         Slow Response, Garbage on Screen, Long File Transfers
         -----------------------------------------------------


Like every BBS system, we receive complaints from callers who say
they are getting a lot of bad blocks on file transfers or that they
are seeing real slow response times on our system.  Usually they leave a
message demanding to know what is wrong with our system.  The answer?
Nothing at all...

It seems like certain times of the year introduce more line noise on the
phone line than others - line noise being any noise on the phone line
other than what was placed there by the sending and receiving modems.

Some causes of line noise are:  1) wet ground conditions which introduce
electrical changes in the phone company's telephone lines,  2) increased
traffic on the telephone lines,  3) older (wearing) telephone lines and
circuitry,  4) use of satellites for transmission can cause delays and
sometimes introduce line noise,  5) weak modem signals, etc.

Number 1 is seasonal, numbers 2 and 3 are continually getting worse,
number 4 you often have to live with when calling overseas and number 5
can be caused by modems or any combination of all of the previous items.

To make matters worse - there is absolutely *nothing* that you can do
with software to make any of the above items any less severe (or any
more for that matter).

Some modems can handle line noise better than others.  In fact, some
modems HIDE the line noise so completely that you never see it.

Other modems (such as 1200 or 2400 baud modems WITHOUT error correction)
cause the line noise to be displayed on the screen as junk characters
which have nothing to do with the actual data being transmitted.

Most of the high speed modems on the market today include noise filters,
echo cancellation circuitry, etc. which actually makes them much more
resistant to line noise than your average slower speed 2400 bps modem!
On top of that, they generally include an error correcting protocol,
such as MNP or v.42, which masks out the line noise completely by
retransmitting lost or garbled data.  This retransmission of data is
completely transparent to you - meaning: you will never see any
difference since the data always looks clean.  HOWEVER, during this
retransmission process the speed or responsiveness of the session may be
severly affected.

With an error correcting modem you can generally determine that there is
line noise on the phone line by monitoring the speed of file transfers
which may drop drastically as the modems resend the data between
themselves.   Additionally, the responsiveness when typing can slow to a
crawl as the modems try to verify each keystroke on a noisy line.

So what can you do about line noise?  You can contact your phone company
and let them know that you are getting something less than you expect
out of your telephone service.  While a single person may not make a
difference - it will make a difference if we all keep the phone company
"in touch" with what we are experiencing on our phone lines.  After that
about all you can do is wait for the phone company to try to make the
phone lines better or - in the case of seasonal line noise - wait for
the weather to change.

In the mean time what can be done?

Some users find that using AT&T as their long distance service cuts
down on the amount of line noise experienced when using "other"
long distance carriers.  Of course, if the source of the line noise you
are experiencing is coming from the LOCAL phone lines (on either end of
the connection) rather than the LONG DISTANCE carrier - then even
switching long distance carriers will not solve the problem.  However,
often times you can get a better phone connection simply by redialing
and hoping to go thru a different set of circuits/lines the next time
you connect.

In short, you can make line noise easier to live with by:  1) using
better modems,  2) masking it out with error correcting modems,  3)
using a different long distance carrier to make your connection or 4)
redial to get a better phone connection.

One thing that will *not* make the phone lines any better is leaving a
message to the sysop demanding better service.  If you do - we will, of
course, pass the word on to our local phone company so that they can
keep an eye on the quality of our local phone lines.  But don't expect
us to be able to fix a problem that exists within the phone lines used
to connect your modem to ours.

We'll do our best to keep our system up and running, to keep all modems
operational and to keep the phone company appraised of our situation.
From there it's up to the phone company and whichever long distance
service you choose to use to make sure you get a good, clean connection.
