Connection has suddenly become less reliable

I�ve been on Sky unlimited since they took over from O2 in March this year. My connection speed after the first two weeks has always been slightly over 22000, attenuation about 18 and noise margin about 3. Speedtest has shown speed of around 19M download, upload always at 1.1M. The connection has stayed up for weeks, sometimes months at a time.

On 26 October after the connection had been active continuously for 61 days it dropped and reconnected at the old speed, but then started dropping and reconnecting every few days, connection speed dropped a little to slightly under 22000 instead of just over, but attenuation and noise margin remained around 18 and 3 as before. On 4 November the router rebooted overnight, about 5am not by me so I guess remotely.

System stayed up for over five days, connected at 21840, attenuation 18.0, noise margin 3.1 until three days ago. Since then connection has been dropped and reconnected each day around 2:15 am, connection speed has dropped to 19840, attenuation remains at 18 but noise margin has gone up to 6.1. Speeedtest showed a speed today of 17.00M bursting at 17.20M. I guess that because the reconnection takes around 2 am this is due to Sky, not a fault. Nothing has changed at my end. Anyone any idea what is going on?

I'd guess that your line is slowly degrading and the DLM is adjusting your line speed to compensate.

Yes, it has degraded! But I was looking for a possible explanalion. Six years with Demon, followed by six years with O2 at their top connection speed, followed by six months with Sky without any blip or degredation, then a sudden degrade over a couple of weeks. There is usually a reason when things change for the worse.

In reply to a post by infracom:

There is usually a reason when things change for the worse.

It could just be weather effects. In the last 2 weeks the weather has become cold / freezing, and now its very wet. Both of these are not good for outdoor wires.

Also you may have more people nearby who have either bought broadband/ADSL or have gone faster/upgraded to VDSL (Fibre) type services and caused more cross talk.

Or there could be some old jelly-crimps in the wiring outside your property that are starting to open up.

Or probably more

Edited by jchamier (Wed 12-Nov-14 23:22:45)

Any explanation can only be guess work. Possibly corrosion on the dropwire, water in duct, bad joint somewhere, etc. not much you can do until you get audible noise on the line then your voice line supplier should fix it.

To follow up jchamier's comments regarding VDSL.

Keep in mind that every actual completion of VDSL provision to a customer requires the PCP (phone line distribution cabinet) to be opened up, the appropriate lines found, both the original phone line and the VDSL double-links.

If the FTTC provides say 100 VDSL signals, then the PCP has first to be opened to allow those links to be drawn in through underground ducts, from the FTTC.

Assuming that each customer-request for VDSL is completed individually, then potentially, the PCP would have to be opened up, disturbed etc 100 times. (Hopefully there may be some aggregation of those "jobs" - but no guarantee; and that would only reduce the openings, not the quantity of lines and the detailed work on them.

Prior to that, the PCP might not have been opened for years!

So a lot of handling and disturbance of other lines in the PCP, including possibly yours.

If you get the opportunity, watch it being done, in a vast range of weather, out in the open, awkward locations, vegetation growth etc.