BT_Care - Please Help!

Hi!
If anyone from BT_Care is able to help me, I'd be most grateful. You were of great assistance to me 3 months ago when I suffered some speed problems with my BT broadband connection. Unfortunately the problems seemed to have returned.

Having been able to connect at 1248kbps since late Feb 2011 I have been enjoying the maximum 1meg broadband that I can expect with my connection. I have been on a 1mb IP profile and for the first 30days (up to around 30 March) I was connected at 1248kbps with no drop of connection. After 30 Days the connection dropped to 1172kbps which was OK as it still kept me in the 1meg IP profile. Unfortunately in the last few weeks my connection has become less reliable, dropping more frequently and I dropped to 1152kbps and finally in the last few days to 1120kbps which has now dropped me down to the lower 7?0k IP profile. Not a big difference but on such a low connection, so far from the exchange a drop to a lower IP profile makes a huge difference!

I have not made any changes to my setup in any way so all I can think is that may be something has happened at the exchange? I enclose the previous email thread back in February below if that would help? My current stats are also posted:

ADSL line status
Connection information
Line state
Connected
Connection time
0 days, 0:28:30
Downstream
1,120 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)
6.1 dB / 6.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up)
63.5 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up)
14.8 dBm / 12.4 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local)
0
Loss of Signal (Local)
0
Loss of Power (Local)
0
FEC Errors (Down/Up)
133899 / 0
CRC Errors (Down/Up)
41 / 2147480000
HEC Errors (Down/Up)
nil / 0
Error Seconds (Local)
1

... I've emailed BT_Care direct too just in case but have a feeling that I can't open a new support call that was and in fact the only way to do it is if I post on this board - I could be wrong?

Many thanks in advance!
Andrew Rogers

Edited by deleted (Sun 15-May-11 21:47:01)

You are being hit by noise ... possibly just occasional burst which cause the loss of sync and if the noise is still present a lower sync speed and thus profile.

If the line can remain stable and not resync for 5 days you should see the profile climb back up.

Have you installed any new electric equipment recently? or for example; How close to the fridge/freezer is the line and modem?

Hi MHC,
Thanks for the advice. I had considered that it could be noise but absolutely nothing has changed. My phone line is about 5 meters from the fridge and nothing has changed in this area anyway - absolutely nothing has been installed. If anything, I would ave expected the chances of noise occuring to have dropped between February and now as the nights have got lighter and less street lights, house lights etc..

What I don't get is how I can have 30days of stable connection at 1248kbps only for it to drop gradually over the last 2 months to 1120kbps and only hold sync for about 10-12days maximum. Not holding sync isnt so bad as long as when it does drop it resyncs at 1152 or over to keep me in the 1meg IP profile. Now my sync has droped below 1152 I'm back on the lower profile. Even if I do temporarily resync at 1152kbps I'm only just qualifying for a 1meg IP profile and I'd still need to hold sync for ab out a week before my profile wuill go back up again.

What I'm hoping BT can help me with is to get back up to a sybc rate of 1248kbps - it was obviously possible to hold sync for 30days at that rate a few months back and so it should still be possible now. I believe that they changed my Target SNR a few months back - this may have helped?

Thanks,
Andrew

Just a tiny point of information.

The higher the sync the lower the stability. As yours is a very fragile connection your optimum sync is 1152kbps. There is no advantage to 1248kbps, and a small instability disavantage.

There is no point in sync'ing above the minimum for your highest attainable IP Profile.

Why you no longer sync at 1248kbps is another matter. It could simply be a new broadband user on the same cable from your cabinet to wherever the two circuits separate. I get a drop of 0.4dB noise margin when a neighbour fed from the same pole turns his router on. So if it is on when I connect, I sync slower on ADSL2+ by 150-200kbps than if it isn't.

Edit - typo.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 16-May-11 13:37:20)

Hi MKAndrew

Hey of course I can help, If you send me your details via http://tinyurl.com/5sy8kmx I will gladly look into this for you

Regards David

Hi David,
Many thanks for your knd offer to help. I've provided the details that you need at the URL you supplied. I think this is everything you need. Many thanks again...

Kind Regards
Andrew

As the weather is warming up the copper joints are slowly expanding thus causing those of us on long lines issues i allways find that in the cold weather my line is much more stable.

In reply to a post by geordiekris:

As the weather is warming up the copper joints are slowly expanding thus causing those of us on long lines issues i allways find that in the cold weather my line is much more stable.

Not sure of the severity of that effect...

but if we're looking into this at such depth then it may be worth considering two other temperature related effects:

1. Resistance of a conductor (copper/ali) increases with temperature. Negligable in underground cables where the temperature is less affected by weather, but overhead cables heat up/cool down rapidly as they are directly exposed to the weather.
2. The nearby fridge will be working harder in the hot weather, causing the compresor to run more often and for longer.

But we're probably over analysing this

I might be seeing the effects of it here the last few days my upstream has gone from a lovely stable 12db SNR @ 1Mbit to struggling to hold 900KBit with 0-6db SNR, errors all ove the place and constant re-syncs

What router do you use at present?

My std. advice is to try a 2Wire 2700HGV for a tenner from eBay. They can often drag a higher sync out of the line.