ok try it with the shortest cable possible. although 6ft or less is ideal.

 

EarthLink.com... available in San Jose and San Francisco...

 

So I'm logging into my home computer via work and the Comcast at home is fine. However, the Covad internet on one side of our office is down while the other side is not. I tested the lines with a network cable tester and there have been no problems. Something weird is going on today with our second line from Covad.

 

You could do your own home run to clean the signal up, I used Cat5e UTP to do the run. I was having problems as well. Barely over 1.5M train, retrained constantly, and packet loss out of the wazoo. I ran my own line from the telco box to a splitter which then goes through 1' of regular phone wire to the modem. It's not prefect but most of the time it trains at 3M except for once a day between 5-6pm, it trains down to 2.9M then about 11-11:30pm it trains back up to 3M. I think so many users are on during the peak hours the tone reflections must be horrid causing all kinds of noise. My next step is to put the modem directly behind the telco box, and instead of having a 50' run of cat5e it will have 1' of it.

When it goes down, is it just retraining(down for 15secs or so) or is it DOWN?

 

alright... the damn phone cable is actually longer than I thought. It was about 25 feet in length. I got two 14ft Cat5, and of course, it's too short. Have to get something longer tomorrow. Good thing they were free...

I now have this setup

wall jack -> 3in phone cable -> filter -> 3in phone cable -> DSL modem -> 14ft ethernet cable -> wireless router

I can also use the ping command to monitor the network connection while I am sitting in the livingroom.

 

My company has hundreds of sites with vpn connections around the country that only require a consumer level broadband connection and let me tell you cable by far is the fastest and most reliable to have. DSL in my experience is crap. The only other thing that shadows everything in comparison is fiber. And yes there are certain locations of the country where you can get fiber for your home for $70 a month and have DL speeds up to 10Mbps and up speeds at 6Mbps.

 

^^^ I think Cable is more reliable as well. *shrugs* I have had so many headaches with DSL, and not just from a single provider.

 

First of all, there is a member on this board that is being EXTREMELY helpful (Bob). Don't want to give out his screen name for he might get flooded with PM for help.

So with my latest configuration I've been pinging the IP for about 2 hours now and it's good. So I called SBC and asked them to upgrade my speed as much as possible. They lady said, judging by the distance, it doesn't seems like I can have 1.5Mbps and stable. So she moved me from 384kbs to 768kbs-1.5Mbps. I'll continue to run and ping until I go to bed around midnight. If this works, I'll be a happy camper!

Thank you guys for the ping and wiring suggetion. I really hope this is it...

 

What exactly did bob help you do?

 

he arranged for some 'hookups' but if the wiring does it, I might not need it after all. I took evsoul's suggestion and shorten the phone line.

damn... as I am typing this it just went dead for about 2 minutes but the DSL light is still on.

 

i noticed my signal strength also went down... I think it's because I moved my wireless router... I moved it out a little... still crappy... but I think it's better... i'll have to continue to monitor the connection...

 

Signal strength is a completely seperate issue. As long as you arent moving large files within your home network, a medium or possibly even a low signal strength should be fine, just as long as you can wirelessly push the bandwidth that is offered to you via your dsl. If you are running on battery however, your wireless card in your laptop does have to work hardware, thus possibly decreasing the battery life. If things get bad, they sell booster antennas for the linksys routers. I am sure though that you can get your good signal back if you just play with it.

 

yeah, I know it's a seperate issue since my DSL modem is not dropping. previous I had my wireless router sitting on my desk and pointing straight down the hallway. then i had it on the floor by the jack and away from the hallway. Now I moved it back towards the hall and on a high chair and I haven't gotten any 'wireless' drop.

Thanks all!

 

so is the DSL signal consistent with the shorter cable or is it still dropping?

 

DSL signal is consistent now and after I moved and elevated my wireless router my wireless signal is also consistent.

Thanks again!