DSL/Phone/Filtering Question
 

We have DSL and phone service from Embarq here near Raleigh, NC. As far as I know there are zero issues with the phone service at all. I bitch about the DSL service constantly. I keep a "ping -t" window open to a reliable location and many times a day 2-8 pings in a row will time out, sometimes causing me to lose all my connectivity to the office, making me unhappy, blah blah. I never figured out why until today(nor has embarq support).

When we receive an incoming call to the house phone line, the DSL service will be interrupted *but only while the phone is ringing*. Occasionally a ping will get through in between rings, and once the phone is picked up, service returns to normal. I have not yet noticed any issues while someone is talking on the phone, only while waiting for an incoming call to be picked up.

My first thought was a phone not having DSL Filters set up. I did find one phone line that didn't have a filter on it, but unplugging that phone line(and later properly installing a filter) didn't change anything. I have scoured the rest of the house and have not found any phone jacks unexpectedly in use. Also, after googling DSL Filters, it seems their purpose is to prevent the DSL line from messing up phone conversations, not vice versa, so I'm not sure that matters anyway?


Other info:

I have a Linksys wireless-G router(WRT54G) that I use in front of the DSL modem. I have two wireless computers and one wired going through that router to use the DSL Service. The problem is occurring on all computers, including the wired one.

For the home line we have a phone system similar to: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1179165599340. by similar I mean we have a cordless system with one base and a couple other phones that don't all have their own connections to phone jacks.

Is this problem ringing any bells with anyone? Any suggestions on potential troubleshooting?

Hell, I get so many briefly dropped connections here with BellSouth I just kind of figured it was normal. Still miles ahead of the problems we had with the same thing down in Hooterville. But I can't say I've ever been able to connect it to the phone ringing at all, in fact I know there's no relationship to that for us so yours is kind of odd to me.

Have you got anything else hooked to the phone line somewhere that might be part of the issue for some weird reason? Security system? satellite dish? rarely used fax machine on the same line? No reason I can think of that those would be affecting it only in ringing situations but seemed worth mentioning just in case.

What's your phone's wireless range? 2.4GHz...5.8GHz, etc?

This is likely either interference between your phones and your router or a home wiring issue. EDIT: your phone's wireless freq range and your wireless router...if this happens when you plug directly to your router...it's more likely a home wiring issue.

Used to install DSL for PacBell/SBC/at&t, but, that was years ago. I'm thinking that there might be a short in one of the wires or there is some wire that got crossed. There's something like 48-52v going through the line when the phone rings, which may be enough to knock out the DSL. It's just hard to tell without physically seeing it.

Well, that's my guess at least. Good luck. Oh, have you tried checking out broadbandreports.com? Lot's of good info there.

Well.. hrmm all kinds of possible reasons you might have a problem here.. I'll try to hit them all as I think of them...

Obviously the filters is the first place to look. You need a filter on every single device except your modem (do not have a filter on your modem). You need a filter on anything else connected, including phones, fax machines, Satellite dish receivers that may phone out via phone line, security systems, etc).

I assume you have a main splitter somewhere that splits off the connection with one line directly to your modem and the other to your internal phone wiring? If you don't that usually is how they should be done to avoid noise issues. If yours is done this way, you could possibly have a bad splitter there.

You could have faulty wiring coming in from the telco to cause this.. even though in that case I would assume the problem would continue while the phone is in use.

You could have an issue with signal interference with your phones if you have a modular or cordless phone system that runs on a frequency that interferes with the router. In that case though I would expect the problems with your wireless computers but not your wired ones. Unless it is causing the router directly issues.. but that seems less likely..

You could have a poor DSL connection period, where your Signal is so weak normally, the extra noise on the line just kills you.. for that you would likely need to connect in to the modem and look at your current values, or have help from the phone company.

You could have a faulty device on your phone lines, such as a phone or fax that is acting up somehow. To test this, you could unplug everything and then try to call your home line while connected (Nothing will be connected so nothing will ring), but see if your connection drops while it is attempting to ring. Try connecting just one phone and see if the problem occurs.. try a different phone (and unplug the first phone) and see if it occurs.

Not sure what else to suggest right now, I'm not really a telco guy, I deal more with the IP side, but that is what I would suggest for now.

Ah...just noticed you mentioned the wired one is having a similar issue.

Is this an apartment...older house, newer house?

gee, in the time it takes me to write all of that, everyone else responded with almost each of those points individually :(

Your's was much more thorough informative though. :)

Is this a physical device on one of the jacks, or something in the internal wiring of the line that we might not be able to see?



No security system on the house, the direct TV tuners downstairs are not hooked into a phone line, my HD-DVR up here is, but was connected properly through a filter. Unplugging that one didn't help either way.

Its a house, 50+ years old, maybe 70+, my parents bought it in 1973(not that that is relevant heh).

No fax. The cordless phone system is 2.4 GHZ, but (see below) I don't believe the wireless router/interference could be the culprit.


I just used the wired PC to bypass the router and plug straight into the DSL Modem, and the problem is the same, so that would seem to eliminate any possible router issues/interference.

Thanks for all the info/suggestions so far.

The best way to troubleshoot would be to connect your modem directly to your customer test access point/network interface. This is usually in a box on the outside of your house where the phone lines are connected. It gives you the ability to disconnect all house wire from the circuit. It's a pain in the butt, but if you have a laptop and an extension cord it shouldn't be too hard. Just unplug the telco facing jumper and connect your modem directly to it.

If you still get the same problem then I would suspect either 1. Your DSL Modem or 2. The splitter/combiner at the telco. Do you have any friendly neighbors that use the same service? You could borrow a modem to test with to eliminate the modem as a suspect.

Typically the phone line voltage is 48-52 VDC, however ringing voltage is much higher usually over 90 VDC. It is in a different frequency band than DSL, so the modem should ignore it unless it has issues.

Yeah, since you can plug directly into the modem and still get the problem, my guess would be that you have a pair (or more) of wires crossed somewhere. Can you try relocating your base station to another outlet (or even try a few) and see if that changes anything?

If you are inclined to solve it yourself...you could see if you can get into your phone box (or wherever your line from the phone company comes in to feed your home's phonelines) to see if there is a split, or any kind of bridging, looping, daisy-chaining, etc. of phone wires than necessary. You only need 2 wires (1 pair) for the phone, and 2 (1 pair) for standard DSL. It's possible you could have an outlet (likely your phone outlet) bridged with the DSL modem's line in some way. The DSL filters they give you should be installed...but they are really only intended to stop DSL interfering with your phone...not so much visa versa (caveat of "possibly" if your phone and DSL outlets are daisy-chained or some such atypical wiring job).

Short of that...you are most likely going to need to call Embarq to get a tech out there to validate your wiring setup at your phone box (and possibly your home as well). Unfortunately, this may be reasonably painful to go through the basics with the rep on the phone...but an experienced tech should be able to isolate and fix this pretty easily.