What's up with the Pace modems?

[nhartnett]

My old AT&T 2Wire modem is overheating and failing. I contacted Sonic and decided to go ahead and opt in on their modem lease. I received the Pace, hooked it up and it failed to establish a broadband connection. After several hours of fooling around with the support guys I came to the conclusion that the Pace modem must be defective and arranged for a second Pace modem to be sent.

It took a bit of effort to get the 2Wire to reboot but eventually I was back on the Internet.

The new Pace showed up today and I was very careful to only disconnect the phone line at the old modem and connect it to the Pace before plugging the Pace in. Once again it failed to establish a connection. I left it trying to establish a connection for over 15 minutes with no joy. I tried unplugging and rebooting, still no joy. I reconnected the the phone line to the 2Wire and it reestablished it's connection within 1 minute.

So...
What's up with the Pace modems?

(I would ask tech support but they're in their half hour training session)

[nhartnett]

Finally got TS and they said you can't get there from here. Turns out there is something funky between the Pace and the local DSLAM. Carp! No real one stop fix. They can send me a DSL modem, apparently a CT-7027, but then I have to find something to setup the lan, nat, firewall, and wireless links. Carp!

I have no idea where to go from here.

Carp!

[nhartnett]

Update, called TS again and verified that the problem is between the firmware in the Pace and the DSLAM firmware. (seems a little odd but there you are)

One of the tecs was kind enough to suggest getting a Linksys Gateway although he could not suggest a specific model. So I purchased a Linksys N300 AKA Cisco X2000. While setup was a bit complex (I needed hand holding from TS again) it is up and working. It seems a bit slower according to the Sonic speed test but at least I still have internet.

I note that Sonic Sales Office phone numbers are slowly creeping up the Napa Valley so, who knows, maybe I'll be able to get Fusion in a year or two.

[dane]

Thanks for the update. I saw a note from support internally that said they can configure a Pace modem to not have Annex M enabled, which is what triggers the bug in AT&T's DSLAM, and they can get you a unit configured to work around this if you'd prefer that. FYI!

[nhartnett]

Yes, thanks for the reply Dane, Andrew contacted me and I should be receiving the modified Pace later today (Monday).

I'll be testing it and comparing the upload/download speeds vs the Cisco and (if I can get it to boot up) the old 2Wire.
I am hopeful that the Pace will work a bit better. A nice bit of support from the guys at TS and great follow up by the support staff/management. Thanks!

[nhartnett]

The modified Pace 4111N arrived and setup and connection worked. Surprisingly connection speed was more or less equal to the Cisco X2000 @ 2.4-2.5 Mbs down and 0.38-0.40 Mbs up. I was unable to get the 2Wire 2701HG-B to reboot (totally fried I'm afraid) but it's connection speed was somewhere above 3.0 down.

[nhartnett]

Well after extensive and intensive use there is no doubt, neither the Pace nor the Cisco are as fast or as dependable as the old 2Wire was. Both seemed to have greater difficulty with name resolution than the old 2Wire did. In addition the Pace frequently lost the broadband connection. Given that the Cisco is marginally faster than the Pace and given the connectivity problem I believe I will request a RMA on the Pace. I was hopeful that the Pace would have better performance than the Cisco and I was willing to do the whole lease thing to get that performance improvement.

Since the Cisco is paid for ($75) and the Pace would cost me $7/month (forever) I don't see any advantage in keeping the Pace. Given my location (Calistoga, Ca) there seems little likelihood that Fusion will reach here anytime soon nor is it likely that there will be any improvement in the DSLAM anytime soon. According to rumor AT&T will be withdrawing support for DSL in this area in 1 to 3 years, I have no idea what I will be able to find for Internet connectivity after that.