Hi,

I am interested (for the sake of comparison) to know what your DSL modem parameters are.

To find those parameters on a Thomson modem you need to do the following:
1) Log on to your modem's administrator interface at 192.168.1.254 (by default the username is Administrator and there is NO password).
2) On the menu to the left ... under "Broadband Connection" you have to click on "DSL Connection".
3) Then, on the upper right corner menu of the page that loads, click on "Details".

I'm talking about the following values:

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 256 / 1.024
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0,00 / 0,00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11,5 / 15,0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31,5 / 63,5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 17,0 / 15,0

Please also include the location/area of your house and which "centrale" you are affiliated to.

SN Margin
According to some research on the Internet, any SN Margin (Down) value below 11.0 dB is rather bad and will cause you to experience several disconnections (modem "Broadband" and "Internet" lights go off).
Mine is 15,0 in the lines pasted above and it drops to 9,5 at night after 7:00 pm.

SN Margin
SNR means Signal to Noise Ratio. Simply put divide the Signal value by Noise Value and you get SNR. You need high SNR for a stable connection. In general, a higher signal to noise ratio will result in less errors.

* 6bB. or below = Bad and will experience no line synchronisation and frequent disconnections
* 7dB-10dB. = Fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions.
* 11dB-20dB. = Good with little or no disconnection problems
* 20dB-28dB. = Excellent
* 29dB. or above = Outstanding

Line Attenuation.
When your Line Attenuation (Down) value is above 60.0 dB it means the maximum speed you can have is UP TO 512 kbps. My Line Attenuation (Down) is always at 63.5 dB.

Line Attenuation
Measure of how much the signal has degraded between the DSLAM and the modem. This is largely a function of the distance from the exchange. The lower the dB the better for this measurement.

20dB and below is outstanding
20dB-30dB is excellent
30dB-40dB is very good
40dB-50dB is good
50dB-60dB is poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB or above is bad and will experience connectivity issues "

Line attenuation also affects your speed.
* 75 dB+: Out of range for broadband
* 60-75 dB: max speed up to 512kbps
* 43-60dB: max speed up to 1Mbps
* 0-42dB: speed up to 2Mbps+

You can see from the numbers pasted above that my Bandwidth (Down) value is set to 1,024 kbps (probably for the double speed at night since I have a gaming plan with Sodetel).

I have called Sodetel and asked them to remove my double speed option (they are only activating it from 8:00 pm till 11:00 PM anyway) and so they should set my Bandwidth (Down) value to 512 kbps.

I hope this will in turn affect the stability of my connection (no idea if things will even get worse when the weather deteriorates). I am currently getting disconnected once per day on average and I don't know if it's because they are working on the new equipment they have installed which is also causing many other users to get disconnected as well.