DSL on the fritz!

UPDATE (11:10 AM): The technician thinks he fixed the problem by changing “pairs” at SBC’s neighborhood phone box. I think this means that my line was punched down to a defective location in the box. Anyway, the bandwidth problem should now be fixed.

UPDATE (10:03 AM): This morning, my full 1.5 Mb/s downstream bandwidth returned. The tech is getting bad readings even behind the house. He said the problem is so bad that he was surprised we are getting any DSL signal at all. He is checking further downstream to see what is going on. Fortunately, because the readings behind the house were bad, it’s very likely they won’t bill me for this.

Original article:

If I had blog software where you rate your current mental state, it would be “annoyed.” This afternoon, I noticed that my internet connection dramatically slowed down. SBC’s speed check site shows my download speeds are running between 5% and 10% of the normal 1.5 Mb/s, but upload speeds are 100% of the normal 384 Kb/s. Huh?

I checked several things but couldn’t fix it. I even swapped DSL modems with a neighbor’s. SBC tech support was no help. So tomorrow, an SBC line technician is coming to my house to check things out. This guy comes with the ominous provision that if they determine the problem is my fault, I get billed. What is the actual problem? How much does an SBC technician cost? Those unanswered questions are driving me up the wall.

I strongly feel that SBC is at fault. I don’t understand how I could do anything that could hose downloads but not affect upload speeds. If my equipment was faulty, it seems that both upload and download speeds would be affected.

Oh, well, I’ll find out more tomorrow!

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