I got rid of my old Westell 6100 because it kept losing speed over a period of several days or less, fixed temporarily by a reboot. It got so bad that I had the Tech come out and check the lines inside and out. Everything tested good at up to 10Mbps. I changed to an Actiontec GT784WN modem/router a few weeks ago and the speed improved quite a bit. My 3-7Mbps account hit 7Mbps for the first time ever and even though the 7 wasn't consistent I did have 5-6 all the time. Now, and within the last few days, all I can get is 3.1Mbps. The speed won't go higher and a modem reboot doesn't help.
Seems a bit fishy that after consistent 5-6Mbps service for the last several weeks the speed has been cut in half almost overnight and now appears solidly at the bottom end of my service level.
Step one: Visit http://www.giganews.com/line_info.html and post up the Traceroute the page shows, if you wish. Be aware that your non-bogan public IP Address will show up. It might shown up as the final hop (bottom-most line of the trace) might contain a hop with your IP address in it. Either remove that line or show only the first two octets. What I'm looking for is a line that mentions "ERX" in it's name towards the end. If for some reason the trace does not complete (two lines full of Stars), keep the trace route intact.
For example this what I saw when I was using Verizon
news.giganews.com
traceroute to 71.242.*.* (71.242.*.*), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 gw1-g-vlan201.dca.giganews.com (216.196.98.4) 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms
2 ash-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.70.241) 39 ms 7 ms 7 ms
3 TenGigE0-2-0-0.GW1.IAD8.ALTER.NET (63.125.125.41) 4 ms 4 ms GigabitEthernet2-0-0.GW8.IAD8.ALTER.NET (63.65.76.189) 4 ms
4 so-7-1-0-0.PHIL-CORE-RTR1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.20.137) 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms
5 P3-0-0.PHIL-DSL-RTR11.verizon-gni.net (130.81.13.170) 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms
6 static-71-242-*-*.phlapa.east.verizon.net (71.242.*.*) 32 ms 32 ms 33 ms
Step two: Can you provide the Transceiver Statistics from your modem?
#3 For the ActionTec stats, I am not as familiar with that gateway, but you may access the web interface at http://192.168.1.1/. Just log in with one of the following usernames and passwords:
admin/password
admin/password1
admin/admin
admin/admin1
admin/verizon
admin/verizon1
Once in, go to the Status pages of the modem using the top navigation, and then select "DSL Status" or WAN Status." You should see information such as your line speed, attenuation, SN Margin, line mode and transmit power. You can screenshot or copy/paste this info into a post.
OK. What is the ERX designator and what does it indicate?
Transceiver stats:
Status
| VPI: | 0 |
| VCI: | 35 |
| Broadband Mode Setting: | MULTIMODE |
| Broadband Negotiated Mode: | G.DMT |
| Connection Status: | CONNECTED |
| Downstream Speed: | 4512 Kbps |
| Upstream Speed: | 864 Kbps |
| Retrains: | 3 |
| Retrain Timer: | 0 Days, 14H:24M:55S |
| ATM QoS class: | UBR |
| Near End CRC Errors Interleave: | 11994 |
| Near End CRC Errors Fastpath : | N/A |
| Far End CRC Errors Interleave : | 7753 |
| Far End CRC Errors Fastpath : | N/A |
| 30 Minute Near End CRC Interleave : | 0 |
| 30 Minute Near End CRC Fastpath : | N/A |
| 30 Minute Far End CRC Interleave : | 0 |
| 30 Minute Far End CRC Fastpath : | N/A |
| Near End RS FEC Interleave : | 0 |
| Near End RS FEC Fastpath : | N/A |
| Far End RS FEC Interleave : | 0 |
| Far End RS FEC Fastpath : | N/A |
| 30 Minute Near End FEC Interleave : | 1245 |
| 30 Minute Near End FEC Fastpath : | N/A |
| 30 Minute Far End FEC Interleave : | 6 |
| 30 Minute Far End FEC Fastpath : | N/A |
| 30 Minute Discarded Packets Downstream : | 0 |
| 30 Minute Discarded Packets Upstream : | 0 |
| SNR Downstream : | 23 dB |
| SNR Upstream : | 10 dB |
| Attenuation Downstream : | 41 dB |
| Attenuation Upstream : | 23 dB |
| Power Downstream | 19.9 dBm |
| Power Upstream | 11.9 dBm |
Your line is on the long end of the scale for a full blown 7.1Mbps connection to be solid. As shown by the modem you're hitting a number of uncorrectable errors on the line. Have Verizon set your connection to 5Mbps/864kbps and disable the ASSIA Optimizer. From there see if your connection is any more stable. If it holds for a while and the stats look good we'll see what we can do to get you a 7.1M connection.
