What's new

Modem never goes above 28,800 anymore (1 Viewer)

Brian Perry

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 6, 1999
Messages
2,807
A few weeks ago I started noticing that when I connect to AOL, the baud rate is always 28,800. It used to say "connected at 53,000" or "connected at 49,333" with an occasional 28,800 or 31,200 (due to high traffic, I thought), but now it never goes near my modems theoretical maximum (56k) no matter what time I log on. I haven't touched any of the modem settings. Does this sound like something that AOL is controlling or is there a problem with my modem?
Thanks.
------------------
Home Theater Pictures
 

Mike Voigt

Supporting Actor
Joined
Sep 30, 1997
Messages
799
More likely, a previously unused phone line near yours has been activated, and it is interfering slightly with yours. Not enough to tell during conversations, but enough to limit the accuracy at higher transfer speeds.
If you can, look at going cable or DSL. Much faster, much nicer connection. And AOL just came out with their high-speed version - via cable modem...
Mike
 

Jeff R.

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 31, 1999
Messages
175
Definately sounds like a line quality problem. Like Mike said, the phone company has probably introduced some form of interference. I know that if there are a shortage of phone wires in an area, they will sometimes install devices that allow multiple phone numbers to share the same physical wire. I think they are called diplexers or something like that. Anyway, I know that those will significantly reduce the speed that modems can connect.
 

Kimmo Jaskari

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 27, 2000
Messages
1,528
Yeah, check with the phone company. It won't help if they have tinkered with your lines, because they don't have to guarantee any speed at all, I think... maybe 9600 bps or something like that?
Still, the fact that you get 28.8k connects only suggests that something has happened with your line out that prevents the higher digital speeds; 28.8 (or 33.6) are the highest available purely analog speeds, to get up to the 50:s your modem needs to be able to talk to a digital modem at your ISP.
You can try to force your modem to do, say, 42000 bps to see if digital connects work at all. Chances are they don't, in fact usually the speed setting feature is used to lower the speed to get a more reliable connection at the expense of some speed.
The AT command to set a specific speed varies from modem to modem; on many of them it begins with AT+MS= - check your modem manual if you want to try it.
------------------
/Kimmo
 

Dave Poehlman

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2000
Messages
3,813
Check out http:\Link Removed
It doesn't matter how you get there if you don't know where you're going.
 

Jay H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 22, 1999
Messages
5,654
Location
Pittsfield, MA
Real Name
Jay
I know from past history it seems that cold weather also seems to affect connection speed. Not to the affect of going from 53k to 28.8k but a few thousand bps seems to happen to me during the winter. I go from 50.3kbps to about 45.x nowadays now that it's cold and there's frost on the grass and going back to DST. Happens every year to me...
Jay
 

Romier S

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 2, 1999
Messages
3,525
I do technical support for an ISP so I may be to offer you some help.
I agree with what most have said here. You are more than likely looking at some type of line issue here. Has the telephone company been doing any work in the immediate area? If they were they mave have changed any number of things on the line which coudl have cuased the problem. Allot of times the introduction of any number of interferring noise or devices to the line or just regular telco maintenance may cause the issue. I will give you one piece of advice though, try not to mention speed when you talk to the telco cause they can honestly care less about the speed you are getting on the internet. Let them know you are having problems with your connection and would like to have someone out to your house or apartment to get a point to point data check done on the line. (Soome telco's do charge for this by the way).
One other thing to make sure you have done is to update the drivers for your modem. Especially if you are using a software based modem. This can at times correct issues like these. With the varying degree of speeds you mentioned in you first post I would lean more towards the line issue but its always good to cover all bases.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top