[PLUG] intermittent Actiontecs (was Cisco 678 again)

Quentin Hartman qhartman at gmail.com
Fri Sep 7 17:54:09 UTC 2007


On 9/7/07, Bill Barry <bill at billbarry.org> wrote:
>
> On 9/7/07, Ed Sawicki <ed at alcpress.com> wrote:
> >
> > I had an Actiontec that would drop the circuit about every
> > 48 hours. This happened for about one year. Qwest supplied
> > the Actiontec when they installed the circuit and they could
> > not fix the problem. The phone line is a dedicated line; it's
> > only purpose was for DSL. I personally ran the wire from the
> > demarc to the Actiontec, so there were no phones and no stray
> > segments of phone wire hanging off.
> >
> > Replacing the Actiontec with a Cisco 678 fixed the problem.
>
> So the question is, is there a problem in the circuit that the Cisco 678
> is
> compensating for, or was the problem actually in the Actiontec. Does the
> Cisco 678 show some spike in noise every 48 hours, something which the 678
> can handle but which would have disconnected the Actiontec?


Depending on where you live, how old the area is, etc. the "demarc" on your
property may not be the only point that your line is exposed to oddness. For
example, a school I used to work in had a phone closet that was effectively
used as a POP by the phone company. At least a portion of the phone lines
for the neighborhood surrounding the school looped through there, and it was
possible to drop a butt-set on those lines and tap into other people's
lines. Some of these lines were still cross-connected into the cable plant
of the school.

So if you are having problems with your DSL, and there are no stray cables
connected to it on your property, that doesn't guarantee that there are _no_
stray cables connected to it somewhere else.

Also, just for some more data points, I had an Actiontec that was constantly
causing me problems. I too replaced it with a 678, and now everything is
shiny. My housemate works for a local tech consulting company, and they have
at least 30 Actiontecs deployed for customers in Eugene, and very few of
them have had problems. He's of the opinion that the newer Actiontecs
without wireless built in are quite good.

-- 
-Regards-

-Quentin Hartman-



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