Dropouts in Renfrewshire

[foxtrot_yankee]

Is anyone else experiencing frequent dropouts in the Erskine area? Or is it just me then?

It's been happening all day. :td:

[McMav]

Hi I'm in Bishopton and getting the same thing. Either droped tv signal or jerky pictures. Thought it was just my stb playing up obv summit else.

Had me Broadband shutdown aswell they might be doing work in area though.

Will see how it is tomorrow then give CS a call if not better.

[foxtrot_yankee]

It's happening again today. How is it for you McMav?

---------- Post added at 12:43 ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 ----------

Just phoned CS and a recorded message confirmed an intermittent service in the PA7 area due to a local fault. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

[cynix]

Getting the same here in Glasgow, since yesterday, with 4Mb connection.

Starts to download OK, then freezes and drops connection (cable light goes out on modem), then it retries the connection (cable light flashing) and after a while it'll settle down (cable light on) and work for 5-10 seconds again before freezing and dropping out again.

Tried calling Tech. support but gave up after 20 mins in the queue with no answer.

[cynix]

How are you guys getting on with your connection, still dropping out? Mine is still the same, up/down every few mins, but the cable light isn't going out as often now.

40 mins on the phone to tech. support and they're sending an engineer on Tuesday, so we'll see how that goes.

[cynix]

All sorted out now. :)

Turns out the problem was due to NTL upgrading the network locally to handle 10Mb, the increase in signal strength has apparently caused dropouts with many of the old Terayon TJ210 modems like mine. So an additional attenuator fitted inline and a new modem (NTL 250) and all was well.

Nice to see a simple solution and the engineer was great, shame all NTL technical support staff aren't as knowledgeable.

[foxtrot_yankee]

I also have the Terayon TJ210.

So why is it, when I phone support yesterday, I'm told that engineers are aware of the fault in PA7 but it's only affecting 1000 customers or so and there's no scheduled fix for this.

I just have to "grin and bear it."

Poor. Extremely poor NTL.

The dropouts are still occurring.

[Chris Edwards]

Hi,

I'm in milngavie and have been getting dropouts in my cable modem since Tuesday (1st August), making it virtually unusable.

Phoned NTL and they ran a remote "test" on my connection and told me everything is "fine". Also suggested I reboot modem etc (which didn't help).

Oh yes, the modem is a Terayon TJ210...

Anyone know if their remote testing includes check of the signal strength ? If so, then it sounds like some other problem - and not the TJ210 being unable to handle an increased signal strength.

Thanks!

Chris

[cynix]

They ran the online tests for me as well and they all showed my connection as being fine, even though it was dropping out minutes before/after.

Emphasise to them that the cable light is going out on the modem and therefore it's not a PC/router settings problem... that's what finally persuaded them to send out an engineer to me.

I'm pretty close to you (in Bishopbriggs) so suspect it could well be the same problem.

[Chris Edwards]

Emphasise to them that the cable light is going out on the modem and therefore it's not a PC/router settings problem... that's what finally persuaded them to send out an engineer to me.


Makes sense - thanks. Trouble is, the "cable" light doesn't go out much. It's weird, most of the time the connection is out, but the cable light is on. However, I'm pretty sure I have seen the cable light itself going off at times. Perhaps something is marginal.

[cynix]

Yeah mine was the same, cable light didn't go out every time the connection dropped out, maybe only 10% of the time.

If I downloaded something at full speed the cable light went out a lot more often (maybe on 40% of connection dropouts) than if just web browsing, so try that and if you regularly see the connection dropping and light going out then it does sound like the same problem as mine.

[ikthius]

my connection is fine here in duntocher

ik

[Chris Edwards]

Yeah mine was the same, cable light didn't go out every time the connection dropped out, maybe only 10% of the time.

If I downloaded something at full speed the cable light went out a lot more often (maybe on 40% of connection dropouts) than if just web browsing,
Hi,

Yeah - that description is spookily accurate.

Engineer visited yesterday, instantly saw the terrajet tj210 CM and said what amounted to "oh dear - you know those don't work anymore". Swapped it for an ntl250 and everything's fine.

It's just a shame they weren't able to replace the terrajets *before* performing whatever upgrade to the network has broken them. That and maintaining on the phone that it's the customer equipment that must be faulty.

Thanks for advice everyone!

[foxtrot_yankee]

Just had an engineer round about 30 minutes ago. Again, spied the Terayon and immediately swapped it for an ntl:250, ran some tests et voila! No more dropouts!