High packet loss on EE Broadband

Hi,

so, for a while now our broadband has been really bad for VoIP. I came across your Broadband Quality Monitor and this is the result for the last day:

My Broadband Ping

As you can see the packet loss is ridiculous. I should mention I'm not using the default EE router, but my own TP Link Archer D2.

Would anyone have any thoughts on what can be done about this?

Thanks in advance!

Is the packet loss present when you do out bound pings?

Have you confirmed the same problem when using the default EE router (in case its a weird bug in the Archer D2 firmware)

What sort of service is it and what are the DSL statistics like? e.g. if a long line with poor stats then it may be that the DLM systems need to slow you down more to improve packet level performance.

Thanks so much for your reply!

Yes, packet loss seems to be there both ways. However, it's difficult to get a long term measure of outbound loss, as any online tests I find only last a few seconds. Do you know something comparable to the BQM for outbound measurements were the measurements are taken over 24 hours or so?

I haven't yet had a chance to actually test with the default EE router, but I strongly suspect it will be the same as our problems with VoIP predate the switch to the Archer D2 - however, at that time I didn't know about the BQM.

It is an ADSL service, and I post the statistics below:

Text
1 23 45 6	.                       up      down Current Rate(kbps)      1148    5208Max Rate(kbps)          1148    6180 SNR Margin(dB)          5.9     10.7Line Attenuation(dB)    22.4    40.2 Errors(pkts)            3032    10086

I'm not too sure what those error packets refer to, nor what time frame they refer to, which makes them a bit meaningless, but they keep rising ...

I believe we are about a mile from the exchange and from what I gather the stats aren't ideal by any stretch, but they shouldn't on their own be responsible for such a bad line (this is more a question than a statement as I know too little about it ...)

I am actually just out of the contract with EE, so I am thinking about switching, but I'm not too sure if this might be a problem with the copper line, and therefore would be the same even with a new provider ...

I'm going to put in the EE router tonight and see what happens .

Stats suggest around 2.5 to 3km of telephone wire is involved, not the best but far from the worst.

A restart of the Archer should reset the error count, and if these are ticking up at a pace of a couple a minute then this may be the problem. Usual solution is slow down the line, i.e. set a 12 dB target noise margin.

One option you can try yourself is in the archer web interface to select ADSL2 mode (not ADSL and not ADSL2+ and not multi-mode) which might slow you down a little but will not push the line quiet so hard and may improve stability and packet loss.

It is possible the line is fine too, and the issue is noise somewhere, so the test things at the test socket that is part of the master socket and ensuring router is not sat on something electrically noisy.

Thanks again for your quick response!

I'll try setting the mode to ADSL2 for a day or two. I also have the following three options on the same page, that I'm not entirely sure what they actually mean:

Annex Type: Options are: "Annex A", or "Annex A/L/M".
Bit Swap: Options are: Enable or Disable
SRA: Options are: Enable or Disable

I have so far left these on their defaults but do you have any further suggestions? (I would also love to know what these actually mean for my own curiosity.)

The router is on the window sill. The only thing that might make some noise around there is the central heating, but that's been off for most of the day yesterday.

I did actually run a few test on the test socket but never saw any significant change (except for an ever so slightly improved nose margin).

For reference: these are the stats I'm getting now, right after switching to ADSL2 (interestingly the down rate is higher?!):

Text
1 23 45 6	.                       up      down Current Rate(kbps)      1128    5720Max Rate(kbps)          1136    6252 SNR Margin(dB)          5.9     9Line Attenuation(dB)    22.5    40.3 Errors(pkts)            3       78

Some explanations from the excellent Kitz website:-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats_explanation.htm

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats_errors.htm

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adsl_technology.htm

.

Oh, that's very informative! Thanks a lot! Something to read on the train home

I just wanted to post this here: The new graph after switching to ADSL 2:

My Broadband Ping

It's much better with virtually no packet loss. Had a decent (actually pretty good) facetime experience yesterday again for the first time in weeks, so I am very grateful for your advice! Thank you very much!

that was extremely fascinating to read. thank you very much!

So, for my specifc question it seems that I should definitely leave Bit Swap and SRA enabled (although at least the latter shouldn't make any difference, unless EE upgraded their equipment to support it, but you never know)

What I'm still not entirely sure on is the Annex Mode. I have currently set this to 'A' as this is the default, and from what I can gather that seems to be what it should be for a standard ADSL line. However, do you think I might get an even better line by switching to the mixed Annex Mode, especially as I'm quite far from the exchange, which Mode L is supposed to help with?

EE (formerly Orange) broadband is actually run by BTwholesale I believe, and so uses the BT equipment in the exchange, not EE's own.

Annex A is all these support, and don't support SRA sadly. (technically Annex M is available on some but only if you are very very close to the exchange, and I doubt EE support this option).