Tips (DSL)

This is an unordered collection of tips and how-to snippets relating to DSL, with emphasis on informatino specific to NCF that might not be elsewhere on the internet, or of special interest to NCF mebmers. If you have something that should be added, please mention it to an NCF office person.

Similar sources of information are the NCF DSL discussion group and the NCF Help Desk discussion group.

Using a ST516 with router: De-activate your router's idle timer

If you have a ST516 DSL modem connected to a router, it's best if the router's idle timeout feature (if it has one) be disabled. Otherwise your DSL connection may go up and down every five minutes.

To see if you have the problem, log into the NCF StartPage and then click on the link "Your recent DSL use" ([1]). Scroll down to 'Connection details'. If there are many session of short duration (eg., 5 minutes), you've probably got a router with an idle timer running. Read below how to fix it.

There is a router setting usually called something like "Maximum Idle Time" which will cause the internet DSL connection to be dropped after a period of no internet use. As long as you are using the internet, this setting does nothing, but when you stop using the internet, after the period specified by this setting, your router will tell your DSL modem to disconnect and reconnect. This usually is pointless but OK, but often causes grief for members. It's best to stop it. Change the number to something larger than 3 days (eg., set it to 5000), or, on some routers, you can disable it altogether (try entering 0).

So if you are getting regular DSL cuts, check that your router idle time is set to
a large number of minutes (eg., 5000). Some routers may have an "always connected"
setting which would override all of the foregoing and leave your DSL connection in
permanent connect mode - perfect!

You can check that it worked by waiting a day for the DSL use page to be updated (it is updated nightly).