For several weeks now my broadband cable connection has been somewhat flaky. I first noticed that it was dropping the signal perhaps a month ago, and at that time unplugging the modem and plugging it back in seemed to clear up the problem. Two weekends ago it dropped on a Friday evening and no amount of resetting seemed to work. From past experience I know to unplug the router and modem, as well as the cable itself for a period of thirty or so seconds. Even this method of resetting things didn’t clear up the problem. Hooking up the cable before powering on the modem and waiting for the sync light to be solid was fruitless; the sync light would blink faster and then slower but never became a solid connection.
I called Road Runner and they were able to determine that it might be a problem on the line. The first appointment time available was the following Monday morning. However, by Saturday afternoon my connection was up and working again. So first thing Monday morning I called can canceled the service call. A couple of times since then it has been flaky, but immediately reconnected. Last evening it dropped and again refused to reconnect. This time when I called Road Runner they hinted that it might be my modem. The technician said that she was getting a “weak signal” that might indicate a problem with my equipment. I went ahead and scheduled a service call for this afternoon (“Can you be there between 2:00 and 5:00 pm?”) just to eliminate line problems before buying a new modem.
The Linksys cable modem is five years old, maybe older, as we acquired it in South Carolina in the fall of 1999 or early winter of 2000. I suppose it could be going bad, it has been in almost continuous use ever since being purchased. It is a supreme pain in the ass to have to take time to be at home waiting, but I am not going to continue to suffer a flaky broadband connection