This was one for the books... Got a call from a National who, in turn, was contracted by Cisco to replace a router at a site. They were so desperate they did not even care that I did not have Cisco cert (I am a lapsed CCNA so I know how to do the basics). Get to site and alarm light is on the WIC card on the router. Power down the router, replace card, power on, same. I figure telco issue. Telco has been to site 2 times already and tested clean to jack on NID. Customer has been down for a week. Best I can do is offer to come back with an Adtran Atlas 550 and place it between circuit and router and prove conclusively one side or the other.
Monday arrives and I come to site with my trusty Atlas 550. Plug everything in and all greens up. Customer has access! Put the original cord back and down again. Feeling like a fool for not thinking of the patch cord, I replace and same result. Back to the 550 all works! Now I play "one of these things is not like the other one...". The ONLY different thing is my cable from the router to the 550 is about 30' long and is a T1 crossover (Adtran requirement). I get a 25' patch cable and plug directly from circuit to WIC and all works!
Cisco is now mad since I am a little late calling them. When I explained my observations the tech comments upon "all I did was replace a cable?". I explain that it is not so much the cable but the length. They don't need a 25' cable and maybe the Line Build Out in the router is set to compensate for a long run. Tech has no clue what I am talking about and basically tells me that if everything is working I am to leave the site. I can see this is going nowhere so I coil up the cable neatly and sign out with the National.
Just a tale to amuse those in the know, no real point other than this. The one thing I walked away with is that the network gurus do not have any understanding of the telecom side and, for the most part, do not care to know.
Last edited by Meyery2k; 02/05/13 05:20 PM.
