OK, I've just signed up with a new ISP, and I'm having some very strange
connections to their modems.

I have spoken to them both voice and email, and the only thing that seems
to make sense is that something is happening between my exchange and
theirs, that *doesn't* happen between any of my other calls.

Basically, the problem is revealed by my Courier's I6 and I11 stats, with
some totally far out levels being reported for the receive level and far
echo loss.

I have some logs to demonstrate.

The first log is to another ISP. They use the same modems as my ISP,
(although not as new, since they don't support V.34+, only V.34).

USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Chars sent                    0      Chars Received                9
Chars lost                    0
Octets sent                   0      Octets Received               9
Blocks sent                   0      Blocks Received               1
Blocks resent                 0

Retrains Requested            0      Retrains Granted              0
Line Reversals                0      Blers                         0
Link Timeouts                 0      Link Naks                     0

Data Compression       V42BIS 2048/32
Equalization           Long
Fallback               Enabled
Protocol               LAPM 128/15
Speed                  28800/28800
Last Call              00:00:07

Disconnect Reason is DTR dropped
USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Modulation               V.34
Carrier Freq    ( Hz )   1959/1959
Symbol Rate              3429/3429
Trellis Code             64S-4D/16S-4D
Nonlinear Encoding       ON/ON
Precoding                ON/ON
Shaping                  ON/ON
Preemphasis     (-dB )   4/6
Recv/Xmit Level (-dBm)   25.2/16.0
SNR             ( dB )   37.4
Near Echo Loss  ( dB )   7.7
Far Echo Loss   ( dB )   37.3
Roundtrip Delay (msec)   4

OK

I was only on long enough to get some levels, (and besides, what was I
supposed to type in at the login: prompt anyway?!).

The next two sets of stats are what I normally get with my ISP, although I
haven't lost carrier before as the first connection did.

USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Chars sent                   53      Chars Received                0
Chars lost                    0
Octets sent                  53      Octets Received               0
Blocks sent                   4      Blocks Received               0
Blocks resent                 0

Retrains Requested            0      Retrains Granted              0
Line Reversals                0      Blers                        17
Link Timeouts                 0      Link Naks                     0

Data Compression       V42BIS 2048/32
Equalization           Long
Fallback               Enabled
Protocol               LAPM 128/15
Speed                  31200/33600
Last Call              00:00:03

Disconnect Reason is Loss of Carrier
USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Modulation               V.34+
Carrier Freq    ( Hz )   1959/1959
Symbol Rate              3429/3429
Trellis Code             64S-4D/16S-4D
Nonlinear Encoding       ON/ON
Precoding                ON/ON
Shaping                  OFF/ON
Preemphasis     (-dB )   4/6
Recv/Xmit Level (-dBm)   64.2/16.0
SNR             ( dB )   34.9
Near Echo Loss  ( dB )   7.7
Far Echo Loss   ( dB )   6551.9
Roundtrip Delay (msec)   4

OK

USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Chars sent               189697      Chars Received          2043200
Chars lost                    0
Octets sent               88889      Octets Received         1903266
Blocks sent               16557      Blocks Received           19566
Blocks resent                32

Retrains Requested            0      Retrains Granted              0
Line Reversals                0      Blers                        27
Link Timeouts                 0      Link Naks                     5

Data Compression       V42BIS 2048/32
Equalization           Long
Fallback               Enabled
Protocol               LAPM 128/15
Speed                  31200/33600
Last Call              00:17:19

Disconnect Reason is DTR dropped
USRobotics Courier V.Everything Link Diagnostics...

Modulation               V.34+
Carrier Freq    ( Hz )   1959/1959
Symbol Rate              3429/3429
Trellis Code             64S-4D/16S-4D
Nonlinear Encoding       ON/ON
Precoding                ON/ON
Shaping                  ON/ON
Preemphasis     (-dB )   4/6
Recv/Xmit Level (-dBm)   62.7/18.0
SNR             ( dB )   37.4
Near Echo Loss  ( dB )   7.7
Far Echo Loss   ( dB )   0.6
Roundtrip Delay (msec)   4

OK

As you can see, the Receive level is *way* low, and the Far Echo Loss makes
absolutely no sense whatsoever. Yet the modems still manage better than
28.8k connections 99% of the time, and the transfer speeds are excellent,
when the modems aren't resending of course :-)

Obviously it is a clean, noise free connection, but what's with the low
receive level? I assume the Blers are simply caused by my modem physically
not hearing the remote modem.

Any theories?

Regards,
Frank

... Sure when...  OINK FLAP.  OINK FLAP.  Well, I'll be damned...
--- GoldED 2.50+