Had to add this

[barbaranoela]

Ever since that opt. guy was here----and out on the wires----thats when our troubles began with the phone!!!! Sorry to say--but I thought he was a schnook---took him 2 days to set us up---and U know what U can do with OPT>

Now if Phone CO. comes in to check--its OUR COST!!! so needless to say--wires are being checked by Lou--inside the house---

Well I better stop here cus my anger is building to naughty words

Good night---
Barbara

[tex]

Barbara,

If you can suggest this to Lou, without riling him, tell him that the easiest way to check to see if the phone problem is the phone company's, or yours, is to go to the outside box, where your phone line enters the house, and open the "customer" side of the box, and unplug the line, (or lines), that go into the house, and plug in a phone there, to see if you have a dial tone.

If there's a dial tone there, and you can make a call, the problem is in your own wiring, somewhere in the house.

If there's no dial tone, or a lot of static, or anything else that keeps you from making a call, then the problem is in the phone company's lines, and they have to pay for it.

Luve,
Galahad

P S This is strictly legal, and it's the proper way to check to see where the problem lies.

[Sally]

Thanks for the tip, Wayne. Now can you tell me how to find out if the cable problem is mine or theirs? I have this horrible habit of thinking that when anything goes wrong, it's probably me. I am really just joking here, but the info about the phone is much appreciated.

Love, Sally

[tex]

Hi Sally,

Cable problems can be much more complicated, and to cover all the possibities would require a small book, especially if you're having latency problems, (slow response time). A cable modems doesn't handle data like a regular ethernet card, for example.

Unlike ethernet cards, cable modems are not allowed to transmit on demand. Hundreds of cable modems have to share a single upstream channel frequency and none of them can hear each other's transmissions. If more than one cable modem were to transmit at once, the UBR, (Universal Broadband Router), would not be able to understand either of them. Consequently, all cable modems must remain silent except during allocated time slots, (measured in microseconds), as designated by the UBR. IOW, your computer has to request a time slot during which it can send an information packet, and it can only send packets of information during the pre-assigned time slots that are allocated by the UBR.

Do you know how to "ping" your network connection? Here's an answer to a similar queston that appeared in the Jan., 2006 issue of PC World, and it offers a relatively simple way that can be used to analyze a cable problem by pinging the connection:

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0, ... 180,00.asp

You didn't mention the type of problem you're having, but if it's slow response, then viruses or spyware could possibly be a part of the problem, as discussed in the article.

If you'd like to read more about analyzing cable modem problems, there are some pretty good information sites available, but the dialogue tends to be kind of long-winded and detailed in places. This is a pretty good one:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h. ... tency.html

I hope this helps.

Love,
Wayne

[Sally]

Help? Good heavens!!!! Where do you find this stuff?

I have bookmarked those sites and will study them carefully. Then the next time my son comes over to fix something, I will blast him out of the water with my advanced knowledge. He designs microchips and knows very little about the intricacies of the Internet. It will be nice to have HIM ask ME what in the heck I am talking about. Heh heh.

Actually, I am not having any probs with my PC. I fixed a prob I was having with my anti-virus software this morning which kind of pleased me, but everything else is working well.

I was asking about my TV cable service!! NO, don't tell me. I don't want to know. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!



Sally