Maxnet Mystery

[Chas]

I have a few basic questions here . .more to do with phone lines than Maxnet . .but connected.

Background: I have had Maxnet for a couple years now. Not perfect, not unbearable. New modem a couple months ago.

Lately more and more "drops" a site already open flips to "can not find server" or it takes several "try again" hits to open or reopen a site. Very annoying and I have lost stuff when it falls in between the "try again" and the drop.

Called MAXNET. (no comment on phone service) but they eventually wrote down my complaint and sent guys out this morning. Very prompt.

They opened a screen which seems to report on my connection to MAXNET. called "Web Configurator" ( is that a word?) I kept this open and put it on my favorites list

I am looking at "MAX Bandwidth Down/up and Bandwidth down/ up
Which I am assuming are important numbers here . .but there are lots of others.

The guys disconnected my house phone. and I got

MAX BW 4168/1184
BW 3072/ 512

Still got drops.

I reconnected my house phone ( green to green & black to Black . .probably wrong)

MAX BW 1680/960
BW 1792/512


Disconnected it again and got.
MAXBW 5808/1152
BW 3072/512

Still drops . .but seems faster and steadier.

Questions:
1. why would the house phone affect my internet connection?
2. Isnt a phone line either ON or OFF. In other words, you get a dial tone or you dont. You cant get a half a dial tone . .right?
3. In reconnecting my phone I may have connected the wrong wires. They clipped off everything out there. Phone line in from street has two wires both black connected to two poles. They are HOT I found out.
4. Computer line is connected green to left and yellow to right. It works.
5. Phone line has four wires green yellow, red and white still unconnected.
May try again with green & yellow. ( They left green and black open)


Open to any suggestions here. Would the problem be water in my phone line, rusty splice between here and the post, rats half chewed something or like that? Or since I am online now and my phone WAS working fine . .can I assume that the fault lies elsewhere . .modem or MAXNET or even Firefox.

Thanks in advance

[buksida]

I will begin by saying that my New Year's resolution was never to make another post on HHAD.

Welcome back to HHAD

You have answered your own question in a way. The condition of the physical phone cables will have a great impact on the amount of digital data that can be sent through it effectively. The more degraded the cable and junctions the more likelihood of drop-offs and slow connections. If you can hear a slight crackling with the dial tone it is probably a crusty cable. Telephone audio uses a tiny amount of line bandwidth compared to data which is why that will work fine.

Additionally the techies from Maxnet will test your speed on a Thai server which will not give you a true indication of your connectivity to the rest of the world.

[Khundon1975]

Chas

Don't know much about the Maxnet problem but our line started to crackle after a year and Internet connection was crap.

Last year the line (TOT I think) went completely dead, yet despite trying to get them to fix it by phoning them from UK, they did bugger all and kept taking money from our bank for the line rental.
As we often have friends staying there, it was a real pain as they were not able to phone home and we were not able to phone them.

In the end got FIL to call into their office and they came out the same day.
They laid a new, higher spec line, in the pipe that runs under the garden into the house from the pole in the street and now all works fine.

The concrete junction box just inside the garden wall and which holds the connection, was a water trap, so they made sure (FIL was hovering over them in full uniform and with a determined look on his face) that the new junction was completely sealed against moisture.

IMHO, the phone companies in Thailand are all crap.