I followed up with Aliant technical support this afternoon regarding my DSL woes this weekend. I wanted to know why their remote reset of my DSL device didn’t fix the problem, and I had to enlist someone to actually physically unplug the device to get it working again.
The technician told me that although a remote reset and a physical power-reset are similar, there are some problems that can only be solved by a power-reset. He suggested that this is all a result of the DSL device “getting out of sync” due to “an electrical charge on the phone lines changing.”
I’m not really sure what that means.
In any case, if you’re in a situation where you need to rely on connectivity to your home base from a remote location, it looks like Aliant’s DSL service isn’t a good choice, because you will, as I have two or three times, find yourself 1,000 miles away from home with a technician instructing you to “just unplug it.”
I asked the technician what Aliant could offer me as an alternative, more robust solution, and he could only offer “a T1, but that would obviously be more expensive.”
It amazes me that we have had consumer Internet in one form or another on Prince Edward Island for almost 10 years, and we still don’t have a rock solid technical solution for static, permanent, low-bandwidth situations.
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Comments
Expecting Aliant to provide
Expecting Aliant to provide “a rock solid technical solution for static, permanent,low-bandwidth situations” may be a tad unrealistic. You might want to take matters into your own hands, and acquire a device to power off/on your modem via the web. Here’s one:
http://www.bomara.com/WTI/ips-…
Personally, my Aliant DSL service (the residential, not the commercial one)often requires rebooting several times a day. I have my router and modem on one power switch, so I power off/on both at once, to avoid spending time figuring out which one is causing the problem.
How could you reboot a locked
How could you reboot a locked DSL modem externally with the above device if you need the DSL modem to connect to it? If the connection is locked up you can’t access the device either.
Either with a backup DSL
Either with a backup DSL connection, or a dial-up connection. There are versions of these products that work with dial-up. The cheapest solution would be to add a distinctive ring to an existing line, and use a call to that unpublished number to trigger the power reset.
I’ve used residential dsl
I’ve used residential dsl through Aliant for almost as long as it’s been availble, until recently moving, and opting for an Eastlink “bundle”.
I remember having to restart the dsl modem at most, 3 times. I’ve only needed to talk with tech support on two or three occasions, once to replace a dsl modem that was hit by a power surge, the other times had to do with mail server functionality.
all-in-all, I can’t say anything bad about the residential dsl service offered by aliant.
Only having cable modem access for around 2 weeks, I can’t give a fair comparison in regards to reliability. I can say it’s faster, I’ve yet to experience congestion.
We gave up talking to Aliant.
We gave up talking to Aliant. As soon as they found out we were running a router (two people require two computers), they told us we were out of luck, as they only support a single computer hardwired into the modem. I understand this may have changed since, but we find it easier just to reset the modem. If we do need support, we will just take the router out of the system. A few weeks ago, we were getting lots of action on the error light, but it has cleared up. We are still getting a least one reset a day, particularly after it is sitting idle for awhile.
Some of the problems undoubtedly have to do with how far we are from the central office (a DSL limitation). The availability stops about half a mile down the road. We have an Aliant bundle, and their service was available in our area a couple of years before digital cable modem service arrived, so we haven’t bothered to switch.
I had problems staying
I had problems staying connected with my Aliant DSL too. They would not help me because I
had a router. I had to unplug my pouter and modem several times a day. If I was using a P2P,
make that several times an hour! What a nusaince! But now I’ve been steadily connected with
a P2P running full time (knock on wood) for THREE FULL DAYS!
Here’s the fix:
Go into Control Panel
Click Network Connections
Right click Local Area Connection
Select Properties
Under the General tab click Configure
Click the Advanced tab
Select Connection Type
Hit the drop down arrow under Value:
Select 10BaseT HalfDuplex. If your original value was Auto-Negotiation (like mine was) this is was the root of your problems.
OK your way out.
Would’ve it killed them to tell me this?
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