There are some downsides with the Colt-250+ units (as I have one almost daily to do installs for a CLEC). 1. The Colts require 4 high amperage AA batteries. I used to purchase Duracell Ultra batteries which worked, but life span was a couple of weeks to maybe a month and now I cannot seem to find them in stores. I now use Lithium batteries and they seem to last a few months now. 2. They will only sync up for 100 Seconds max. Not helpful when you're trying to diagnose a flapping circuit. 3. They won't stay sync'd up on circuits with Occam DSLAMs. They randomly drop after a few seconds. Not a condition of the circuit. Some type of incompatibility with Occams. 4. As others said, not a Layer 3 or 2 (I think). 5. Does not provide any additional details like Far end errors, Near end Errors, FEC/HEC, etc. On the plus side: 1. They boot up really quick, as quick as you can press 2 buttons you can start a test. (my understanding is Sunrise units take a couple of minutes to bootup) 2. Relatively lightweight. 3. Can use regular 6p4c line cords in case you lose the nice Angled-Bed-of-Nails/6p4c test cable it comes with (like I accidentally did). 4. Can be purchased for cheap on eBay. I got mine years ago for less than $150.00 On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 9:23 PM, Robert Glover <robertg@garlic.com> wrote:
The local ILEC (Verizon) use Colt 250+. They are pretty cool. They do not do layer 3 like the meter you referenced. I'm actually looking for a cost-effective meter that does ADSL+ / VDSL2 / e.SHDSL. it's easy to find one that does the first two, but not all three.
-------- Original message -------- From: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca> Date: 06/29/2015 5:50 PM (GMT-08:00) To: North American Network Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Thoughts On Cheap Chinese xDSL Testers
I've been poking around looking for an inexpensive xDSL circuit tester to do some measurements on my home DSL line, in opposition to the telco. $2K+ is not in the budget, so I'm curious about the accuracy of the $300 Chinese units kicking around eBay (e.g. the ST332B). Anyone out there have experience with them? Are they even remotely close to accurate?
--lyndon
-- Joshua Zukerman President Snow Pond Technology Group Inc. www.snowpondtech.com