Regular disconnects

Hello all,

New BT ADSL customer here, having been happy with Zen for years but Home Office prices for a 2.5meg connection (2.5 miles from cab) couldn't be justified any longer.

So on Tuesday I became a BT customer and I was initially pleased with the 4.5meg connection speed but the stability is questionable.

Between 7 and 8 every night, the connection becomes slower and slower before crapping out. The blue light remains solid on the Hub4 and the hub settings page doesn't report any issues. A quarter of an hour of web page timeouts pass before I relent and re-start the hub via the settings page and all becomes well.

The hub is in the corner of the house connected to the master socket with a newly supplied filter. There's a SkyHD box, an XBoxOne and a Boxee next to it. No equipment in the house cycles at that time of night.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Microfilters and phone extensions - got any?

Routers amongst a pile of other electrical equipment can cause problems, and if you've gone from ADSL to ADSL2+ (hinted at by extra speed) you may be more prone to noise.

This is probably a hub4 problem, if you can go back to your previous hardware and keep the hub4 as a spare.

Tried router connected directly to the test socket?

Personally I don't believe in microfilters, preferring dual faceplate on the master socket where broadband is completely separated from rest of the phone system in the house

Your symptoms are typical of broadband connections in the evening and from dire experience over the years my own solution turned out to be a top quality faceplate as described above together with a top quality Billion router with a broadcom chip. You'll still get the evening slowdown but the router will hold onto the connection

Of course they aren't cheap, so buy online from a reputable supplier where you can return if things don't pan out as you hoped

Keep in mind that the Filters, whether Faceplate or Dangly, are to prevent the (modern) BB High Frequency signals interfering with the (generally older) Phone equipment.

There is NO FILTERing on the "Broadband" wiring coming from the Faceplate or the Dangly version - that wiring is "Straight-Through", so has the same mix of signals, both BB and Phone, as the BT/OR phone lines coming from the PCP to your house.

Checked both by Circuit Diagram and by taking a "Dangly" Filter/Splitter apart to trace the internal wiring.

But an unfiltered phone can cause your broadband to error.

Are there any diagnostics I can run, like RouterStats, for the Hub4 when the connection is flakey?

A copy/paste of the connection speed, attenuation and noise margin figures will be a start, no need to go with extra software just yet.

20:13:42, 28 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=4960Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.3dB, Up=15.0dB

19:32:40, 27 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=4992Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.3dB, Up=14.0dB

13:13:31, 26 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=5824Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.6dB, Up=15.0dB

21:07:46, 25 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=4576Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.0dB, Up=15.0dB

0:20:39, 25 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=4672Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.7dB, Up=15.0dB

11:14:59, 25 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=5824Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.8dB, Up=15.0dB

15:59:01, 24 Nov. DSL Link Up: Down Rate=5472Kbps, Up Rate=448Kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.1dB, Up=15.0dB

HH4 doesn't give up it's attenuation.

Agreed

I was simply trying to convey that the supposedly BB "Modem" side of of any such filter still has both the BB signals and the (voice) Phone signals present, whilst it is the Phone side that, subject to the performance of the filter, has Phone signals only.

I was not suggesting that he should normally use an unfiltered phone, such as would happen if a simple Phone Splitter was used.

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After I had ordered an upgrade to VDSL in May 2014, whilst waiting for it to take place, I initially intended to replace the higgledy-piggledy wiring that had "grown" over the years from "Dial-up" days, to my Modem/router location, with a proper cable; but decided to leave it until I saw the performance with the upgraded VDSL.

The upgrade took place on 4th June 2014; and I actually watched the technician carrying it out at "my" PCP.

Swapped from the ADSL Router/modem to the recently delivered VDSL version, EE Bright Box 2.

On a 40/10 contract, I have been getting around 36 Mbps, with a Downstream Attenuation of -15.3 dbs, over about 300 Metres from the FTTC via the PCP etc.

More recently, on 16th November 2015, I installed a new, proper cable from the ancient, simple, NTE to the Bright Box 2, 10 Metres, following basically the same run within the house; but slightly more tidily, probably resulting in about 1 Metre longer, than the original "Mare's nest".

As it is a simple NTE, no Test Socket or Filter/removable faceplate, I simply inserted a labelled "VDSL" Filter/Splitter directly in the NTE, the new cable going in to its straight-through "VDSL" socket, whilst the original phone/modem general wiring went into the filtered "Phone" socket.

But I also left all the other ADSL Splitters/Dongles at each of the various phone connections throughout the house, so the working phones are all now "double-filtered", whilst I can revert easily to the original wiring for the modem, if I ever consider it necessary.

Although the Downstream Attenuation improved slightly from -15.3 to -13.5 dbs, the Downstream speed decreased slightly to about 35.5 Mbps, whilst the Upstream improved very slightly from typically 0.9 Mbps to 1.0 Mbps.

On Friday, 27th November 2015, immediately before installing a "Smart" TV, I checked the speeds again without any changes to the "new" wiring etc. (The Smart TV connects by WiFi.)

Downstream had improved to about 37 Mbps typically, Upstream remained around 1.0 Mbps; and there was a slight improvement in the Downstream Attenuation, from -13.5 to -13.4 Mbps

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On the WiFi side, I have 300 Mbps available on the 2.5 GHz band; and another 800 Mbps on the 5 GHz band, using ACRYLIC ( and previously inSSIDer 2) to monitor those.

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Thanks