Who’s Got My ADSL Port?!
This month I am writing about a recent incident where a client lost their Internet connection in a rather unusual way. When our monitoring system notified me of the outage we went to work on the problem.
The first process we verify is sync. Sync is the ability of the ADSL router to see the Telus ADSL port it is connected to. The best way to check sync is to have the customer verify the ADSL router is showing a green sync light. When we checked this client’s service for sync we found none. Finding no sync is bad. It means there could be a complicated wiring, port or ADSL router problem and we now have to investigate what could be wrong.
Fortunately, Telus makes this job a little easier by providing us with a diagnostic tool that gives us some information about a service from Telus’ perspective. We used this tool next on the client’s service and this tool said there was sync. Well, that’s odd! It could only really mean one thing. The jumper that connected our client’s cable to the port must have been re-assigned to somebody else. Here is the reasoning: the ADSL router shows no sync and this means it cannot see anything at the other end of the phone cable. However, the Telus port is happily communicating with something. This makes it pretty clear.
At this point we need to involve Telus. They will need to physically investigate the port to confirm the problem in their central office. Our next step then is to open a Telus trouble ticket as Telus requires a ticket when requesting a dispatch. With the ticket process initiated we received a next-day dispatch from Telus to resolve the issue.
Next day Telus went to their Central office and found that indeed, one of their techs had mistakenly removed the jumper from the port connecting our customer. The Telus technician was able to quickly restore the service and within minutes our monitoring system alerted us the customer was back online. As always with an outage we manually confirmed the service was working as it should, and then contacted and updated the end user about the status of their service and asked them to verify they could get online.
Ports seldom go astray like this but because the equipment is handled by people, mistakes do happen. We are fortunate that we have such a good, long-term relationship with Telus. Because of this we know exactly who to speak with and what needs to be done so that we minimize downtime for our clients. It takes a lot of people to run a big corporation, but with good communications between us, we’ve got all your ports covered.
Related Links: Skyway West ADSL Troubleshooting page | Skyway West ADSL Internet Speed Test