.

[The_Toddler]

Not to mention the fact that I and several posters in this thread and others are reporting the same issue in the same area. 20009 here, by the way.

[DCGypsies]

While I don't have any traceroute data to contribute at this time, I want to point out that I am in 20010 and am experiencing this exact problem.  I've been on the phone with a technician from the Chronic Intermittency Team who is supposed to be getting in touch with the network center that houses the routers in question.  The latest theory is that the problem lies between the Verizon gni (?) router and the ALTER.NET router.

While this technician has been very helpful and knowledgable -- a vast improvement over the Bangalore crowd -- I am going to wait and see whether the problem gets fixed.  This is my last resort.  Another day or two of this and I am cancelling DSL.

Why do we end customers have to solve this problem for Verizon?  I mean, I'm an engineer and I work in telecom so I don't mind getting my hands dirty but I do enough of this for WORK!