I don't switch my router off that many times normally in an hour. Only once but if I have problems like I have been having, it maybe twice.

2 times in one hour is plenty to trigger line management.

I have always turned it off and for security. No way am I leaving my computer connected to the web 24/7. Power is getting more expensive and it's a waste of energy but I know what you are saying.

Put a long WPA2 key on the router. No security risk then.

Most PCs in the world are connected to the internet whenever they are on.
Turning a router off isn't a solution here. If you are concerned about your security on your PC you should be using an antivirus and taking precautions online. That's the answer... Ensure your PCs not infected (as you should anyway) and there's no risk.

Power is getting more expensive but a router being on is going to make barely no difference. Boiling less water in the kettle would save you lots lots more or turning the heating dial down by 1 degree. All of which would save you probably 10 / 20 times more money.

Edit why not? Is't the modem what makes the link with the FTTC and exchange?

The modem makes a connection to the local green cabinet.
The router makes a connection to the PPP session with your ISP.
So if you unplug the router then the ISP thinks that you have lost internet connection.
It shouldn't affect things but in experience I have noticed odd things occurring when I turn the router off lots.

All of the sky routers sent for fibre now come with this sticker on them.

http://postimage.org/image/uv53tb5gb/

I just don't understand the need to turn it off still really. Surely it's more of an inconvenience always turning it back on when you want to use a device.

I've never even thought about it though as we have so many people using the connection in my house. So I'd just disturb someone

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 02-Jan-13 21:06:55)

2 times in one hour is plenty to trigger line management.

Sorry I should of said in a day. Was not ment to be an hour. Lol

Put a long WPA2 key on the router. No security risk then.

Most PCs in the world are connected to the internet whenever they are on.
Turning a router off isn't a solution here. If you are concerned about your security on your PC you should be using an antivirus and taking precautions online. That's the answer... Ensure your PCs not infected (as you should anyway) and there's no risk.

Power is getting more expensive but a router being on is going to make barely no difference. Boiling less water in the kettle would save you lots lots more or turning the heating dial down by 1 degree. All of which would save you probably 10 / 20 times more money.

Most computers maybe on but it don't mean I have to. I have antivirus, firewall and all that but that is no protection from someone/group, going through your computer. Thats also another reason I don't use wireless and is the cause of many speed problems.

The modem makes a connection to the local green cabinet.
The router makes a connection to the PPP session with your ISP.

So if as first says, then no reason for DLM to kick in. That must mean it's the ISP end making that choice.

I just don't understand the need to turn it off still really. Surely it's more of an inconvenience always turning it back on when you want to use a device.

I have been doing just that for many years and for reasons above, without issue. It seems to be BT's inflexible systems that may have issue with it.

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Jan-13 21:23:58)

On my 5ghz network wifi outperforms my Ethernet speeds.
WPA2 is very secure.

2 times a day should be okay however I doubt that line management would increase the speed. I have to see a good 7 days + of no dropouts before a speed increase occurs.

That's good if you can get that speed but you can't beat a wired only connection. Much less hassle.

I really have to disagree

Getting cables to all of my devices in a 3 storey house with 6 befrooms would be a nightmare.
I have around 13 devices using wifi at once and nothing wired.
I have no problems what so ever and it's as stable as any wired connection.
Granted at a large distance from the router my speeds slow down considerably but overall I find wifi to be excellent.

I guess you don't have a smartphone / laptop / tablet of any kind where wifi is a must?

I guess you don't have a smartphone / laptop / tablet of any kind where wifi is a must?

I have no need for a smartphone, and typing BS on boringbook. Have a laptop but is connected by wire most of the time. Broadband dongle other times.

I think the more correct spelling is "smart"phone
edit - in case it isn't obvious, meaning it is a phone, as for the "smart" part... well.

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Jan-13 21:59:14)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Yes that is what I mean. It's like this setup. http://cdn0.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//classificat...

Then yes - your red cable is safe to be disconnected with no effect on the VDSL2 sync, or on the DLM monitoring of the line conditions.

Plusnet's internal tools (they create pretty pictures of the PPP session drop/restore) will see each drop of the router, but this information is NOT used by the cabinet, DLM or Openreach. It is more used by the Plusnet support people when they want to troubleshoot your line.

