On 9/17/13 8:21 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
I learned something last night.

Our Internet service provider is Comcast. When we originally had it
set up Comcast provided the wireless router. About a year ago we were
experiencing increasing drop outs of connectivity to the Internet
although our computers and wireless devices connected to the router fine.

I finally called Comcast and they did some remote tests. They
informed me that our router had come to it's "End of Life". Not being
very IP savvy, I thought that was a hilarious way of saying "Your router
is dead". But it really means it is obsolete in terms of being able
to sync to newer system standards.

So, I went down to Best Buy and bought a new router. Hooked
everything up and it has run fine for the past year .... until a few
days ago.
We started experiencing similar problems that we had encountered with
the original one with very spotty connection to the Internet that kept
dropping out.

Initially I thought maybe the new router was now obsolete also however I
checked the manual that came with it and determined that it was designed
for both D-2.0 and the newest D-3.0 standards.

Turns out Comcast has been upgrading to D-3.0 in our area recently and
the router needed a "reset" to handle it. A simple power down, wait,
and power up does not accomplish the reset. There's a small hole in
the back with a momentary switch that you need to depress for 5 seconds
or more while the router is on in order to initialize a reset. Comcast
can do this remotely, but you pay a service charge for it.

Anyway, I pushed the little switch in with a pen, held it for over 5
seconds, and let it reboot. So far, so good. Service has been stable
with none of the drop outs we've been experiencing for about 4 days.
On a hunch, I also went to a couple of speed test websites and
discovered our download and upload speeds have increased also.

Thought I'd post this info in case there are other computer age
technology challenged people like me out there.


The last time I spoke with our cable provider, I was told I needed a new
cable modem, too, in order to take advantage of the "new, higher
speeds." So I asked "what speeds, precisely?" The answer I got indicated
speeds I already was getting, so I didn't upgrade the cable modem for
$5.00 more a month. I have a separate router, as do many people, so I
didn't see any need to even think about replacing that.

The cable company persists in trying to sell me on its phone service,
which runs over its internet cabling. I got rid of one of our land lines
but we still have one that we rarely use. About 99.9% of our calls these
days are from or to our cell phones. Phone over internet is no more
reliable than its cable TV provider, and I've never been impressed with
our cable provider.

Every so often, I think about converting from cable to dish, but the two
dish companies here seem unwilling or incapable of distributing info
that is clear and understandable.