DSL issues

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Nolan

Nolan

Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
2,105
Location
oakdale, ca, USA.
Well isn't the Internet great??? Especially with high speed Internet connections! The Internet has really made it possible for everyday folks to open up e-commerce type businesses. It is great as the rules for business has really changed as you don't need tons of front end capitol, a "brick & mortar" down town, employees, workers comp insurance and then stand there and wait for somebody to walk in the door so you can make a dent in the mounting overhead. Yeah my on-line hobby/endeavor has been really fun, has consistent growth, a modest profit margin and lots of great customers in which some have even turned into great friends. Man the sky is blue, the warm sun is on my face, I have a spring in my step and then I stumble.... as I try to catch myself I am leaned way forward but I catch my balance just in time to hit my head on the corner of the cupboard, I grasp my head in pain with both hands as I stumble backwards, one step too far as I trip over a box sitting on the floor, as I fall backwards my fall is partially broken by the back of my head hitting the table that is behind me, as I lay there flat on my back and in pain I am unaware that when the back of my head struck the corner of the table it dislodged the bowling ball that has now rolled off the table and hit me in the stomach! @#%! :eek:

Well thats how I now feel because the phone/Internet provider (who shall remain nameless) who cant get their heads out. My DSL and phone connection has been up and down for over 2 months now. Every time it rains I loose my connection. When I loose said connection I have to call their service folks who put me in the system for repair. I have now had the trucks rolled on my connection a total of 4 or 5 times. Each time being treated like a new event. From the time you call it takes at least 3 days to get the tech out to again determine its in their lines and not in my house. Then the cable repair guys get called in time for it to dry out so they think they fixed it. Did I mention that I have an online business that requires I have a solid Internet connection???? It is really hard to keep up with the 25 plus email request/orders a day when your connection is down for a week at a time. Anyway thanks for listening to my rant and yes it rained last night:mad: I am really sorry to all the folks who have had requests or questions that I didn't get back to you on or your orders that have been delayed in shipping. I may have to start doing it at work if I cant get this fixed, its really a last resort to do this at work as it would cause problems with the partners. I will tell you it is very overwhelming trying to sort out all the request/orders. Again I am sorry for the bad service and delays that are coming out of this but heh thats life. I also want to thank everyone because its nice to have so many folks who choose to buy from me
 
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It always seems to me that people who live in the more heavily populated areas (or very rural) have the most difficulty getting good services from anyone that needs to come to your house to fix something. We are lucky here in that we get good service most of the time. When our DSL went out I called at 7:30 PM and was told they would be out sometime in the next 3 days! The very next day at 8:30am they were at my door and had me up and running in 45 minutes. I think the service tech I was talking to on the phone was in some call center somewhere and was just giving me the standard time frame.

I hope they get your problem fixed. Do you have a laptop that you can take to somewhere local that has free internet?
 
No laptop but I have my work computer, its just that I dont want to get all my wood stuff onto my truss plant network and my website has different emails that I cant check at work without opening that "can" of worms so to speak. Plus I keep telling myself its going to be fixed. I would have never thought it would be this big of a problem getting fixed.

JimB said:
It always seems to me that people who live in the more heavily populated areas (or very rural) have the most difficulty getting good services from anyone that needs to come to your house to fix something. We are lucky here in that we get good service most of the time. When our DSL went out I called at 7:30 PM and was told they would be out sometime in the next 3 days! The very next day at 8:30am they were at my door and had me up and running in 45 minutes. I think the service tech I was talking to on the phone was in some call center somewhere and was just giving me the standard time frame.

I hope they get your problem fixed. Do you have a laptop that you can take to somewhere local that has free internet?
Click to expand...
 
Nolan,

I can feel for you......

When we lived on base (Whiteman AFB, Mo), there was no TV unless you had satelite. Like you, we had no reception whenever it rained.....called up the satelite people and a little old lady (actually) would answer, "it's the weather." and that'd be it. Only thing was, I was the only one w/o reception.

Well, during one outage period (I was ready to can the whole works as I was paying for something I couldn't get most of the time.....it rained alot!) I spied a satelite guy at a neighbors.......well I grabbed him and told him my plight......this has been going on for months......he came over and checked things out when he was finished and guess what........he had it fixed in short order......it turned out, when the cable to the house was ran, the installed had installed the junction box upside down!!! It was acting as a catch basin and was filling up with water every time it rained and it took some time to dry out. Once that was turned around.....no more problems.

Moral of the story.......check you connections to the house, make sure they are tight and have no water in them......maybe point out when your problems occure and point the service to the telephone pole and to check out their connections there.

Hope you can get this fixed soon...........spotty/no service sure sucks!!!


Barney
 
To fuuny----sorry Nolan-----what's DSL????? Oh that thing that ends 8 miles down the road from out place. Yup I heard about that---hope to see how it works some day.
But for now Dail-up on a single phone line using a 56k modem running at a swift 42k.
Yippppeeeeeeeee
TV-that a whole different joke-------they shut our C-band off two years ago.
 
