Uverse!

Hello All,

I am now on month three of my issues with Uverse. Uverse provides Internet, Phone and Cable TV for us.

As a quick history, we started having issues about 3 months ago. The service would cut out for 10 to 30 minutes and then come back up. The first issues we were having were due to an incorrect profile. A tech came out and said we were too far from the remote terminal and the copper lines could not support 32Mb so he changed the profile to 25Mb (25Mb Down and 5Mb Up). That worked for about a week and then we had the same result.

A second tech came out and said there were issues with our copper and he issued a ticket which was picked up and supposedly worked. That worked for about a week and then we had short outages and shoddy service again. A 3rd tech came out and he replaced the copper pair coming into our house. That worked for about a week but instead of short outages, now the Uverse TV freezes at about 5 or 10 minutes. If I leave the TV on the channel, the channel will unfreeze or I can change the TV to another channel and back to the original channel. The freeze will continue to happen very 5 to 10 minutes.

I have contacted ATT\Uverse 20 to 30 times over the past 90 days and possibly more. After my latest contact, the tech ran some tests on our Residential Gateway and he noted that the ethernet ports on our Gateway are defective. They are now sending us a new Residential Gateway. I did not mention it in the paragraphs above but our Gateway was replaced recently. I am guessing it was May.

The tech may be correct about the Residential Gateway. One of my TVs is connected via an ethernet cable via a Netgear Extender and a switch and the other connects via Wifi to an ATT transponder that connects to the Residential Gateway via an ethernet cable. I tuned both TVs to the same channel and they both froze at the same time.

Sorry for the long diatribe but I thought background would be helpful. I have logged into the Residential Gateway and I did run test that supposedly tested the "Ethernet" which I assume means the Ethernet ports. The tests ran successfully and no issues were found.

Is there any way to confirm the Tech's findings about the Ethernet ports on the Residential Gateway?

Thanks Ghot. The main TV freezes on all channels after 5 or 10 minutes. I am fairly sure the other TV does the same thing but I cannot remember if I tested a different channel. I will test it. With regard to changing ISPs, lets just say I am bound to my current ISP.

Is there an ethernet tester which I could test cables and ethernet ports on devices like routers and switches? Do you think this would work?

https://www.amazon.com/Paladin-Tools...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

Thanks Ghot. I have done some cable testing as you suggest. I removed some cables to see if that would help. I also removed some devices which I was not using. Still the same result. I will try the new Gateway when it arrives. I hope that is it.

Related but unrelated, NetFlix seems to work on the main TV. I did notice that the audio and picture are not in synch and it is very noticeable. I know NetFlix is a streaming service.

The techs would be correct. Bad copper and too far, not much that they can do to improve the situation.

bro67,

Thanks. So you don't think the new Residential Gateway will fix the problem? I don't either to be honest. We have already tried replacing it.

Thanks, Bill

Ghot said:

I have no clue about which would be a workable or which would be the best Ethernet tester.
I know that ISPs run line tests, from their gear on their end to the Gateway or whatever on your end.

If the line test fails, then there's a problem between their servers and your Gateway.
Between the Gateway and your TV(s), they would have to be on site to test that. In your home, in other words.

The easiest way to test the cables... is just to swap them out for other cables.
As for troubleshooting... try to eliminate as many pieces of equipment between the Gateway and your TV(s) as you can.
The fewer parts, the easier to troubleshoot.




From your description, you have something like this. You can only test what's in the RED box.
Uverse has to do the testing on everything else.





Ofc, finding a way to get Uverse motivated... is your job.
Maybe ask them if they intend to reimburse you for all the down time. That usually works well.

bpatters69 said:

As a quick history, we started having issues about 3 months ago. The service would cut out for 10 to 30 minutes and then come back up. The first issues we were having were due to an incorrect profile. A tech came out and said we were too far from the remote terminal and the copper lines could not support 32Mb so he changed the profile to 25Mb (25Mb Down and 5Mb Up). That worked for about a week and then we had the same result.

They arent on fiber. 32mb etc is uverse via vdsl from a remote terminal. fiber to that remote, but not to them fiber is symmetrical also, 50/50, 100/100. 500/500 etc

bpatters69 said:

bro67,

Thanks. So you don't think the new Residential Gateway will fix the problem? I don't either to be honest. We have already tried replacing it.

Thanks, Bill

Your uverse plugs into the phone jack, correct? (just doublechecking myself). If yes, locate your NID (network interface device, a box on the side of the house the phone line comes into). Open the side thats not locked (customer side, telco side has a locknut). If your NID isnt from 1960, there will be a test jack in there. Plug the modem into the test jack and access the modem page to see line signals.

Doing this isolates your home wiring.

Now, if the line signals look good, your issue is your inside wiring. If it looks terrible still, then its outside wiring.

Outside wiring: anything from the telephone company up to the NID. They repair this no charge to you.
Inside wiring: NID customer side and all thats in/on/around/the house. They can repair this if you wish, but they WILL CHARGE you for inside wiring.

Inside wiring > your responsibility
Outside wiring > telephone company responsibility

I used to do tech support for speakeasy (DSL) and this path of troubleshooting is the least amount of steps for the customer and also helps isolate the issue for the provider.

tomdsr,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, my Uverse comes in on copper and then terminates in my house via my phone jack. The RJ11 connects to the back of my Residential Gateway. I like your idea about testing at the NID. The second technician ran the test as they wanted to make sure there were no issues with the wiring in my house.

All of the techs have commented that the signal coming into the house is not great. My guess is the issue is outside of our house. There may be no fix to this other than to change providers. ATT is not investing in copper infrastructure anymore and see the network as a nuisance. I have some inside information on this subject.

Thanks, Bill