Liz, I live in Clinton these days, where Verizon DSL and Comcast are the only options. Comcast is faster, but their monthly data caps made Verizon the better choice for me (not to mention my general distaste for cable companies). I recently had superficially similar problems. I went on freecycle and got someone's old DSL modem to swap for my own, to rule that out, but I got impatient and bought a new modem before I got the reply from freecycle. In any case, you probably can get another cable modem off freecycle for testing purposes. After the new modem didn't fix things, I finally called Verizon. They sent out a tech with a good "bedside" manner (he was friendly, seemed to know what he was talking about, and didn't talk down to me). He didn't find anything wrong with my signal, but he did notice the copper loop to my apartment was longer than necessary and cut down the excess at the pole. I haven't had any problems in the 2 months since. In retrospect, I think my problems were mostly on hot, humid days. -- Rich On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 7:11 PM, E Johnson <iris.gates@gmail.com> wrote:
Umm. Non-happy camper. ISP things have changed here, without me being informed. Recently (2 days ago) my modem started rebooting every little while. Zillions of T3 & T4 timouts in the modem log, Signal lavels were perfect when it was online. I own this thing, a Motorola SB6120 purchased late June 2010. It has not been abused.
I am in Woosta & we all know the ISP available here. 2 techs showed up mid-morning, to diagnose and fix this issue. One guy stood there watching; the other guy "did stuff." They checked the signal levels on incoming line from the box connected to the pole our back, and declared my moden Dying. They talked to each other (not me) & seemed to think I was Granny-in-a-Box, until they let me say more than one sentence.
These guys also confessed that since July 202, Ch4rter does not "allow" customers to own/run their own modems. Their consolation prize is that they don't charge modem rental fees any more. (it's not on the bill, anyway, FWIW). They mumbled some other mumbo jumbo and fled 5 seconds after they learned I have my own router too, & didn't care if the modem and router were yet in communication. They just said "better reboot" and they "no longer" service "wireless" --which I am not running except when certain visitors appear. I think they meant they don't diagnose routers, which has always been the policy, and which is fine. Internal LAN issues aren't their problem.
So now I have a modem which may or may not be sick, but no way to test it to make sure. Is there anyone here who can take a look at this thing & test to see if it's Really Dying, or if Ch4rter deaded it with their latest firmware revision of their firmware & policy change in July 2012?
An interesting meeting theme sometime might be how to get the Verizon FIOS in Worcester. Several years ago I watched Verizon trucks & Verizon moles installing their fiber optics in manholes all over town. Ch4rter is running on Verizon's infrastructure. Ch4rter internet has been working better since then, but we're still locked out of the option to use verizon. Is this a topic of interest to anyone? If so, I'll lead the discussion and even buy the Pizz4. To me, this is a Large Pizza problem.
Another interesting but probably futile discussion might center around why we have suddenly been deprived of the ability to watch the behavior and effectiveness of our modems, which serve internet coming from our ISP.. I was not informed of this -- was anyone who is just a 'regular' customer?
Meanwhile, if anyone has a test lab or whatever, where they can test my declared-dead modem, please let me know. Otherwise it's probably a giveaway, or another piece of Landfill Fodder. I can bring to a meeting & can wait for results.
Thanks & happy pizzaz, Liz J
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