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 <robe...@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 <lyn...@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