the great mcmonkeys1 is now working tech support for an ISP. i came accross a customer with an interesting ADSL modem. this customer’s telephone line is really shit, he’s in dire need of an engineer to fix his cabling to the house. the fault is pretty bad, there is alien current / voltage on this line. on top of that his line is only rated to take 4Mbit due to the length of the wire and the resistance this incurs. in addition his connection has been stable and up for over 7 days. 
here is some imagery nobody outside the company is supposed to see. it means nothing to you, but this picture is like magic to me, the modem should not be doing this! noise levels are almost as loud as the actual broadband signal, the attainables are a measure of the max instantaneous possible speed possible on this line, the modem simply should not be able to connect higher than this! but it is synced at the full speed possible on the line setting (it’s currently on 5Mbit).
it hangs up there like a floating city for weeks on end. i check on it now and then just to amaze myself.
btw i was speaking with the customer a number of times, the modem is a Billion Bipac 7800N, am considering buying one if my next gaf does not have UPC and i have to rely on shitty ADSL for internet.
it’s pricey mind you http://www.dabs.ie/products/billion-bipac-7800n—wireless-router—dsl—802-11b-g-n—desktop-7RYB.html?utm_source=ie+email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email240412&utm_content=e800