Fusion Questions

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
7 posts Page 1 of 1
by csx2282 » Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:27 pm
I am a current sonic.net DSL customer and am considering switching to Fusion DSL/voice. I sent a list of questions regarding Fusion to sonic.net sales. I won't repeat them here, other than to say they included dealing with AT&T, my current land line service, and other issues regarding switching to Fusion- required equipment, phone issues, etc. All I received in return was a robo e-mail from support referring me to sonic's sales and members web sites and suggesting I call support.

I've slogged around on the web sites and came up with a few answers, but not most of them. Is there a Fusion FAQ page? I'm sure many of my questions come up quite frequently from potential Fusion customers. If not, wouldn't having one make good sense?

Thanks,

Roland
by paulbarwick » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:32 pm
It would make sense, but in the meantime go ahead and post your questions here. Between us customers who have already gone through the process and those Sonic.net staff who monitor these boards, you should get your answers quickly.
by Guest » Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:59 pm
I was an AT+T customer (phone) and had a non-sonic DSL line. I signed up for Fusion last month.

Regarding phone, the transition was seamless, the service is cheaper, I hear no difference in audio quality, and the only cost of the phone line is the taxes ($10/mo here, same as a normal phone line). The only catch is that you cannot switch a number to unlisted once you port it to Fusion, so if you want an unlisted no, do it before the port ... or just change the name listed for the line to something random :)
by csx2282 » Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:18 pm
Since I have had an unlisted number from day one for my current land line phone, I think I'm OK.

An update on my submitted Fusion Questions- their support did finally get back to me with answers. Whether this was because I just hadn't waited long enough or was a result of my post here, I can't say. Regardless, I'm leaning towards Fusion, but would like to get a better feel for the preferred modem hardware. The 2Wire I got from SBC in 2004 still works, but I do have occasional DSL problems- data transfer drop outs and just plain "dead" periods with not DSL access, which may be due to this modem. Sonic offers the ZTE W300 Modem + Router to its customer for $99, but I would like to research it a bit before ordering.
by paulbarwick » Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:22 am
Just be sure that any modem you use for Fusion is ADSL2+ capable. I would seriously investigate whether that seven year old SBC provided 2Wire model is.
by parkerday » Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:11 am
csx2282 wrote:Sonic offers the ZTE W300 Modem + Router to its customer for $99, but I would like to research it a bit before ordering.
I like the W300 and $99 isn't a bad price for it either. Buying the modem from Sonic has the advantage that Sonic will cover it while it's under warranty if it dies on you.
by therobthomas » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:06 pm
I just switched to Fusion from AT&T and kept my old 2Wire 2701Hg-b modem.

Speeds are pretty good, 8900's down and 1400's up.

But the modem did start dropping the connection and I was getting a lot of temporary "You are not connected to the internet" messages despite a good wifi connection

Found this advice per PilotRaider1 on DSLReports.com...
Go to »gateway.2wire.net

Log In with your system password.

At the top click “Broadband Link”

Proceed to the “Advanced Settings” Tab

Check out the “DSL Line Selection” make sure it’s not on “Automatic”

If it’s on “Automatic” switch it to “Line 2 (Outer Pair)” and observe the DSL Modems lights. If they don’t become green again after a short amount of time switch it to “Line 1 (Inner Pair)”; you must click “Save” for each time you switch the line for it to take effect. If it remains green on “Line 1 (Inner Pair)” it was probably the connection problem. “Automatic” mode I believe has a tendency to switch from Line 1 to Line 2 resulting in a drop of your connection.

Remember to save your configuration.

Next after having done the above, proceed to the “Firewall” section and go into the “Advanced Settings” Tab as well.

I found that having “NetBIOS” and “Remote Management” off yields better results.

Save the settings, a window will ask you to confirm your settings.

I found that there is no need to have static IP addresses in the common household. So DHCP works fine with this configuration.

Now for the Wireless Settings:

Make sure your SSID Broadcast is enabled.

My Wireless Channel is set to Channel "1 (2412MHz)" you may need to play around with the wireless channel if you experience wifi drops but your DSL remains connected to the ISP.
Set Wireless Network Security to either "WPA-PSK" or "WPA2-PSK" and assign an encryption key.

Keep in mind no MAC filtering is required.

On the “Additional Settings” make sure your Wireless Mode is set to “802.11b/g”
DTIM Period (Seconds): Remains at “1”.
Maximum Connection Rate: “54Mbps”
Power Setting: Unless your house or area is huge you can set this to a low number like 4. The higher the number the farther your DSL Router broadcasts its signal.

Now for the advanced portion of this (recommended), if you want to see your 2Wire’s statistics and refresh your connection, continue on reading:

Go to: »gateway.2wire.net/mdc

Sign in with your system password.

Observe the left panel with the bold “Broadband Link” section.
Click on “Summary” the “Summary” page opens displaying information about your DSL connection. Note the “Reset” buttons next to “Broadband Link” and “ISP Connection”. Clicking on “ISP Connection” Reset will give you a DHCP Release on your modem but it shouldn’t turn off any lights on your modem. The connection will re-adjust itself automatically. It’s a good idea to “recycle/reset” the modem once in a while.

The “Broadband Link” resets the entire modems connection along with the “ISP Connection” and makes all your devices connected to the network lose connectivity to the Internet. Your connection will be re-established automatically after less than 3 - 5 minutes.

In order to assure a healthy connection, I reset both of these and waited for them to re-establish and then unplugged my router/modem for 5 minutes. Plugged it back in and it hasn’t lost its connection. When the 2WIRE Modem loses its connection in the statistics page it’ll show up as a “DSL Link Retrain”. You want to get 0’s on that section of the statistics since it means that your connection is 100% Healthy.

To check the Statistics under “Broadband Link” click “Detailed Statistics”. A page riddled with numbers appears. If you experience frequent connection drops, they will be logged under the “Link Retrains” section, observe how many you’ve had since your last reset. Now that your newly established connection was set, we can go ahead and “Reset” the Statistics. Reset the statistics and observe how you will now get a bunch of 0’s. The more 0’s you have the better.
So far so good!
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