How many disconnections are normal on FTTC?

I am currently experiencing about one disconnection per day, it usually reconnects straight away. I rang customer services today who said that one disconnection per day is within the normal range and anything below ten wouldn't be regarded by them as a problem.

The CS rep said that all the lines stats looked fine syncing at 66Mbps and 16Mbps, so are these disconnections normal?

1 per day is relatively unusual, but probably not to be considered a fault as such.

If its around the same time each day, then consider looking for a source of radio noise in the home.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

1 per day is relatively unusual, but probably not to be considered a fault as such.

If its around the same time each day, then consider looking for a source of radio noise in the home.

It doesn't seem to disconnect at a regular time. It makes connecting through a dynamic DNS more difficult though!

Which ISP? (Some supply static IP addresses quite cheaply, others charge a ridiculous amount).

Edit - D'oh! Plusnet of course. A one-off £5 for a static IP address.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 13-Jan-15 00:17:56)

Well i wouldn't be happy if my connection was dropping once a week, and IMO it's not normal for an adsl connection to disconnect every day let alone a vdsl based connection, to me it's an indication of some type of line fault, maybe one that will develop over time, unless it's down to end user hardware being faulty or the power brick that it draws power from

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Well i wouldn't be happy if my connection was dropping once a week, and IMO it's not normal for an adsl connection to disconnect every day let alone a vdsl based connection, to me it's an indication of some type of line fault, maybe one that will develop over time, unless it's down to end user hardware being faulty or the power brick that it draws power from

I thought that this was too much, I might try the original plusnet router to at least eliminate that as a problem.

Make sure you use the right power plug for whatever router you use.

Oops. Re my earlier post about static IP addresses, I've edited it - in case all else fails at least it solves the DynDNS issue. You shouldn't even need to use it.

I had this for about a week, and put it down to work being done at the exchange.

I did raise a ticket with BT (I have Infinity) and they monitored my line for a few days - but no change in setup and it just went away - no drop in speed.

Been up weeks now.

As far as I can tell my disconnections are always during the early hours, presumably when load balancing takes place. Over the last few months I reckon my average would be about 3 to 4 days uptime (varies between around 14 to 1 day)

Are you talking about loss of sync or the PPP session being bounced? The latter could be load balancing - I thought you'd said it was late at night but now see that was somebody else who also mentions load balancing.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Tue 13-Jan-15 13:20:52)

I wasn't aware they did load balancing by PPP dropping except after major disruption, and they always give a status email warning when that is the case.

From my experience very rare. I don't keep tabs on it because of the rarity but I'd say over the last twelve months my TBBQM has shown some kind of interruption maybe half a dozen times. Dunno if they were disconnects or just session drops.

Hi beardedwonder.

Contrary to what you were told by our CS team, I don't think that one disconnection per day sounds about right. Feel free to message me your username, and I'll take a look.

Thanks,

Matty

Definitely not as it should be but definitely not uncommon. Getting to the bottom of it can be really difficult.

Most people don't notice.

My lines dropping once every few days at the moment for some reason - hoping it'll clear up.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 13-Jan-15 17:00:32)

Normal maybe for some lines but generally

I think every 2-3 weeks is "ok"

my line hasn't d'c in I think 6-7 months.

My FTTC was ongoing connection for 48 days! So, one disconnection per day is not OK!

In reply to a post by beardedwonder:

I am currently experiencing about one disconnection per day, it usually reconnects straight away. I rang customer services today who said that one disconnection per day is within the normal range and anything below ten wouldn't be regarded by them as a problem.

If you have the separate white modem and router setup then you could "unlock" / jailbrake the modem, and then see if the modem is staying connected (sync) but the router reconnects. Perhaps the router crashes and reboots, or the login session gets thrown off for some reason. The BQM can't tell the difference in these as its outside your home.

I am showing a reconnection at around 00:30hrs. My connection had lasted about 3 days this time. The gateway useage graph shows a small dip at about the same time I was disconnected but not a major drop so a localised problem perhaps? From what I've read here it's not normal anyway.

I wouldn't say it's normal either. Just checked my router ...

Uptime: 124d 01h 38m

Chances are the last time it was rebooted was because I was messing with something too - I don't recall any drops at all however if I check which gateway I'm on it has often changed - now can that be done without dropping the PPP session or not? If the PPP session was briefly dropped would my router even see it. FWIW I paid Plusnet the £5 to get fixed IP.

I have an unlocked modem. In fact, I have the one that was supplied by Kelly's (I struggle to type r say that name given the **** job they did) and one I purchased from ebay and unlocked.

How would I go about checking these stats? I can't really run another cable from the modem permanently but I can just plug in a laptop to check.

telnet 192.168.1.1

Welcome Visiting Huawei Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:
ATP>sh


BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --show
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 15030 Kbps, Downstream rate = 55936 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 14832 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57095 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 5.8 6.3
Attn(dB): 19.5 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 7.4
VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: 18 25
B: 239 237
M: 1 1
T: 64 64
R: 0 16
S: 0.1338 0.5104
L: 14352 3981
D: 1 1
I: 240 127
N: 240 254
Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 1279503602 1811709
OHFErr: 254859 657
RS: 0 1346716
RSCorr: 0 74796
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 299629 0
OCD: 9580 0
LCD: 9580 0
Total Cells: 1067436751 0
Data Cells: 321835342 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 15229 395
SES: 629 1
UAS: 24 24
AS: 2749478

Bearer 0
INP: 0.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 2.14 8.19
OR: 89.35 30.24
AgR: 57184.62 14862.85

Bitswap: 2089842/2089842 23592/23632

#
#
#
#
# xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 15056 Kbps, Downstream rate = 56128 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 14832 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57095 Kbps

Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3970)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2780)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3970)
VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate: 15056 kbps 56128 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power: 7.4 dBm 13.5 dBm
=================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2
U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 5.2 29.1 44.0 N/A N/A 14.3 35.8 55.0
Signal Attenuation(dB): 5.2 28.2 42.8 N/A N/A 18.8 35.5 55.1
SNR Margin(dB): 6.3 6.3 6.3 N/A N/A 5.9 5.9 5.8
TX Power(dBm): 0.4 -13.6 6.4 N/A N/A 11.0 8.1 5.5
#

There is also xdslcmd info --stats which is the same as the "show" one but adds the time breakdowns you've probably seen in ADSL stats. Starting:-

Total time = 1 days 19 hours 54 min 15 sec
FEC: 0 74797
CRC: 254865 657
ES: 15231 395
SES: 629 1
UAS: 24 24
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 9 min 15 sec
FEC: 0 1
CRC: 6 0
ES: 2 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 14-Jan-15 18:22:50)

In reply to a post by beardedwonder:

How would I go about checking these stats? I can't really run another cable from the modem permanently but I can just plug in a laptop to check.

I guess your router and your modem are far apart? You could use a pair of these?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RJ45-Network-Splitter-Econom...
They only work for 100megabit connections, (not gigabit), but can run two separate ethernet 100megabit connections down one cable.

As the best way is to get the router admin interface onto your network. Then you can run DSLstats or similar to get graphs and regular info about your connection from a PC.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

As the best way is to get the router admin interface onto your network. Then you can run DSLstats or similar to get graphs and regular info about your connection from a PC.

Unfortunately the modem and router are quite far apart, and I have been banned from running any cables visibly inside the house!

In my opinion there should be 0, with exception of when things like DSLAM maintenance is done. I would personally consider 1 a day excessive.

Not sure if BTw and plusnet will agree with that tho, DLM doesnt consider it unstable. So one a day wont drop you down to interleaving.

For a comparison my current sync uptime is 87 days and 10 hours on fast path.

Bear in mind I am talking about sync tho, PPP is different, as plusnet seem to kick people every now and then for rebalancing, plus people like me who are sensitive to congestion often will manually reconnect PPP to get a different gateway.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 14-Jan-15 21:06:33)

Any disconnection between midnight and 6:00am is most likely caused by BT Planned Engineering Works (PEW). These take place every weekday between these hours, and usually cause a PPP Session drop for anything from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.

Get a pair of Homeplugs to link HG LAN2 to a spare LAN port on your router. They don't need to be expensive really high-speed ones for this purpose. On FTTC 500Mbps are usually necessary for real data like streaming video, but the stats harvester's volume is small.

I have temporarily got the modem hooked up to a switch.

Here is a screen capture of the connection information:
http://jan.imghost.us/C98R.png

Also telnet:
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 17014 Kbps, Downstream rate = 80516 Kbps
Path: 0, Upstream rate = 16064 Kbps, Downstream rate = 64291 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 7.8 6.5
Attn(dB): 0.0 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 7.4
VDSL2 framing
Path 0
B: 51 237
M: 1 1
T: 64 64
R: 12 16
S: 0.0257 0.4714
L: 19895 4311
D: 1259 1
I: 64 127
N: 64 254
Counters
Path 0
OHF: 3656654547 2225070
OHFErr: 22619 9887
RS: 4095507394 4275695
RSCorr: 161765947 441944
RSUnCorr: 1565018 0

Path 0
HEC: 377342 0
OCD: 7777 0
LCD: 7777 0
Total Cells: 111557142 0
Data Cells: 216116783 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 2731 9123
SES: 11 58
UAS: 21 21
AS: 6046270

Path 0
INP: 3.00 0.00
PER: 1.64 7.54
delay: 8.00 0.00
OR: 116.57 30.76

Bitswap: 1506772 228117

Infinity 2 fibre.

Only one disconnection in the last year+.

Good luck!

I'm no expert at interpreting FTTC stats, but this post is by someone who is. You should be able to apply that to your set.

The interleaving is certainly costing you quite a bit of sync speed. Plus 8ms addition to your latency.

Do the stats shed any light on the disconnections? If I can get a handle on that I can then look at what the DLM is doing.

Well, maybe.

AS is the number of seconds the router has been powered up and unless I've pressed a wrong key on the calculator on my phone calculator that's about 70 days.

That means over 2.3 million RSCorr (Corrected errors) per day, plus another 22,000 RSUnCorr. That's pretty high. If a lot of them are occurring in a short burst they would cause a disconnection. Spread evenly over the day I would expect (on FTTC) that they would be unnoticeable.

This is where the monitoring programs come in, as the idea is to have them running 24/7. They would show when the errors are occurring. When I was running them for several months I put an old laptop next to the router, which is next to the modem. In your case, if you have a spare computer and there is room by the modem you could just connect that into LAN2. If not, I think your best bet is HomePlugs as mentioned before, to get the monitoring data up to the router.

Depending what cable you are using to get the VDSL2 signal up there may be a pair in that you could use instead.

I was hoping to be able to run dslstats headless on my raspberry pi but it doesn't seem that that's possible. I have started it running and it's recording now. Should I reboot the modem and start a new recording or just leave it running now?

Just leave it running. Unless you'd find it easier looking at smaller numbers.

I don't know the dslstats one really, it didn't exist when I started using Bald_Eagle's.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 17-Jan-15 00:57:16)

I have had dslstats running since last night. Here are some graphs for FEC, CRC, and ES errors:

http://imgur.com/a/wQSWU