Connection Issues
What causes bad line quality?
Other things that can create problems with modem drop-outs are poor waterproofing on the phone lines, especially if the problem becomes more apparent during or slightly after it has been raining. Loose or old line wiring can also create noise on the line and disconnect you from the Internet. That copper wire, which runs around your house, down the street and to your local exchange can vary in quality. If it is in a poor state, nothing else you do will make any difference.This is a problem that is unfortunately more common than we would like it to be due to a lot of low quality phone lines in and around Tasmania. These line conditions can change from time to time, sometimes related to weather conditions (excessive moisture) or repair work being done in the street or exchange that has a knock on effect that goes undetected. It relates to your modem trying to connect to the net faster than the telephone lines can carry the signal. Therefore you get an unstable connection that drops out or a connection that stalls when trying to pass data manifesting in a stop start or erratic download.
Telstra’s telephone exchange and the distance to it from your home can make a difference in your connection performance. Some exchanges might have some good lines and some bad lines so can be a lottery whether you get a good one. Each call you make may be different.
Some of the previously mentioned equipment and situations will cause a noisy line. Call Telstra faults and get them to check it (keeping in mind they only certify their lines to 19600 bps which is much slower than an average modem today). Please note that Telstra will only test line for voice quality and a very low data quality. Your modem is much faster than that. Modem initialisation strings could help the problem.
Last update: 2005-04-25 17:17
Author: Internet Tasmania
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