Errored Seconds and Line Noise

I've got a some what flaky internet connection, help.

I've followed the advice that BT give about wiring (removed Sky, extensions, etc.), position of router and cycling the HUB, etc. I also have some line noise and so I did a line test through the BT website from another connection and it comes back that there is nothing wrong, BUT THERE IS!

I also get a fair number of errored seconds (and recently loss of framing and signal) which I've been told is a bad thing. Not sure how bad but from the notes I've taken over the last few weeks...

116 in 7 mins, sync 4896Kbps.
144 in 10 hours, sync 4896Kbps.
170 in 5.5 hours, sync 5728Kbps.
213 in 31.5 hours, sync 5728Kbps.

When I first moved into the property a few years ago I was told the line can support 5Mb even though I live just over 1km (2.25km by road) from the exchange. It is now listed as 4Mb and it seems to be getting slower and inconsistent...

22-10-2010 BT Speed Test at 23:40pm, Test1=490Kbps, Test3=674Kbps, Sync is 4896Kbps
23-10-2010 BT Speed Test at 00:25am, Test1=363Kbps, Test3=610Kbps, Sync is 4320Kbps
28-10-2010 BT Speed Test at 00:18am, Test1=756Kbps, Sync 4896Kbps
28-10-2010 BT Speed Test at 19:52pm, Test1=1779Kbps, Sync 5728Kbps
30-10-2010 BT Speed Test at 15:37pm, Test1=995Kbps, Sync 5248Kbps

I ran a speed test at 4 in the morning that returned 3666Kbps (WOW!) and I've had a couple of 2.7Mbps at more reasonable times but shortly afterwards the speed goes right back down again. Unless I get a sync speed in the high 4000s I don't get much above 1000Kbps most of the time. I can rarely watch YouTube and iPlayer vids without long buffering waits that make them unwatchable. Internet gaming is pretty poor experience as well. Webpage loads last week were like going back to 56K dial up.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

Can you post your line stats from your router?
the bits we need are : attenuation up/down sync speed up/down Snr up/down and of course the error count

Without those it's a bit difficult to see what is going on, it could be that bt's archaic DLM is at play and has increased the downstream snrm causing a lower sync speed, the poor throughput could be down to the bt network congestion/high contention ratios even the actual speed test site could be having issues

Edited by tommy45 (Sat 30-Oct-10 18:21:39)

Internet was off between 7pm and 1am last night (Friday), BT status line reported a problem in the north of England at the time. The HUB was previously on at 5728Kbps but has since resynced as it had to reconnect after BT's network problem. Router stats from Home HUB 2.0 (Type A)...

Connection information
Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 23:23:51
Downstream 5,248 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.1
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 8.9 dB / 25.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 43.0 dB / 28.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 19.8 dBm / 12.0 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 0
Loss of Signal (Local) 0
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 75240 / 0
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 44 / 2147480000
HEC Errors (Down/Up) nil / 0
Error Seconds (Local) 34

Clocked another 9 errored seconds since mid afternoon. The noise margin has been as high as 11-12 for a few weeks and has only just gone down to it's current level for the last few days. Before that happened the sync speed went 5000+ (5728Kbps peak) after I fitted a filtered face plate and short ADSL cable. Previously it was stuck mid 4000s. Thanks.

5248 down is a 5meg synch so should be getting throughput of at least 4 meg possibly even 4.5 but i cant remember the BRAS profile steps if you search the news section of the home page there is a link on it somewhere to the sych = bras profile

My IP Profile according to the BT Speed Test is 4000Kbps. A week ago It was showing as 3500Kbps. I recall it being 2000Kbps for a long time a couple of years ago even though I synced at about 4500Kbps.

Edited by Kail (Sat 30-Oct-10 20:10:34)

In reply to a post by geordiekris:

5248 down is a 5meg synch so should be getting throughput of at least 4 meg possibly even 4.5 but i cant remember the BRAS profile steps if you search the news section of the home page there is a link on it somewhere to the sych = bras profile

I have a table on this page.

Amazingly my IP profile has gone up again to 4500Kbps with a sync of 5248Kbps. Although I've had no chance to test it during the day the through put just after midnight seems OK. I'll run a few test again when I can.

Until the outage the other night I had recently had a few few syncs in the high 5000s almost 6000. Still getting a number of errored seconds which makes me think the line could do better than it is, any idea how to get rid of these?

Maybe the line can do 5Mb but has degraded with age? It is an old line, although I've not lived here that long I'm sure it was put in in the 80s sometime. It's has an old Telecom "T" in top right of box plus a 4 core wire whos colours match nothing I've read about telephone wiring. Although the wiring looks sound on the building, the poll outside is nothing but a bundle of looping wires and not very clean like the other polls in the street.

I'll get back with a few speed tests and see what it's like to use on the new settings.

34 errored seconds out of 23*3600=not very many really.

I guess so but what about...

Connection time 0 days, 0:06:50
Error Seconds (Local) 116

If I get higher volumes like that from time to time is that the source of the poor through put I've been experiencing? Having said that the connection seems a little quicker recently and hopefully it will continue to improve. How worried should I be about errored seconds and the volume of them?

All that means is that there was at least one error in each of those 116 seconds.

It doesn't mean 116 seconds of errors...