BT Broadband Woes

Hi,

I am having woes with my BT Broadband Connection and am having absolutely zero joy in plotting a path through the indian call centre scripted process.

It all began about 7 days ago when both my telephone stopped working and my broadband speed collapsed to about 100kbps DL

I actually didnt notice the landline issue (I barely use it) so I reported the fault as a broadband speed issue.

To be fair to BT they diagnosed the broader issue and raised a fault on the PSTN line which an engineer came out to look at and got my telephone working again by recapping the cable on the last hop on the street just outside my house.

This however has left me with broadband that is still incredibly unusably slow. Looking at the information I have available to me it seems to be due in my eyes due to an ongoing low SNR on a degraded line that has been made good enough for a phone call but not to provide a decent broadband connection speed.

I have captured some stats from the HH2 for those interested

VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.5
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 30.6 dB / 5.8 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 39.5 dB / 20.9 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 20.5 dBm / 12.4 dBm

Download speedachieved during the test was - 211 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 100-500 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :572 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 852 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 350 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 1.35:11.5:87.48 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
These figures represent the ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE and Priority BE marked traffic.

The results of this test will vary depending on the way your ISP has decided to use these traffic classes

xDSL linestate up (ITU-T G.992.5; downstream: 575 kbit/s, upstream: 854 kbit/s; output Power Down: 20.6 dBm, Up: 12.4 dBm; line Attenuation Down: 39.5 dB, Up: 20.9 dB; snr Margin Down: 5.0 dB, Up: 29.5 dB)

The call centre seem to be telling me they think the problem is one dealt with by BT wholesale and that they as my ISP cannot help me. As far as I can tell from the BT wholesale website however they dont deal with the general public. What do I need to say to these people to get a BT wholesale engineer to come and fix the line ?

They have already done something called an extended diagnosis ? However the call centre guy said he couldnt see the results of it on his system.

It is all getting rather frustrating as each time I ring I have to spend a good 30 mins running through the standard call centre checks including replacing microfilters, unscrewing faceplate on wall connection to connect to "test socket" etc. which seems pretty pointless at this stage.

Edited by deleted (Sat 16-Apr-11 11:08:59)

Never heard the term "recapping" before, but the initial fault shouts "one wire of the pair that, (via several junction points), connects the master socket to the exchange has come adrift".

That is what happens - the phone stops and the bb goes extremely slowly.

So is the phone still working? Can you hear any noise if you connect just a (preferably corded) phone into the test socket and do the Quiet line test, 17070 Option 2?

I did the quiet line test (I only have DECT phone though) and the line sounds quiet.

Maybe I got the term wrong but when the engineer came he pulled a bundle of cables out of a manhole cover each consisting of a pair of wires presumably one pair for each house and replaced the plastic end bit on my pair of wires and then checked for a dial tone on the line.

Edited by deleted (Sat 16-Apr-11 11:19:05)

You'd think that would sort it then. "Re-crimped" perhaps, as the joining things are called crimps.

If there is no noise on a DECT phone things should be OK. The reason for a corded one being better for the test is that a DECT phone itself can create audible noise, so confuse the issue.

However, audible noise doesn't have any direct bearing on ADSL-frequency noise, which is the first suspect when you get an very abnormal connection speed like yours. It's just a fact that if there is a line fault causing audible noise then it is almost certainly also causing ADSL noise, and it is far simpler and easier to get voice faults repaired, and in consequence the broadband problem is also solved. So we always check for it first.

So although the phone now works and you can't hear noise doesn't mean to say that re-crimped joint is now perfect, or that some other issue isn't causing trouble.

For example, I wonder how your connection got loosened. Let's just consider one possibility - 3 pairs in that bunch. "A", (yours), "B" and "C".

1) - "A" and "B" are in use with no problems. "C" is not in use.
2) - A new phone is installed somewhere. The bunch is lifted out for "C" to be connected. "A" and "B" for some reason get an abnormal physical load put on them. In everyday english, the bunch gets tugged. One wire of your pair and one of pair "B" get loosened.
3) - "A" finally gives up the ghost and later gets repaired.

Ongoing, perhaps "B" is now generating ADSL-frequency noise which because it is so close to "A" puts interference on your line. Or even some other pair got dislodged when "A" was repaired. And so on and so on ... .

So it looks like you are now going to have a fair bit of hassle I'm afraid, but at the moment can't think of a solution.

A more encouraging thought.

Come Monday some BT_Care reps will probably be around here and may pick up this thread. It might be an idea to PM BT_Care now, as I expect they have it set to notify them by email when that happens.

These people are hot stuff!

In the meantime you could also try normal support again and ask them to compare your connection speed with the FTR for your line. (If you PM BT_Care, mention it there as well).

Unless you can get up the chain a bit to one or two levels higher phone support almost certainly won't know what the FTR is, but you will once you have read this page on my website.

Whatever they are telling you about contacting BT Wholesale, that is their job not yours. Quite categorically!

My guess, FWIW, the sync rate has been capped due to the original fault, (30db downstream SNR) and joy of joys, it's not come back off on it's own. If you have no joy with the BT Care on here, then start throwing your toys out of the pram with BT Broadband, if needs must get them to send an Openreach ADSL engineer out.

I am told by BTCare that the problem is caused by the call centre in india who kept asking me to reboot the hub.

This apparently has caused the exchange to suspect my link to be flapping and has caused it to downgrade my connection.

Apparently if I wait 5 days it should sort itself out.

current stats after waiting nearly 2 days show no change i.e.

ine state Connected
Connection time 1 day, 7:40:52
Downstream 575 Kbps
Upstream 848 Kbps

ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.5
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 29.8 dB / 4.8 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 39.5 dB / 20.9 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 20.5 dBm / 12.4 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 0
Loss of Signal (Local) 0
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 163 / 341
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 0 / 2147480000
HEC Errors (Down/Up) nil / 83710
Error Seconds (Local) 0

How likely is it to recover from this point without intervention is it felt ?

Well unless things have been changed recently, IIRC 15dB is the maximum value for sync-time margin that the DLM will set. If I remember incorrectly, then 18dB, but certainly no higher than that.

A noise margin of 30dB implies huge noise at the time the connection was made, and that the huge noise then ceased.

Chances of it automatically correcting itself? Very low indeed. Though if the setting is 12/15/18dB, then 10-14 days clean connection can cause an automatic lowering by 3dB to 9/12/15 and a re-sync. Which would get rid of the 30dB currently showing.

I have a feeling you didn't get one of the BT_Care reps that come on here.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 18-Apr-11 16:37:25)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

A noise margin of 30dB implies huge noise at the time the connection was made, and that the huge noise then ceased.

Or line is being capped @ 0.5 Meg?

quote]Or line is being capped @ 0.5 Meg?
Maybe, although the stats included in the original post said:

Your DSL Connection Rate :572 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 852 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
                          ^^^

Fixed 512kbps is a 576kbps sync isn't it?