Stats Help?

I've started trying to improve my broadband speed over the past few days as I realised that it was shocking slow. Around 1500 kbps. After plugging my router into the master socket in my house and unplugging the ring wires on that socket my routers reporting a respectable 5088kbps with the speedtest.net tools averaging around 4.3 mbps. The wiring is very old in my house.

I've had a poke around in the o2 wireless box 2 CGI and I've come up with these stats:

Uptime: 0 days, 20:57:04
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 957 / 5,088
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 32.5 / 55.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 7.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 12 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 417 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 117 / 3,576,402
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 117 / 46,389
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 24,485 / 41,401

And after a restart :

Uptime: 0 days, 0:01:32
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 962 / 5,771
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 32.5 / 55.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 1 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 6,743
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 356
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 24,490 / 341



I'm very eager to learn more about what the different errors mean and what is a good result. How do these stats look and what can I do to improve them? Will a new router with flashed firmware help?

Thanks in advance.

Ben

Edited by benburns (Fri 03-Jul-09 19:52:54)

Hi Ben

You seem to be doing quite well without help!

Re the stats themselves, now that you have sorted the ring wire you are getting a pretty good bandwidth/connection/sync speed for that attenuation. Your SN Margin appears to be normal - the "target" figure at the time you connect is 6dB umless the line is noisy/unstable, but changes constantly thereafter. From the figure of 7dB so soon after the re-sync it looks like you are on 6dB.

I assume you are connecting to the Master Socket with a short ADSL cable not a plug-in extension. An even better test even after removing the ring wire is the test socket inside the master socket.

Remember that background noise is higher at night than in the day. For best speed always sync/connect in daylight. In fact, in winter between 11am and 2pm. In mid-summer say 7am-6pm.

I think RouterStats Lite works with the O2 Box using the SuperUser login you have found, though maybe only the full RouterStats does, and that isn't easy to set up. Mine is packaged up so I can't check. I certainly had one of them going.

What you need to monitor is the 24/7 variation in SNR Margin.

Do that and report back after a few days. There are a number of options depending on what that shows, and it's too complicated explaining all the possibilities. Much easier to explain your options once you have that info.

Basically it will come down to asking O2 to reduce your target margin to 3dB, or getting a suitable Netgear router so that you can alter the target margin yourself.

The other thing that is almost certain is that ADSL2 (G.992.3) will give you higher speed than ADSL2+ (G.992.5). Again maybe O2 would sort that, but with the right Netgear you can experiment yourself.

For illustration, with the O2 box, in the position you are now in I would get around 6800kbps. Getting O2 to drop the target margin would not be a good move. But Netgears forcing ADSL2 allow me to get a stable 7400+ 24/7 or an unstable (but what I have chosen) up to 8375kbps daytime dropping to 7300+ after evening/night disconnections.

Which for me, (as I don't do long downloads evening/nights) is ideal.

Edit - PS, how interesting - my father's forenames were Benjamin Burns!

Bob: Demon dialup >> Freeserve dialup >> BT Broadband >> Prodigynet >> Newnet >> O2 Standard.
Purple Cloud for domain, email and web space.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 03-Jul-09 23:29:53)

Full Routerstats doesn't work too well with the O2 Box or BeBox IME

Be* Unlimited

That's what I remember

It would just about work for a while, then lose the setup highlighting and fall over.

Also any reading it lost was always reported as 3dB.

Bob: Demon dialup >> Freeserve dialup >> BT Broadband >> Prodigynet >> Newnet >> O2 Standard.
Purple Cloud for domain, email and web space.

Thank you very much for an extremely in depth answer! You have given me alot to think about.

My master socket is a very old one that looks like this:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/faq/iplate/old-...

so there is no test socket. I'll monitor the SNR Margin and see what happens. Though I use a mac at the moment so I'll either try and find a routerstats alternative or failing that i'll just use windows.

You've helped alot already but I stillI have quite a few questions:

Would re-wiring the house bring any improvements?

I have the standard o2 adsl filter, will changing that help?

Will restarting the router reset the connection and bring any gains?

When removing the ring wire did you chop off the excess or just disconnect it?


Thanks again for the brilliant reply!!

P.S Small world!

I don't think that is a master socket, though I could be wrong. Does it look like any of these on the inside, and which one if it does?

Four or five noise margin checks in a day should do - say fairly early, mid-day, late afternood/early evening, and as late as possible. Record and post the time and connection speed as well .

Don't post each individually, just once every day or two. We just want a rough guide, ending say Tuesday night.

Let's leave the rewiring question for now. See what we can do as it is.

Have you tried alternative filters? Remember swapping a filter causes a disconnect and reconnect! (I know that's obvious but to some people it wouldn't be).

Restarting the router only makes a difference if the last connection was slow, or wierd things have happened so it is behaving oddly. Yours looks fine.

As you have already done the ring wire, does my answer matter ? You should carefully disconnect it, not cut it, as it would be polite to reconnect it (no chance ) or at least leave it connectable for the next owners. Not all (even modern) phones can work without it.

Bob: Demon dialup >> Freeserve dialup >> BT Broadband >> Prodigynet >> Newnet >> O2 Standard.
Purple Cloud for domain, email and web space.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 05-Jul-09 13:36:37)