If you *do* encounter line problems in the future, and want help from PN staff to troubleshoot, then you will be well advised to leave the router on then. Otherwise you are fine.

You must have ADSL as that is what plusnet sends with it. Red is for fibre.

Nah - my ADSL kit wasn't supplied by PN, and comes in a variety of colours. But my FTTC kit *was* supplied by PN and is definitely yellow - but it was for the trials 18 months ago, and is a Netgear WNR1000.

When I have disconnected my router, PN says it shows up as a line drop. They can't tell if it's me switching off the router of a natural drop. So that is also affecting my speeds to a point.

The assumption behind the tool, valid when written, was that most people have a combined router/modem, so there isn't an issue of powering one without the other, or of removing the cable between the two. And the number of ADSL customers over FTTC customers means that thinking is still correct for *most* of their customers.

In addition, it does seem that the FTTC installations are, on the whole, in a much better state - perhaps because they are all engineer-installed so far. The PN staff probably don't have to troubleshoot many FTTC lines, so are finding it hard to remember that there *is* a difference.

The important point is that, no matter what PN see (or say to you), there is nothing about their tools that affects DLM, or causes it to restrict your speeds.

So does that mean PN's in=house tools are much stricter than BT's?

In this case, the PN tools are for information, and to help understanding. They don't cause restrictions, so they can't be considered "strict" at all.

I'm sure they'd prefer to monitor sync drops rather than PPP drops, but they just aren't privvy to that information, so do the best they can.

I think some of the PN staff are in need of some training. They all say different things.

There's nothing like hands-on experience to remind you of your training... but I suspect they just don't encounter line problems on FTTC enough to have had it ingrained properly.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

It all depends really. The ISP will see it as a drop in the session so to them it's a disconnection. Certainly on Sky when I was turning the router off and on (around 3 times in a couple of hours) I got put on a higher interleaving depth and lost 7Mbps of sync speed. After around 2 weeks of leaving everything on it went back to normal.

The ISP only sees PPP disconnections, but...
- The PPP layer interactions aren't monitored by the Openreach DLM, so don't cause any change to the FEC/interleaving/banding settings for FTTC
- The ISP isn't able to alter any of the FEC/interleaving/banding settings *at all* for FTTC, either manually, automatically, or even over the phone to BTw or Openreach. Whatever the ISP sees cannot be fed back to control the line settings, and are *only* information for support staff.

We have seen plenty of occasions where using a different router has made the line sync much slower with no explanation why & the line management has kicked in randomly.

I haven't yet seen a case where line management has kicked in randomly. There have been lots of cases where it kicks in because of line errors, and only a handful of cases where DLM has kicked in due to real line problems. But none that are "just" random.

I haven't yet seen a case where using a different *router* has caused any change in the *line sync* - where the sync is held by the independent modem - especially as the modem stays synced while the router changes. We've certainly seen cases where the speed changes when the modem does (eg swapping Huawei to ECI, or swapping in a single combined box like the FritzBox), but never when the separate standalone router changes alone.

Nobody seems to know the true extent of the management on FTTC as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sure there are plenty of BT R+D staff who do know this, and Ofcom/NICC staff - I've read quite a lot of the documents they put out on the subject. However, we in the public domain do not know the full extent, for sure. We're learning, as people report more information in these forums.

However, the basics *are* covered in the BT SIN documents.

I haven't yet seen anything *at all* (let alone anything compelling) that suggests FTTC DLM is affected by the PPP sessions.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I have been doing just that for many years and for reasons above, without issue. It seems to be BT's inflexible systems that may have issue with it.

I agree - I've been turning modem/routers off on ADSL without ever triggering DLM there, and have also turned off the FTTC modem a good few times a day without ever triggering DLM there either. But then I always did both within reasonable limits, not excessively.

I understand the need for caution, though, and have certainly seen DLM intervene because of line errors.

I have an image that purports to show the BTw thresholds for ADSL2+. There the red threshold MTBR value, on a standard profile, is 144 minutes, or 2.4 hours. When averaged over 24 hours, that would be more than 10 resyncs before DLM intervenes. In reverse (the green threshold), DLM would have to see less than 5 per day before removing the intervention.