Problems with SBC ADSL services

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Many customers now have this crappy ADSL service from SBC. SBC is doing continuous b/s ads trying to make people think its "high-speed" and "better" than the cable modem. The $29.95 ADSL service is now down to $14.95 to lure unsuspecting folks into falling far it.

The facts are this: TW offers cable modem service that runs consistantly at

SBC offers ADSL that they falsely claim is hgh-speed internet service but the papers they have filed in response to various lawsuits state that the lines are clamped at 128kb so that "all online users will have a suitable experience" and that they actually make no claim of high-speed except from your house to the first central office. After that, you are on your own. And that 128kb speed is only downstream.

For a time I haven't had any problems with these lines, you simply installed the plugin filter and the communicators worked okay. Recently, SBC has done something or has simply tried to put too many customers on too little service and I now find that communicators cannot dial out because their is no dial tone while the ADSL lines continuously reboot and attempt to restore the connections. When you try to dialup accounts in the middle of the night you often get an answer after one ring and the connection simply goes into never-never land for a few seconds and then the lines return to normal. Your panels won't answer because they never 'hear' the ring. Or you can finally get the panel to answer after a bunch of repeat attempts but the communicator cannot 'hear' because the ADSL is busy rebooting so the panel will hang up after a minute or two. This is now causing open/close/test signals to not come in a couple of days a week from some customers. Is anyone seeing this foolishness?

I used to work for SBC on the ADSL network side of the company for 3 years. It is true that the lines were sometimes capped at maybe 384k down/128k up, but that was usually because the customer was almost too far to receive the service. 18kft to 21kft is usually the max it can be delivered on outside plant twisted copper. Sometimes they were capped at 768/128. As far as "promised speed" , I would venture that neither TW or SBC has any.

Just to clear a few things up. The DSL modem will not reboot the dial tone side of the line. Are you having the above problems with more than one customer or just the one? I suspect the customer has problems with the actual copper telco line. The DSL should not interfere with the alarm as long as you have the panel filtered with an alarm DSL filter 'made for line seizure' unless you aren't running line seizure and are using the panel as a phone extension, in which case that may explain a few of the problems.

Your customer can call SBC and report that the alarmco is having issues and they will run some testing on the line such as Metallic Loop Test, and others. They should know real quick if there is a problem with the outside plant wiring. (Possibly a cross or a ground.) If your customers speed is capped (although I don't believe they cap at 128k down; that's rediculously slow) there may be a problem and some lazy DSL tech just capped it at 384k to fix it without really fixing it. If your customer does call in for testing, have him/her casually ask how far they are from the C/O.

Feel free to private email me if you still have problems. I know a few people. I'll leave it at that.

Oh, one other thing. You stated something about the promised speed being only good up to the 1st C/O. I don't think SBC has a "promised speed" but if they did, the telco pair would normally be the slowest link. IOW, 'after' the first C/O, the bandwidth is even higher. Data paths are monitored for capacity and rerouted if need be. That part is stable and almost never part of a slow speed issue. Now out on the Net, it's another story. Slow servers, Net congestion, ... I just want to itterate that if you have an seperate, un-shared path to the C/O, and speed after that is not an issue, then essentially your real speed is the same as the speed to the C/O without altercation from any local sources (such as neighbors downloading major stuff at the same time) Off topic- my DSL speed is over

If anyone has ADSL/alarm issues, I'll give you my straightforward and honest feedback. Please, tip generously your hardworking waitresses and waiters and don't forget, I'll be here all week. Goodnight Ladies and germs.

thomas

Wow! Where have you been, Thomas? It's been years...

We have SBC Yahoo (old Ameritech account) ADSL, and I get 1.2 mbps downstream (not sure what the upstream speed is, but it hasn't been an issue)

We are a little over 9000 line feet from the SBC switch, according to the phone company when I ordered it. Several factors may be working in our favor, as well-

-House and subdivision are only 4 yrs old, so all the service wiring is new.

-I wired all the phones with Cat 5 (Panasonic phone system), and ran the DSL separately on it's own Cat 5 with an appropriate DSL filter. Proper twists are maintained at all jacks as close as possible to termination. In fact, I ran the DSL Cat 5 wire straight out of an old cable wallplate and it terminates at the DSL RJ11 connector- no extra connectors at all, except for the filter.

- We are the county seat, and the biggest town in the county at 40,000 people, part of a Metro area of 3 million people. Most of the Telcos and ISP's connect to a main internet trunk line here in town, which runs to Chicago, 275 crow miles away.

I suspect physical location, quality of the house wiring, and age of the local infrastructure have more to do with one's performance, or lack thereof, than the ADSL provider. Try cable. (Note: we had Charter cable internet when we first moved in, for a year, and our DSL is about 4 times as fast and MUCH more reliable)

Couldn't have said it better. People often get confused between aDSL and sDSL, and the difference between "Business Grade", and the "Join the pipeline". There is a web site you can go to, to test both the up and down stream speeds....I'll see if I can find the link.

rediculously

"> Just to clear a few things up. The DSL modem will not reboot the dial tone

Okay, there is a loud jackhammer sound on the line for about 10 seconds each time before the modem reboots and there is no dialtone while this is going on and the process takes about 40 seconds before it starts over again. The standard plugin filter will not remove the jackhammer sound and the communicator cannot hear. If the communicator has line seizure or it doesn't should not make any difference if the filter is in place and in fact thats how I fixed one account last night. I installed a new jack next to the b block and hung us across the line at that point and suddenly I was able to dump all the stored events in the panel before I left. We don't have line seizure but at least we can get signals until the phone company can work on it. However an hour after I left the customer was calling to report the keypad was showing no phone line again. Since it is starting to happen at several places there sure as heck is something going on.

