[lug] Line quality?

[D. Stimits]

Tony Dyson wrote:
> 
> In our new (@ 25 year old) house, we usually get 2400 > 2600 dial-up
> connection speed, irrespective of modem type or location in the house.
> If I complain to the Telco about this, does anyone know whether they are
> under any legal obligation to test or improve the lines? Maybe a PUC
> requirement?
> 
> Anticipating that the situation will not improve soon, does anyone have
> a surplus Courier V-Everything 56K modem they'd like to sell?

A while back I was getting really bad data rates after a splitter was
put in for a second line (which subsequently had to be removed). The
splitter cuts the total throughput in half of whatever it was before, so
both lines together can handle the same rate as one did before. I
contacted the phone company, and basically they stated that a 14.4kbps
was the max they had to support, that they did not need to warn about
splitting the line would cut rates in half. They stated that their
advertisement of second lines being useful as a computer line did not
require them to tell anyone about the lost data rates, since they were
still within the range they are required to support. I think the range
they have to support has changed in recent years, and 14.4k is the
current value.

But to be honest, I don't think a line would be that bad without some
very good explanation...I've never heard of splitting a split line over
and over till it drops that far. Actual line problems and bad equipment
along the route could do it, but by that time, I'd think even voice
quality would be very bad, with static easily heard. In the case of a
56k modem, if you don't pass the right arguments to the modem to engage
v90 or whatever protocol is used to tell it to start working with those
rates, it will always max out near 2400. Sometimes a lot less. I don't
know how to see if you have the right modem arguments, because it is
specific to the particular modem hardware. If it used to work at higher
rate then suddenly got cut back, you are fairly well guaranteed that
this isn't it. But if the modem is a new install, at least in the
software configuration side, you may have lost the arguments to tell the
modem to even try to use higher speeds.