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What is happening with 3G?
Frogis's profile

Tutor

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3 Messages

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014 5:06 AM

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

Hello,

 

   I figured it was worth posting here so I have yet to have success with anything else. 

 

Background

 

I live in an area almost exactly inbetween three AT&T cell phone towers, so subsequently my phone is constantly switching singnals from one tower to the other giving me very inconsistent service.  After diagnosing the problem with AT&T about six months ago they sent me a micro cell free of charge, and it worked absolutely fantastic until....

 

The Problem

 

About a week ago my microcell's 3g light started flashing, this had happened once or twice before so I performed a simple reset but it did not fix the problem like before.

 

  •   I tried resetting my modem, router, and microcell
  •   hard resetting my microcell for 30 seconds
  •   de-activing and re-activating my microcell twice
  •   checking my power cord to make sure it was the right voltage
  •   getting a replacement microcell sent to my house
  •   setting up my microcell in the alternate arrangement (modem-->microcell-->router)
  •   updating the firmware on my router

and none of these fixed the problems.

 

My current internet is about 30mbps DL and 10mbps upload so that isn't the problem

The ports on my router are all opened, and nothing has changed to effect that

 

After going extensively through the forums I am kind of at a loss of what to try next.  Any suggestions from people on the forums?

 

I am currently located in the East Bay of California (Alameda, CA)

 

Thanks very much.

 

-Frogis

 

 

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago


@Avedis53 wrote:

If the noise is in your existing home wiring, then rewiring is a drastic but perhaps necessary step to eliminate that as a possible cause.  I hate to be pessimistic but I suspect your problem may be past your home wiring and exists somewhere on your ISP's side of things.  I've had problems with packet loss in the past and had the ISP send a tech out.  They eventually found some connectors on the pole outside my house that had water in them and a bad repeater/amplifier further on down my node.

 

If I were you, I'd have a tech come out and test your wiring to see if there is a noise problem and then trace where the source is.  That can save you time and money if the problem isn't in your home wiring.


I have a 1000 ft. Box of CAT6 cable already and the phone guy is going to give me the POTS and probably the jacks too so I will only have some time in it.  You could be right and probably are but when I call I don't want them to be able to say it's on my end.

ACE - Expert

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22.5K Messages

9 years ago

I like re-wiring because when I do it, I know it's done correctly and how it was done. I'd love to help you but I think you live outside of my house-call range. Let us know how it goes.

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago

@OttoPylot  Okay before I get all happy and think it's solved (again) I will ask the gurus (yall) first.

 

Here is the latest change.  Some time ago I bought a fax machine.  I only have one phone jack where the dsl and a phone is located in my living room.  The jacka$s from the phone company (not my friend that is helping me now) put a dsl filter on the jack, but then since he didn't have a splitter for the fax and phone line to plug into the phone side of the filter he just plugged another dsl filter into the phone side of the first filter.  I knew it was there all along but it just hit me to take it out and just plug the one phone line into the phone side and the dsl to the modem and use the filter as it was intended.  I have retested the voip tests and 4 times it has passed the consistency of service in the 90s but now the jitter seems to be worse.  I will post the latest one and keep testing to see.  Is that improvement or trading one problem for another?

 

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ACE - Expert

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22.5K Messages

9 years ago

Hmmm, I think if when you re-wire you can run a single, dedicated line to your DSL modem you'll get better results. We only have one POTS line coming into the house. It is connected to, what AT&T called at the time, the modular phone box. Where the actual phone lines come in, I connected another line to that and ran that to my computer room, into a dedicated RJ-11 jack and out to my DSL modem. At the Test jack in the modular phone box, I removed the line that connects the rest of the pre-wired house, and installed the DSL fliter there so it is between the house lines and the modular box. So, all of the phone lines that were installed when the house was built, are filtered with a single filter at the phone box. The DSL line is connected directly to the in-coming phone line and is not filtered at all. We can receive landline calls and be on the MicroCell at the same time with no noticeable degradation in call quality or connectivity.

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago

It doesn't appear that it really helped the consistency of service in subsequent tests revealed it's just as sorry as it was before.

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago


@OttoPylot wrote:

Hmmm, I think if when you re-wire you can run a single, dedicated line to your DSL modem you'll get better results. We only have one POTS line coming into the house. It is connected to, what AT&T called at the time, the modular phone box. Where the actual phone lines come in, I connected another line to that and ran that to my computer room, into a dedicated RJ-11 jack and out to my DSL modem. At the Test jack in the modular phone box, I removed the line that connects the rest of the pre-wired house, and installed the DSL fliter there so it is between the house lines and the modular box. So, all of the phone lines that were installed when the house was built, are filtered with a single filter at the phone box. The DSL line is connected directly to the in-coming phone line and is not filtered at all. We can receive landline calls and be on the MicroCell at the same time with no noticeable degradation in call quality or connectivity.


Otto that's pretty much what the POTS Splitter will do.  It will split the dsl off at the demarc outside and run the dsl into the house and the phone line will be split off at the demarc as well into the house so there is no need for filters inside the house after that.  You probably know that but someone else may not.

ACE - Expert

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22.5K Messages

9 years ago

Sorry. I think if you follow your house wiring along the lines of what I did for mine, at least you'll know that it's not your house and can look out to what's between the MPOE and your ISP.

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago

You are thinking the same as me.  I hate things like this becuase it's going to be like a dog with a bone now until I figure out exactly what the problem is and whose problem it is. 

ACE - Expert

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22.5K Messages

9 years ago

I know that when I did my wiring (which was back in the days of dialup) the phone company didn't allow anyone to tap into the in-coming phone lines and actually had a cap over the connector so you couldn't get to the wires. The cap required a special tool to un-screw and remove it which I was able to find and use. That was over 20 years ago so it sounds like phone installations and rules have changed since then. Just trying to help you figure this out and eliminate possibilities.

Scholar

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187 Messages

9 years ago

According to my phone company friend, it hasn't changed at all.  FCC says the customer can't access the phone company side.   The pots splitter attaches to the post that the demarc sits on and splits it all from the customer side.  I will probably go out there after he leaves and run the dsl off the phone company side because another friend tells me that the voltages will remain more constant off the phone company side of the demarc.

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