Testing the "in-house" connections

The modem should be the very first device connected to the phone line!

Any devices that might present a "load" (interference) to the phone line need to be removed. These items include:

Answering machines;
Cordless phones;
Fax machines;
Caller ID boxes;
Digital cable set-top boxes;
Other modems;
TDD boxes

and anything else that uses a phoneline. Any or all of these have a ring detector circuit that is capable of creating waveform distortion and trashing the attempts of the adaptive equalizer of the modem to obtain a flat frequency response. Note that these types of devices must be disconnected and not just powered off as the ring detector affects the circuit regardless of whether the device is powered on.

Secondly, if necessary, disconnect ALL telephone devices from your entire home or apartment. Another phone in the house connected to the same phone line is able to introduce interference if it is not working properly.

Now if you are still having problems, the diagnosing gets a little more complicated. The next step is to remove the phone jack from the wall that the modem connects to and make sure that the wires are snuggly connnected and the exposed copper of the wires are not touching each other. If checking the modem's phone jack does not solve the problem, then you need to check every phone jack in your house or apartment the same way.

If all of the phone jacks look good, the only thing left to test is the wires in the walls themselves. The way to do this is, unfortunately, even more complex. If you are not ready to give up and call the phone company, then go to this article which tells you how to do it.

If the wires in your house test clean

Now that you tested the wires, if there is still a problem, it is most likely a phone company related issue. Call them up and give them grief. Beware! If they say they will need to come out to your house to test the lines, and they find something wrong with the wiring (that you missed), they will most likely charge you for the service call.

Good Luck with the troubleshooting, and we wish you many high speed connections,

The Hyperconnections Team