DSL service [was Re:TLUG Mail list archives?]

[Meng Cheah]

James Knott wrote:
> phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org wrote:
>   
>> Yesterday, Pathcom (the ISP in this soap-opera) announced that Bell would
>> be visiting to diagnose the problem at my end.
>>
>> Today the Bell Service Guy came by early in the morning, while I was
>> still at home. He didn't knock, he just measured the line, decided
>> it was OK, and put a piece of paper through the door saying 'Sorry I
>> missed you since you weren't home.'
>>   
>>     
>
> Apparently, those Bell guys have never heard of intermittent problems. 
> One of my customers has frequent drop outs on one circuit.  Like with
> you, the Bell guy shows up, does a quick sweep and pronounces the line
> good, even though I could demonstrate that it was still failing.  It
> takes a *LOT* of pushing from above to get them to move beyond that.  At
> another customer (located in a small town near about 300 Km from here),
> they were also having intermittent failures on an ISDN line.  Since we
> knew Bell had problems locating suitable pairs, our immediate thought
> was simply a bad pair between the CO and customer premise.  The Bell
> tech insisted nothing was wrong with the cable and insisted the problem
> was with our equipment.  So, just to prove otherwise, I replaced all the
> equipment we had installed.  The problem was still there.  Lots of
> conference calls followed and I asked Bell to place a test set at the
> customer site.  I was promised this would happen.  It didn't.  The Bell
> tech insisted he could do all the testing from his CO, without a test
> set at the customer site.  It got to the point, where my response was
> "Prove it".  All of a sudden we found out it wasn't just a bad cable
> pair.  The circuit went all the way down to another town about 20 Km
> away and back, through equipment that they already knew was bad and that
> another customer was complaining about!  Once they fixed that, the
> circuit was fine.  Incidentally, I find this sort of problem tends to be
> unique with Bell.  I don't see it happening with Allstream, Telus.
> Aliant etc.  I've even heard a Bell tech complain about it!
>   
This is scary.

I'm with Teksavvy and have been experiencing "sluggishness" the past week.
I called Teksavvy and went through replacing the telephone cable to the 
modem and disconnecting the phone to isolate the modem. The tech 
observed that in 2004, my upload was at 640K and not 800K as at present. 
She is adjusting my upload back to 640K to see if there is any 
improvement. I was informed that it may take 48 hours for the change to 
become apparent. I'll check back with them on Monday.

If the change in upload does not resolve the issue, I have these options:
a) try another modem
b) get Bell to check the last mile
    I understand that Bell may try to charge me $60 or $100 for testing 
the line if the last mile is OK.
    But from what I read on this thread, what Bell says may be 
misleading, to say the least.
c) check my house telephone wiring

Do I have any other options or does anyone have any suggestions?

My last experience with Bell is last year, when I had them transfer a 
line from the basement to the 2nd floor. I had no phone service for 5 
days (this is downtown Toronto). In the end, I had to reconnect my line 
at the demarcation point myself. The tech had unplugged his phone/tester 
and did not connect my line back.

Bell insisted that I pay for the moving charge. When I wrote to the VP 
of Public/Customer Relations, citing relevant sections of the standards 
that they are supposed to maintain and that I was going to formally 
complain to the CRTC, they called me and waived the charge.
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