Yeah, life has a funny way of doing that to you sometimes. But you just gotta go where the road leads you, and sometimes that's right back to where you came from. I wonder if you and I have passed each other at some time or other; you in your 18 wheeler, and me zipping by on my motorcycle on some lonely stretch of western Interstate....:))

Little has changed here in ASA since you left. Back when you were here before, I was just a beginning player in the alarm business (still am actually after 10 years), but business has muchroomed so quickly to the point where my son is now running things, and I just do the fun stuff, like sales calls, "smoozing" with clients, and cashing all the cheques...:)) Truth is I love this business, but I love doing less for a living even more as time goes on, and I'm starting to drift away much more quickly than I thought. I have other "irons in the fire" so to speak that offer a lot more challenge, and I want to try lots of new things in the few years left to me (61 in two weeks...)

I still hang around here, but the atmosphere can be quite poisonous at times. Funny how it only takes a bad apple or two to spoil the whole barrel. Strangly enough, I don't see the same thing in another newsgroup I spend lots of time in; most people there act like adults. Too bad.. at times this newsgroup can be great, but other times....well same as before....you know.

Anyway, I look forward to your forthcoming posts, and do know that you've been missed. Both you and Irv were voices of sanity back then.....

Very best regards,

RHC

I went to work for SBC as a network center technician but got really tired of an inside cubicle job after 3 years. So being 40, I figured I finally had a breakpoint to persue only one of my two boyhood fantasies.

Well, as it tuns out, and since I didn't see much of a shot at 'making out with the Charlie's Angels', I did the next best thing and learned me on how to drive a big rig. (You know, "breaker 1-9 , this here's Rubber Duck", and dont forget eleven long haired Friends of Jesus In a Chartreuse microbus.) I figured if I can fly a plane, I can learn me how to drive a truck. (Surprisingly, if you hussle and don't become a company driver, you can make $60k and write off most expenses.)

I did the truck driving thing for about a year and a half. I saw places I never would have ever seen in all 48 states and then some. If I were 20 years youger, I might try it as a career and invest the money for retirement. I would not recommend it for folks over 45 or so... As a vacation for me, it was great!

Now I am back in the industry I have known since 1984. Like an old pair of good jeans, it just suits me. Thanks for the 'welcome' although when I dropped off the edge of the earth, somehow I knew I would always be allowed back at A.S.A. It's quite a motley crew here. Stay tuned for the shocker which is to be continued in R.L.B.'s reply from me.

Respectfully, thomas

Welcome back Thomas.....

I guess you didn't fall off the end of the earth..... you just rolled off....for little bit......

Norm Mugford

Heh, heh, heh... :^)

So far my only reply other than this was a welcome. Hope that wasn't a shock to you. We've had our differences years ago but I bear no ill feelings toward you. Glad you had some fun pursuing an old dream (well, one of them anyway).

What this means Tom ..... is that since you've been gone, Fat Ass has alienated himself from all but two or three participants in ASA. And those that don't activly participate in chastising him, know what an abborrent deviant he is, but they just choose to stay out of the fray.

So..... him being "forgiving" towards you for any differences that occured in the past, is a desparate attempt to gain the acceptance of someone, anyone who will at least not openly confront him when he lies, cheats, steals or acts as if he has never done anything in Usenet or real life, to deserve the contempt of anyone he comes in contact with.

The only thing that's changed is that now, Fat Ass has built up such a surplus of carnage, dastardly deeds and bad feelings that there's not a thing that he can accuse someone else of doing wrong, that he hasn't already done something twice as nefarious. And it's all clealy documented, to be pulled out of Google by anyone, when he denies it. He's burned his bridges and every one of them has been documented ......... never to be forgotten.

You'll perhaps notice that he's a little more subdued ......as of late ....(heh heh heh)

bingo

I still have the pic of your "Gerchak Jack" somewhere

No bad feelings here, Robert. I appreciate the welcome and just haven't had time to get back here.

The big shocker is that I live on Siesta Key. For all others, that is a little island in the Gulf off of Sarasota Florida. Accessible by 2 drawbridges, it's a bird sanctuary and has one of the worlds top white sand beaches across the street. After a tough day I can be walking the shore in under 90 seconds. It's a rough life out here, I'll tell you. I even signed up to be an official bikini inspector.

When things settle a bit at work I would like to meet for lunch sometime. Do you know of any good pizza places? I understand there are quite a few.

Respectfully, thomas

Geez guys. I just got back. It seems to be as it was 10 years ago. I am attempting to enter without any preconceived notions of prejudice. Wish me luck.

Respectfully, thomas

Well, Thomas, don't lose them entirely. I'd suggest that you'd better keep those "preconceived notions" available for future reference.

It seems at this point, every one is either healther or younger than Bass. So the best that anyone could hope for is that Bass's heart problem gets him first.

.... Unfortunately, as you can see, it's perhaps, worse than you remember it.

But yes, good luck anyway.