HELP - 3G light is flashing, microcell was previously working fine

Your numbers seem to bounce around a bit.  I don't see near the variability when I run that test as you seem to do.

The test from your desktop shows 19.6 msec of upload jitter.  That's boardline unacceptable as is the packet discards of 3.0%.  Other tests show this to be OK.    Your pings are excessive at times as you've mentioned.  This could cause your Mcell connection to drop because communications have timed out.

Your nominal upload speed of 1Mbps is testing out to be between 480 kbps and 752 kbps.  At the low end, this is marginal compared to what we consider to be the minimum upload speed for the Mcell to operate without problems.  If you have anything else using bandwidth on your network (ie. other computers, Netflix, online gaming consoles, etc.) at the same time, this could possibly cause the Mcell to disconnect.

With very little information to go on, I could postulate that your Mcell disconnects may be due to insufficient bandwidth, ISP issues or line quality problems.  If I had to guess, I'd say the fact that you are on a low-bandwidth DSL connection with varying line quality issues may be causing the Mcell to disconnect, causing a flashing 3G light and requiring you to power cycle the Mcell to re-establish a connection.

Thanks Avedis53. You're much better at reading/interpreting those results than I am. I would agree with your assessment about stability of connection and line quality.

@guitargain- I've sent the info you sent me off to the Admins so they can look to see if anything is amiss between your ISP and AT&T.

@guitargain Ave has hit pretty close to what I surmised......if your statistical efforts on NSAbook.... ...uhhh I mean Facebook turn out I'm will to bet that a high, high percentage of the MCell's owners 1. Live in marginal to horrible cell reception area's...and that will correlate to most likely fringe urban, down to very rural low population density area's (Census data would do good for the density overlay), in otherwords the cell and cable provider's step-child customer'. Always getting the hand me downs.......and in this case the resources (bandwith-newer cleaner Dslam's and Line amps) only trickle down when they go first class with the "downtown crowd".

Better hang on to that service tech...he's more like the one's I used to work with year's ago.....just wants his stuff to be top notch and by helping you.......he get's newer toys to play with LOL.

Otto...I'm down to the last couple of hundred feet of 8 conductor wire they used to use in the CO's and equipment rooms in hosptital's, office buidlings, etc .....Had a tech leaving after a job in one...(I was coming in after him to hook up to his installs) and he started to walk out and I asked him if he forgot a monster box of the stuff......nope he said, don't need it anymore....Me....I could sure use some for a project....Him.......ok, and looked around and said...what wire I don't see any extra wire LOL................Guess I took home over 1500 ft of the stuff!!! That was 35-40 yrs ago! It's good stuff.....

Well the old/new replacement arrived....the 153 model.....Did have a problem with the external antenna...the itty, bitty, tiny collar popped out and was loose.....but I wiggled it around and held my mouth right and got a good connection (fixed it today temp...till new one gets here)........

Will probably do some hooking up tomorrow.......Now I am rolling an idea around to eliminate ALMOST ANY possibilities here (for science of course).......I have a Netgear GSM7324-L3 switch (used, but working great and I upgraded firmware to it's latest ver). This switch will partition the 24 ports into several different isolated subnets, do aggrated trunks, vlan's, etc AND it has a DHCP server that can turned on if needed.........

Now with my static IP I can feed the Internet line to this unit, set up two (more if needed) separate "WAN Networks"...............I know, calm down, I'm really Not crazy,  brainstorminig a little here........that would give me  a

                       |-------->sub-WAN (dhcp)------->Pfsense Firewall/Router--->+ port fwds, etc

ISP WAN----->|-------->sub-WAN (dhcp)------->E1200 Cisco Firewall Router---> +port fwds, etc

                       |-------->sub-WAN-LAN mirror (dhcp)----->MicroCell------------>nothing to set-PNP

Trunking the existing single WAN out into 2 WAN's....................or

3 WANs (dhcp)-------->MCell

(no ports to open dhcp with what's basically a hot line), no passthru needed, no port forwards needed (at least here).

Both with or without (since the 2 different macs would be isolated from the mac of the WAN input port (all the ports have individual MAC's and both get DHCP and CAN be modified, that would allow 2 setups........without having to tear one down to switch MCell from one to the other.....just unplug---plug, reset, wait.......unplug----plug, wait, etc.

I think................

Now here is part of the Beauty of this............There are NO protocol ports to configure for IPSec passthru or any other no end-user error......The two/three "New" (virtual) WANs would mirror whatever was coming in on the Primary Switch Port .........to all the 22 other ports if needed...........

I know, I know, but.....this was similar to what I had in mind to do for my little home computer/network lab anyway, eventually.........