One thing I like to ask is, if you have a landline with the DSL Service, do you hear static, buzzing or popping on the line? Noise like that is indicative of a connectivity problem in most cases with the lines between a device in your home to Verizon's CO. Or, it could just be the phone itself. None the less, if the noise is being caused by a fault on the line that will degrade DSL service.
I do know that I'm on a long line but the tech was here several times and the line tests good at up to 10Mbps. I also do have a landline but there is no buzzing or other noise. My filter is at the Network Interface outside the house and I have a new CAT5 cable running directly from the box to the modem. The filter is also new. Basically, I'm filtering the phones at the box and running a separate line the the modem.
Who do I call to reduce the speed and disable the ASSIA? Reading here show that there is some adverse reaction by Verizon to disabling this.
Another tech visit, line checks, blah, blah, blah.
I talk to the tech about the ASSIA stuff and dropping the setting to 5Mbps to see what happens. Won't happen for a week.
@cjs2012 wrote:Another tech visit, line checks, blah, blah, blah.
I talk to the tech about the ASSIA stuff and dropping the setting to 5Mbps to see what happens. Won't happen for a week.
That should take less than a minute to apply on the backend. It takes more time to wait for the line to come back up and test.
You will be able to get 7.1Mbps with ADSL2(+) if Verizon is able to supply that. You're still on regular ADSL per G.DMT mode appearing. 10Mbps is still cutting it, and it's likely you were given the theoretical max as given from a sunrise meter. Modems rarely are able to hold at the theoretical max for more than 20 minutes.
Thanks.
A couple more days for the visit.
My main concern is that the Westell 6100 would start out at 5-6Mbps and then drop over time to less than 1. A reset started the cycle over. When I changed to the much newer Actiontec my speeds were the fastest I've ever had - over 6 and almost 7Mbps. This continued for about two weeks with solid and reliable higher speeds. Then, overnight the speed dropped to about 3.1, sometimes less, and left me with the impression that a switch got thrown to bring the speed down to the minimum. The upper limit has NOT been recovered yet. It's as if a better modem was detected and the result was unsatisfactory.
Would it be different if the billing varied with the bandwidth?
@cjs2012 wrote:Thanks.
A couple more days for the visit.
My main concern is that the Westell 6100 would start out at 5-6Mbps and then drop over time to less than 1. A reset started the cycle over. When I changed to the much newer Actiontec my speeds were the fastest I've ever had - over 6 and almost 7Mbps. This continued for about two weeks with solid and reliable higher speeds. Then, overnight the speed dropped to about 3.1, sometimes less, and left me with the impression that a switch got thrown to bring the speed down to the minimum. The upper limit has NOT been recovered yet. It's as if a better modem was detected and the result was unsatisfactory.
Would it be different if the billing varied with the bandwidth?
What you might be seeing is a difference in DSL chipsets used by both modems. I forget what the Westell 6100 uses, maybe Texas Instruments but I'm quite sure the Actiontec uses Broadcom under the hood. The general consensus seems to suggest Broadcom holds well for DSL perfomance. That is assuming the Westell 6100 isn't going bad. On my own line I can't say I see too much of a difference between the two modems, although I can tell there's a difference between old revisions of Westell 6100s and newer. The older ones tend to hold a signal better. All under the hood chipset differences.
Now as for speed-based billing, I proposed something like this to Verizon a couple of years ago before the Enhanced package was a "Everything from 1.1Mbps to 15Mbps" package. I also proposed allowing the customer to dynamicly change their speed at MyVerizon by simply using sliders, and their price would be adjusted based on what they chose. Cost per megabit could be done and everything just like business connections. Nothing surfaced of that.
Problem appears to be resolved.
Swapped the two pairs of cable to the better pair from the telco box to my network box. Changed to ADSL2 (modem shows 2+ now) from ADSL1 which also took me off a high traffic port. Line test went from 10Mbps to 14. Download speed went from1.5 this morning to 7.5 now and the tech put in for some other line work that may or may not be done soon.
Looks good so far. I'll monitor the modem stats for a while to check for errors along with speeds.
Asked about the ASSIA program and was told they do not disable this, at least not here.
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
