CB - I respect and appreciate all the assistance you've offered people. I'm sad to say I'm looking for guidance myself. I've tried everything here, and more. I'm a tech at a telecommunications company that also deals (rarely anymore) in DSL, so I'm familiar with how it functions, the equipment used, many of the quirks, etc. I have a long history in support, am one of our lead techs, and also have a CCNA. I say this only so you know you can speak to me technically, as I'd like to not waste your time explaining something you don't need to.

Service: 3 Mbps DSL dry line (I'll be upgrading to 6 Mbps if I can get this stable)

The problem: Internet connectivity drops and poor performance for the past few months, much more often recently. (not the DSL link, however)

When it 'drops':

   - The 'drop' occurs for anywhere from 3 seconds to a couple minutes.

   - In the longer drops, the PPPOE connection drops. The 2Wire has stated no ATM circuit is available in the diagnostics screen.

   - In the case of the shorter drops, sometimes the PPPOE drops and sometimes I can only reproduce the failure through pings failing between the WAN on the router and the Gateway IP. (sample below)

As others have stated, I've noticed that the connection drops a lot more frequently when other devices initiate new connections or stress/push utilization on the circuit. (i.e. Opening Firefox and loading a previous session or starting up a newsserver download that utilizes 15-20 individual server connections)

My setup:

2Wire (1 year old) > Linksys WRT54GL running OpenWRT (functioning off the switch ports and WiFi)

•  The 2Wire started as being setup in DMZPlus mode, doing DHCP to the Linksys, with a separate private block setup behind the Linksys and the Linksys handling everything related to my network, including WiFi. While the dual private range is not an ideal setup, it worked and I had no complaints, so I left it alone.
•  In troubleshooting, I reached a tech who gave me the steps needed to change it to bridged mode. I did that and setup the Linksys to handle the PPPOE authentication.
• Regarding the 2 different setups above, when the 2Wire was handling the PPPOE auth, the connectivity drops were at most 30-60 seconds. (shorter, more common)  When the Linksys was handling the PPPOE auth, the drops lasted at least a minute and took as long as 2 minutes at times. (noted so you have all information I have)
• At that point, I ordered the Actiontec modem and tried that, and saw no change in behavior.
• Since switching to the Actiontec, I switched back to the 2Wire to try the various settings combinations mentioned in this thread. (and the additions noted below)

Other details from troubleshooting:

I tried everything mentioned in this thread. While I don't use the 2Wire's wireless function, in troubleshooting, I enabled it and I tried all of the settings mentioned. (802.11b, 11Mbps, etc) I also disabled all Attack protection in the firewall, as I have the Linksys doing that and have no need for it (and wanted to rule that out, too).

Nothing has changed in my home setup. That said, I've checked everything out and tried a large number of combinations. I've tried multiple RJ11 jacks, multiple power outlets and running it through a 1500VA power filtering UPS. This was done with both the old and new modem. I also checked the internal cable run and the connections at the external housing and see no clear issues. Everything looks clean and secure. (I've exercised the jacks and cleaned contacts)

In working with the previous technician prior to the swap from 2Wire to Actiontec, she had one of the network techs make a change to the config of my line, so I'm thinking they changed it to the Interleave setup. I had asked her about DSLAM issues in the area also, which she said she checked and didn't see any. It's not sounding like it'd be the DSLAM anyways after having read through the variety of locations in this thread.

My thoughts at this point:

The drops between the 2Wire acting as the WAN device and the Gateway IP means the issue is either the modem/router, last mile cable run, DSLAM, or other equipment leading to that Gateway IP.  Being that I changed the 2Wire out to a brand new Actiontec and have the same issue, that removes the modem as a source of the issue.

Being that the Interleave setting may be on my line and I'm not sure if the Actiontec likes it, it's remotely possible if I get them to disable it (I'll try to call them tomorrow in the timeframe when they're open and able) and switch back to the Actiontec, maybe it will work. I'm not too hopeful of this, being that the issue has remained the exact same.

The techs have repeatedly checked the line (like with so many others here) and tell me everything is great and I'm operating at a much lower speed than the line is capable of, so it should be running really well. I don't know if I should push them to dispatch a line tech with respect to the errors shown below, but they are a fairly recent occurrence. When I first started troubleshooting this, they were scarce.  I don't want to pursue a pointless, and likely painful and time consuming, request.

Hopefully I've nailed everything you need.  I came home from work to continue working on this tonight (after about a week of previous work on it), so I'm a bit tired. I'll be checking tomorrow in the AM, so whenever you're able to reply, I'll get a response to you shortly.

Side note:  Only recently, since switching back to the 2Wire, did I look into the detailed log section and at this point, I haven't seen anything show up, even though I've seen the stats below and have seen my traffic fluctuating and packets dropping sporadically.

Collected for 2:13:58

PING results:

Pinging [76.226.175.254] 100 times with: 64 bytes of data

ping successful: icmp_seq=0 time=114 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=1 time=108 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=2 time=124 ms
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=5 time=161 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=6 time=69 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=7 time=54 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=8 time=87 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=9 time=80 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=10 time=103 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=11 time=132 ms
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=15 time=106 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=16 time=92 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=17 time=49 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=18 time=52 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=19 time=61 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=20 time=65 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=21 time=89 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=22 time=98 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=23 time=102 ms
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=31 time=48 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=32 time=91 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=33 time=99 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=34 time=140 ms
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=38 time=87 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=39 time=77 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=40 time=73 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=41 time=57 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=42 time=78 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=43 time=88 ms
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=47 time=84 ms
ping timed out
ping successful: icmp_seq=49 time=117 ms
ping successful: icmp_seq=50 time=84 ms