Too much????? 

But the problems with the MCell have slowed things down quite a bit....that and finding a L3 managed switch that was affordable........I've had the switch for a month now....it's pretty much the last infrastucture hardware,  and its just setting here baby sitting my test computer (read Play computer, with 3 xtra NICs and VM's on it......uhhhhhh won't mention the Win Home Server,,,shhhhh). I've been putting this all together for 3 or 4 or more years now...a piece here...a piece there.......good parts pulled from older rigs, server's, etc.....no way I could just go out and grab it up at one time............especially new......or pre-built..

This is basically the same type setup (the old one --- DHCP was from ISP, dynamic IP, multple outputs from a 5 port 10/100 older DLink dumb switch---one port to the wireless router and Home Network------one dedicated one for MCell...........worked flawlessly for over a year before quitting, hooked up straight thru dumb switch...... all the routering and forwarding got into the picture later on.

Went from working KISS setup, to total disaster.......

Never had a dropped call from my end..When it lost lock or got updates, or lost power in an extended power outage, it was up 90% of the time with 10-20 minutes good as gold.

Hmmmmmm the ISP is offering a Free Roku if we upgrade to the Next level----------12 gbit down........You don't know how tempting that is right now.....even a free 15 day trial would be nice.....wonder how hard I could push data out that?

Sorry--------------dreaming a little there......

OK got a temp fix on the GPS antenna------Check

Hunting for Multmeter and other 12v bricks ......if I can find one with right end.---Check

Testing Current Brick........for power......might have to dig out...nope-----better not----- other half would kill me with more stuff in room(s) ...my old Sencore Dual Trace O-scope (if it still works, been stored for years).....Really good for looking at wave forms and maybe line ripple....not so good at digital (except it has a lcd readout for voltage) .......

Hookup simple ( ok, ok.....I can you all laughing all the way from here  FRANKEN NETWORK ) setup or two------Working on it

Take a day or two to cable up, setup Switch, etc........

Reviewing setups and Franken Router setup--------Check

Seriously.....there is some method in this Madness...Really!

After I found the broken GPS antenna and started putting this idea into the forefront of the brain, as Networking admit's theres a problem somewhere in the system and probably isn't at this end, based on what they saw, they have basically given up on why...... I got to thinking........

With all the having customer's plug, unplug, reorient, replace Mcells, move, bend, twist, and generally having a customer handle what seems to be at many times a very touchy setup at best, 10 times more than it would ever be subjuecteed to in Normal use. How Many Other Problems are they (AT&T's not overly trained first levels) Interjecting into an already frustrating experience and complex problem....very Far, Far from the KISS method. Think.....a KEYSTONE COP Adventure LOL........especially for those with no real conception of the issue's they Started with and Have NO idea how many more that they could be creating.

Otto I KNOW you've brought this up to them before...............Even as careful as I am knowing how fragile those little Plastic connector,s are, thin easily pinched and broken cables............still managed to break mine (thank goodness I had an idea how to .....get by).

Spock come's to mind.................It is illogical Capt'n

Just an update some what here and comment on your plan....sounds like your going to insure that if there IS a problem, that you don't want to be the cause......Sounds really familiar.......somehow.

Good luck, it sounds like good plan to me. You might want to invite your tech over for Sports night sometime....Cold beer, Nice juicy ribeye on the barbie....ya know a little butter.

Chow.

I did find two more folks that has the same problem and they are just across the state line in Georgia.  They say that there MCs started acting up about the same time everyones elses did which is about a month ago.  They are not very far from me even though it's in Georgia and it's served by a different telephone company than me.

Send me as much information as you can. Service Areas don't follow state lines, they can be regional, so both "states" could be serviced thru the same regional network.

Texted my friend at the phone company and asked if it would be possible for me to call and get them to bump me up to a 15 mbps speed and try it for a couple days to see what happens and he texted back and said do a speed test now.  He bumped it up so I can see.  Here is the first test for voip

Cool. BTW, Admin is furious with the response you got from CustomerCare. Stuff has hit the fan. Hopefully something will come out of it.

Besides the obvious increase in down/up speeds, the other test results are within the numbers you've posted from previous tests with the exception of the high pings you've seen on a few of the tests.

With this higher bandwidth, if you have any more Mcell disconnects, try to determine if there was any other usage on your network at the same time.  How is the voice quality when using your Mcell?  Any echoing, voice dropouts or robot-sounding voices?

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@OkieSaytar wrote:

@guitargain Ave has hit pretty close to what I surmised......

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Please keep your responses short and OT. You "qualifications and knowledge" are serving no purpose here other than to confuse and muddy the picture.

Whatever.