🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <847374720.26927.0@mbrown.datastream.com>,
Michael Brown  <mikeb@helion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Mike Myers wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > After Demon totally ignored my request for help regarding the 0845
> > number not being enabled for people in Hull I had to get onto the
> > teleco myself (as usual) and get them to enable it. To my horror my
> > Courier wont even connect to these modems. I get 1 decent connect in
> > about 10 which just fail at the V34/+ negotiate and sits there
> > scwealing at me. :( I wish I had not have bothered getting onto my
> > telephone company to get the 0845 number on :)
> > 
> > My Courier seems to work with other PoP's (the V34 ones anyway),
> > Scunthorpe, Killingholme and the original demon 0845 number all work
> > fine. I know a couple of people who have the same trouble with the new
> > Beta line. *sigh* Well I hope demon get Courier's next time is all I
> > can say... But no doubt they wont :)
> > 
> > Comments? Suggestions?
> > 
> > Mike
> 
> Someone else having trouble with the Ascends and Demon don't give a
> shit, what a surprise, NOT! 

In spite of your attitude, there are staff members of Demon who do
take an interest in customer problems and do make an effort to sort
them out. 

Lets separate the above complaint into its component parts.

1) Demon has no control over Kingston Communications and its
   interconnects with either Energis or Colt, so advising the user
   that he (who does have a contract with Kingston Communications)
   seems like genuinely useful advice.
 
> I also cannot get a working connection on the Ascends, fortunately I can
> still usually hit a USR on the 0845 number which is rock solid.
> 
> 1). I've tried various different 'suggested' modem init strings to no
> avail.  Why should I need these anyway when my modem (Motorola 3400)
> works fine when connecting to USRs?

because there is more than a small suspicion that the Motorola 3400's
are less than awesome in their compatibility. There are some
suggestions in the 'send ascend' autoresponder document based on user
reports of initialisation strings which have improved their
connections. I have been gathering other suggestions from this and
other newsgroups and at some point in the not too distant future will
look into seeing if any of these should be added to that document. it
is my impression, whcih could well be wrong, that there have been
several releases of hardware and/opr firmware all badged as Motorola
3400 modems, which may be why what works for some users has little or
no effect for others.

> 2). My BT line is perfectly OK because otherwise it would affect my
> connections to the USR modems aswell.

That is not established. All that is clear is that your line is not so
degraded that high speed connections can not be made under any
circumstances. Your BT line might have a slightly reduced high
frequency response, so that modems which saw this during negotiations
and opted not to use the 3429 symbol rate get good connections,
whereas other modems may decide that the response is adequate and
accept the 3429 symbol rate. This certainly seems to be the case with
some makes of Sportsters, the result being unreliable
connections. Users who see this problem and change their initilisation
string to disable this encoding suddenly get improved
reliability. It's not a telephone line fault, BT will say it is within
spec. It appears to be a difference in the way some makes of modems
negotiate. 
 
> 3). If the Ascends are so good why are so many people having trouble
> with them and why are they (apparently) much more fussy about their
> connection?

The most problematic modems appear to be USR Sportsters and Motorola
3400s, with Hayes Accura/Optima a distant third. There are a lot of
indications, from a lot of different ISPs and modem experts, that some
if not all of the problems may well be attributable to the chips and
firmware in these makes of modems. 28800 and upwards connections are
stretching the limits of average UK line quality. Small differences in
the way modems negotiate can become make or break issues when you are
at the margins of line quality, whether its signal level, bandwidth,
phase distortion or noise. 
 
While there is no disputing that some people do have problems with the
Ascends, the Ascends now represent about 3400 of the 4200 odd lines in
the UK and they get heavily and successfully used. They aren't that
fussy.

> 4). Demon obviously knew they were going to cause problems because
> otherwise they wouldn't have published a FAQ about connecting to Ascends
> before they were even in use.  Did they care? NO.  When was the last
> time the word 'test' entered the Demon dictionary?

Interesting re-write of history. The original Ascend document was
actually a posting I made to Demon announce about a month after the
Ascends went into service as a beta test on the (then) new Energis
lines. Most of the information in that document was taken from
feedback from customers. So 1) its from experience gained by testing,
contrary to your statement. 2) It was written after the fact, not
before. And 3), oddly enough, I care to the extent that I have a few
megs of email from various people reporting problems, getting
suggestions, following up if suggestions didn't work, etc. And my job
description is software development (Radius in this case), not
technical support. I have nonetheless put in a lot of hours chasing
down problems both with connections and various PPP stacks, the bulk
of which had nothing to do with the Ascends. I won't pretend that I
have put in anywhere near the ammount of time the support team or the
operations team have put in chasing problems both with Ascend,
customers and the Telcos who provide our connections.

> 5). It's not helpful to get smug replies from people saying they can 
> get perfect connections to Ascends unless they have some information on
> how to help those that can't.

In some ways it is. It establishes that there is not an intrinsic
incompatibility between another user with the same modem and software
connecting to Demon's lines and you. If it were 100% failure, it would
be a lot easier to sort out.
 
> I've had a Demon account in one form or another since 1991 and would
> like to stay loyal but my patience is growing thin...