Sky Woes Already.

I currently have my line rental with Sky and internet with Xilo (C&W LLU).

I placed the other for Sky on the 4th Oct and they informed me that my line will have fiber installed on Thursday 25th Oct.

Since signing up to go with Sky Fiber I have found my internet connection has been horrendous - gone from downstream attenuation of 61db - to 71db. I raised a fault as their was noise on the telephone, engineer came out last week - found a fault but didn't fix it, just had another engineer out this morning, found another fault changed pair and now my downstream attenuation is at 66dB, stats below are with no snr tweaking, that snr looks incredibly low considering the sync speed.

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1020 kbps 414 kbps
Line Attenuation 66.0 db 41.7 db
Noise Margin 4.1 db 14.7 db

Previous connection stats prior to order of Fiber!
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3454 kbps 763 kbps
Line Attenuation 61.0 db 37.9 db
Noise Margin 6.2 db 6.0 db

I have spoken to Sky talk and apparently I went over to their network on the 19th - hence the disconnection of broadband, however why are my stats worse on their network? Different route to exchange? Gone from 61db to 66dB - Slightly annoying and I don't know how this will affect my Fiber install.

They have already ceased my line and killed my broadband connection on the 19th - leaving me without internet connectivity for nearly a week. - Xilo have confirmed this and stated that the WLR portal confirms it.

Is this normal?

Can anyone shed any light on why there may be a big change in downstream att, also why they've disconnected a week ahead of my activation date.

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Oct-12 12:10:41)

The Sky order and the fault are probably just a coincidence. It's probably nothing to do with the Sky order.
& the issues you are having which have been involving engineer visits etc have probably caused the cease to occur.

An increase from 61 to 66db is slightly higher than expected. Basically Sky might be using ADSL 2 + whereas Xilo may not have. This could account for a jump in the attenuation.
Also the fault may have required work which made the line longer. E.g. putting you on a different cable to the exchange etc.

Any changes in line length is probably something from green cab to the local exchange.
On fibre none of this is likely to make a difference.

This is my view on the situation. You are linking the fault and the switch to Sky whereas both should be viewed independently.

Ok - thanks taking the time to reply.

I think it's highly coincidental that the lines been working fine for 2 years, yet within a week of placing the order my line starts messing up (I was on holiday 6th-13th Oct and didn't know the line had started playing up until my return).

Like you say, I think I'll have to wait until Thursday on the install to see how that goes, I'll be using my phone on three as my modem until then.

I forced modulation to ADSL2 on Xilo (runs at 1.1mhz instead of 2.2 which ADSL2+ utilizes so got less feedback) I haven't changed anything on the router stats provided above, so it is probably on adsl2+, this only made about 1dB of difference on the line though.

They said they changed the "D side" which is the cabling between me and the cab, the engineer last week changed the "E side" - cab to exchange? Attenuation has been poor since the first visit which would've been the "E side". Hopefully this will not affect FTTC when connected Thursday.

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Oct-12 12:55:09)

ADSL 2+ added 3db to my line which was only around 28db.

Stop worrying too much about it. It'll work out ok. Your attenuation now bares very little link to your fibre speeds. E.g. those on lines of 25db attenuation can get slower fibre speeds than those on 78db lines.

The engineer changed the E / D side which shows the fault between the exchange and your property. Any work Sky carry out will be actually inside the exchange / the fibre cab. Not on this stretch of cable...

So in all likelihood this was completely unrelated to the switchover. It was a fault on your line between your house to the exchange. This is the same line which has probably been there for 50+ years. Sky haven't decided to dig roads up to tamper with this. It's a coincidental situation.

The downtime is unfortunate but I'm betting that the engineers visiting are the reason why. I would check with Sky that everything is ok obviously. Ask to speak with the fibre team.

Once installed it's a great service.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 22-Oct-12 13:04:24)

Again thanks for replying!

I'll wait until Thursday then, think I am fretting too much in advance.

Nearly spot on in the line estimation of 50 years, house was built in 1960

Order is all due to go ahead with a visit from BT between 8-1 Thursday.

Is it worth using your own router with them? Was thinking the Netgear WNDR3400 N600 with DD WRT instead of their Sagem FAST 2504N.

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Oct-12 13:26:52)

In reply to a post by benbird7:

Is it worth using your own router with them? Was thinking the Netgear WNDR3400 N600 with DD WRT instead of their Sagem FAST 2504N.

Don't waste your money. With the Sagem Fast 2504N if you have a decent wifi card you can pull 76Mbps via Wifi. That's the maximum I get on the 80Mbps speed. I've never tried a home network transfer (probably a little more). You need a wifi card in your PC that supports 150Mbps / 144 Mbps in single channel. Virtually all macbooks have this and quite a few PCs.

I tried a netgear 3700 which is apparently slightly better than the 3400. The range was less than the Sky router with a couple of dead spots which the Sky router covered no issue (with 3 bars).
The 5ghz is absolutely pants (basically anything more than 1 wall isn't any benefit).

I'd not waste the money. If you do go via that route get a router on ebay. Compare it side by side to the Sky one - you'll then probably sell it and keep the sky one.

I've had over 3000 hours uptime (power cut turned it off then) on the Sky router with over 10 devices connected and sometimes as many as 20. Even then it barely heats up. It's a basic router yes but it does the job very well.

Set the Wifi to WPA2 AES only as a precaution. Anything less doesn't make use of the full speeds.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 22-Oct-12 13:47:48)

Your a handy man to know!

Thanks for responding as always and good to note that I should have a hassle free connection, plug and playing as they want me to do with the Fast router!

My router was plugged in behind a washing machine and now behind a wardrobe. So never gets a turn off. Hassle free. Perhaps (dare I say it) the best router I've ever owned.

I've tried out a DG834G, DG834N, DGN2000, Orange brightbox, WNDR3700, Belkin N1 vision, Belkin N750db, WNDR3300. Possibly some more. I used to get them free through work...
I'm quite content with this. I don't need all the fancy pants business just want it to work perfectly. & it does.

I had a play with my wireless channels and found it made a huge difference so give that a shot too. Try 1, 6 and 11.

I had a quick look on wifi analizer for android, most the local wireless routers are between channels 1-8 so 11 seems a good option for the wireless setting. I have heard to turn WPS off to, as this is a possible security issue.

I hope they put me straight onto the 40/10 rather than the old 40/2 product too!

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Oct-12 17:24:34)