I feel for you - I recently fired our ISP and went to another. Wonder how long this one will last.

DSL (or at least what they call DSL) is available where I live, but its so far from a junction that the speeds are laughable.

If you have "line of sight radio" as option - its worth looking into. The new ISP I'm works that way (looks like a miniature cell tower antenna on the house) and so far so good.

Also, there are a couple of new technologies rolling our in our area that I'm keeping an eye on. One of them is WiMAX and I know a couple folks on it. Mixed review, key thing is that its 100% mobile with in the coverage area.

The one to really watch out for is the aircards - I have one for work and love it. But, there are lots of rumors running that the providers are going to try and start charging on a per minute basis for all users instead of having an unlimited tier for a premium price.

Fortunately - its an travel expense for me, otherwise it would be too pricey - no matter how much I like.

Do you have cable available in your area?
 
Nolan; If you are not doing this already, keep a log of dates and times when the service went out, the weather, and when they restored your service. Find out what lights are on when the service is working properly. Write it down and note what lights are on when the service goes out. You might want to ask them to send you your service history. They keep one if only for their own use.



Tell them you will pro-rate your service to include outages. Call them EVERYDAY that your service is out.

Tell them you will involve third parties if it isn't fixed permanently.

Repeat these key words "Let me speak to your supervisor!"
 
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Feel your pain

I work for the phone company here and have the same issue. My problem is that squirrels have chewed teh covering off over head lines that allow water in and cause small shorts in the line. This will cause static on the phone line and cause other issues with DSL. The DSL can hand;e more errors but this depends on teh DSLAM yuo card connected to. In other words good luck getting this fixed. The best bet is to check with your neighbors and see if they are having the same issues and band together. The other option is to contact the state regulatory body. here it is the Iowa Utilities Board and file a complaint, Trust me these will put the phone company in panic mode or at least it does here.


Mark Pleis
 
Sounds like you're having some terrible issues. You may want to look into getting a "smart phone" of some type. My wife and I recently got iphones and have all of our email accounts set up on the phones. Can even surf the web (although it's very small!) I hardly ever use the computer at home anymore...
 
Satellite Broadband???

Direct TV type.

We are in the boonies too, and I have the TV. Only bad when it is stormy outside. But, if you need it to run a business, the monthly cost shouldn't be "outrageous".

Just a thought.
 
I'm in the boonies and rather than DSL which also requires a land line, we're using Wireless Broadband. I'm only getting 3G at home but when we go somewhere more populated I can get 4G.
Worth considering.
 
The way I see it,

I am a Network Center Technician who works with DSL and it is highly likely that I work for the afore non mentioned provider of DSL. And I wish that I had some sage advise for resolving your issues but from my position I see all to clearly the bureaucratic and bad customer service my company offers. While some of the issues are related to the unwieldy technology that constantly evolves beyond any large organization's ability to keep up with but the vast majority of issues are caused by archaic methods of record keeping and plain old bad customer service. A sense of corporate entitlement coupled with dead labor weight and government regulations also contribute.

I remember when DSL was a new product and there was a real concern about businesses dropping HICAP's like DS1's and ISDN. Not so much out of a fear of lose of revenue stream though there was murmurings about folks making a profit off of internet service. Rather it was mostly that DSL technologies of the time was not as reliable. At least at the time reliability was key to business customers. Much of reliability problems have improved greatly but the weak link of copper cable still plagues the industry. Fiber to the house removes that obstacle but even after more than a decade the technology is still new and extremely costly. Large companies are reluctant to invest in the latest and greatest because that will soon be surpassed by the next latest and greatest before that investment pays off.

Fluid is the name of the game and when you talk about companies with heritage's going back to the turn of the last century it is a foreign concept. I am reminded of the quote from the movie The Graduate "I just want to say one word to you - just one word.... 'plastics." The word for today is "wireless." Some here have mentioned that and right now we are not even at he tip of the iceberg on wireless but it is coming and coming fast.

As far as having chronic trouble just as already mentioned document, document and document some more. Get your neighbors to document. Get contact information of one of the technicians if he is willing. Contact your PUC, (http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/). I am not a fan of the Government as they are often just as likely to cause problems as they are to resolve them but heaven knows you are paying for their service.

In short I feel your pain because day in and day out I work with outside technicians that are banging their collective heads against a cross-box on chronic troubles.


on a side note I love Mooneys. They are so elegant.


Doug
 
We live in an older house(1928) and had similar trouble with phone and DSL outages when it rained. The technician told us that much of it was related to old wiring.

We dropped our phone service all together and got cable internet. It's not foolproof, but it's been much more reliable. As an added perk, no more telemarketer calls. We use cell phones for everything, and I do much of my internet/email stuff on the phone(iphone). I've never once regretted getting rid of phone/DSL.
 
You aren't hosting your website at home, are you? If so you need to get it hosted at a data center. Redundant connections, redundant hardware, redundant power. Then the only risk to your business from your DSL line would be response times to requests from your website.

The place I have always used is $35. Per year. Worth 3 times as much just to have my wife's email always up.
 
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