[Techtalk] DSL modem

[Dave North]

Glen:
> Power cycling it always seems to fix the problem
arlaCee:
> That sounds like my situtation.

Hmm. We have the Westell with the swooshy red paintbrushy W logo, and see
something similar. What happens is, slowly but surely the connection will
degrade, eventually dying if we wait long enough.
	I don't think this is the modem at all. I traced the situation a
couple of times, and what it boiled down to was an overloaded router on
the other end.
	Best we could bone out (since the people who run the routers
wouldn't 'fess up -- at that point they were from Redback) they have a
connection distribution system that's not all that great. You log on, make
a connection (you have a fixed ip) and "take up residence" on the router.
	As time goes by the router ages your connection, and starts
getting garbled as the constant stream of ppoe customers log on and off,
on and off. Plus, you were connected to a "light load" router when you
signed on, but subsequently it has no doubt gone through several "heavy"
cycles.
	A cisco person told me those routers just can't stand up to the
kind of loads the telecoms drop on them (but this might not be completely
fair, as cisco!=redback, at least at that time, and there may have been
the sound of axes grinding).
	The workaround is simple though: we put a timer on the modem that
turns it off for three minutes in the middle of every night.
	Since then, no problems. The theory might be right or wrong, but
the patient has been cured.


d