[vox-tech] [SPAM?] Weird ppp dialup problem -- switch to DSL?

[Jeff Newmiller]

I haven't been modeming in the last several years, but your description is remarkably similar to the symptoms exhibited by ethernet hubs and wireless access points when they fail. I recommend replacement, and cable modem or DSL will have a longer effective life than another plain old telephone modem.
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Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

Margo Schulter <mschulter at calweb.com> wrote:

>Hello, all.
>
>Please let me share a weird ppp dialup problem
>where failures to connect with a timeout started
>gradually happening and getting more common early
>this year, but really serious by early May,
>when I might sometimes try ten or more times
>without success with a 56K external modem,
>Slackware 10.0, and ppp files which had given
>no previous problems.
>
>I tried calling 611, and they checked the telephone
>line, confirming that it seemed fine (this was
>at a time I had just made some unsuccessful
>connection attempts).
>
>Then, starting May 23, I was unable to make a
>connection -- and looked into /var/log/messages.
>One thing I noted was that sometimes the message
>at the end of an unsuccessful ppp attempt was
>
>    chat[1078]: alarm
>    chat[1078]: Failed
>    pppd[1076]: Exit
>
>but sometimes
>
>    chat[1056]: alarm
>    chat[1056]: warning: alarm synchronization problem
>    chat[1056]: Failed
>    pppd[1054]: Exit
>
>After a week of things like turning the modem
>off and on, or rebooting the system, I tried
>a hard reset -- maybe what made the difference,
>since I then could get online maybe every other
>attempt from either DOS 6.22 ("Try everything") or
>my accustomed Linux.
>
>I'm still getting timeouts at least 50% of the
>time, which makes me wonder about what could
>be going on -- the "warning: alarm synchronization
>problem" happens on some ppp timeouts, but others
>are just the "alarm - Failed - Exit" type.
>
>I've been advised that the modem and the telephone
>line are usual suspects -- although I haven't
>generally noticed lots of line noise on voice
>calls.
>
>A larger question is whether I might want to
>delve deeper into debugging this, or maybe
>shift to DSL.
>
>But I'm curious what might be happening,
>and thank anyone who might have experience
>or educated guesses on this.
>
>Most appreciatively,
>
>Margo Schulter
>mschulter at calweb.com
>
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