In reply to a post by Bald_Eagle1:

However, there is a way a user can limit sync speeds that will actually increase SNRM, but to a still variable level.

Ooo really. How would I do that?

If you ask Les-70 in the Kitz forum, he'll give you the detailed instructions, much better than any explanation I could give you.

Doesn't work on the HG612

Spoke to an OR lad this morning.

He both recognised what I meant when i mentioned "TDR" to him; and he had two in his van.

One was an older one, which he preferred, the later one looked "fancier".


I also had a demonstration of"gel" crimps, as I had not actually encountered them when I retired some 15 years back, although we see them mentioned often now.

He very much likes them; and apparently has been instructed to replace any older "dry", blue-insulated ones, on lines he is working on.

I guess even if one has a good D-Side line on ADSL2+ that's no garantee of good performance on FTTC VDSL? For example the BT Availability Checker may give impacted "Line Rate" ranges of 80 - 70.2 and 20 - 17.9 but is that really reliable?

Think I would go for a 40/20 product, e.g. Plusnet's speed limited 80/20 deal, initially and see how it goes by monitoring the BT profile...getting a SFI out in order to squeeze perhaps an additional 30Mbps out of a line could be too much of a hassle.

Around 8am an engineer arrived at my neighbours house (my broadband is "activated" on her telephone number so he had her address and telephone number but my name). She directed him to my house and he was around for well over an hour. His tests were failing because the exchange wasn't testing my line it was testing my neighbour's line. He got it to sync using his equipment and he saw 8000 CRC errors. He went to the street cabinet to test and when he came back he said he couldn't see any issues but he had crimped some connections as it might fix the fault especially as the cabinet can get very hot on a hot day like we have had recently. He tested the sync and CRC errors using his equipment again and this time there was 0 CRC errors so he was hopeful that would be it fixed. He did a DLM reset using his iPhone and showed me the sync at 80/20 with 0 CRC errors. He hooked up the Home Hub 5 and I logged into the HomeHub 5 using my phone and confirmed it was back to a good speed:

4. Board version: BT Hub 5A
5. VDSL uptime: 0 days, 00:4:12
6. Data rate: 20000 / 79995
7. Maximum data rate: 24984 / 82376
8. Noise margin: 9.3 / 7.5
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 17.1
10. Signal attenuation: 0.0 / 17.1

I told the engineer what I knew about the fault and mentioned what had been said in this forum. He was surprised said it's usually the other way around where rain usually is the cause of HR faults.

The engineer also explained that because BT haven't actually found a fault using their system he couldn't do much. Something about the engineer is visiting only because the customer is reporting a fault and only very basic checks can be performed. He also wasn't intending to do the DLM reset as his notes said don't do a DLM reset but I think he felt the fault might be fixed now so he did it anyway. I had suggested to an offshore level 2 manager a few days ago that I'd rather not have a DLM reset until the fault is at least recognised by Openreach and will be properly dealt with as my family complain when the internet frequently disconnects so it looks like comments can be passed from offshore support to the Openreach team.

A couple of hours after he left the internet disconnected and so I checked the phone line and crackling/popping noise was present but only for a short while. The internet has disconnected many times since so I installed RouterStatsHub 5A to graph the noise margin changes:

http://s9.postimg.org/66uvajzz3/RSHub_Noise_Margin_2...

When the phone rings or hangs up the internet disconnects almost every time again so the fault is at it's worst already. It's been a hot sunny day today which could be why it's gone faulty so quickly as the last couple of days there was some rain which coincided with it not disconnecting much.

Here is an example of one of the resyncs. It's just like what would happen when noise was on the line before the engineer visit so it appears the crimping didn't fix it:

5. VDSL uptime: 0 days, 00:26:46
6. Data rate: 19645 / 28156
7. Maximum data rate: 20107 / 30634
8. Noise margin: 6.4 / 7.3
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 21.1
10. Signal attenuation: 0.0 / 21.2

Yesterday I spoke to BT's offshore support a couple of times to raise a complaint about my neighbour receving calls about my broadband fault. The offshore level 1 manager I spoke to I requested a transcript of all records and notes etc held by BT and Openreach for my account but she was already quite angry because I wasn't understanding her telling me there is no complaints department in BT. Eventually she said I have to speak to BT's legal team if I want access to notes etc.

Next I spoke to someone in BT's UK team. I am not sure how it happened but it was suggested the high number of calls to BT's offshore support over the last few weeks meant the system routed my call to them? The UK high priority team now have an open case for my fault so I won't have to talk with the offshore team anymore. I haven't spoken to my case handler yet but as it's the weekend it's expected the 48 hours will mean I will receive a call on Monday or Tuesday.

BT's offshore level 1 phoned me about an hour ago saying the fault has been cleared can I confirm everything is working and he wasn't too impressed when I told him it wasn't fixed and I should monitor it for 24 hours as it can take a while to stabilise. I said there was intermittent crackling/popping noise on the line and he confirmed the notes show the UK team would be dealing with it from now on so he ended the call.

I heard bursts of noise with only a corded phone connected to the test socket. I was told I could be charged if my equipment was the cause of the fault but I'm reasonably confident I don't have a faulty corded phone.

No disconnections for over an hour but no phone line usage either. The downstream noise margin has steadily decresed from 9 to 3.3:

5. VDSL uptime:0 days, 01:24:31
6. Data rate:20000 / 42934
7. Maximum data rate:19523 / 29736
8. Noise margin:5.0 / 3.3
9. Line attenuation:0.0 / 20.6
10. Signal attenuation:0.0 / 20.7

I used my mobile to call the land line and the broadband disconnected when I answered:

6. Data rate:20000 / 65299
7. Maximum data rate:22987 / 67124
8. Noise margin:6.5 / 7.1
9. Line attenuation:0.0 / 18.2
10. Signal attenuation:0.0 / 18.2

Have you used the automated phone line checker? https://www.bt.com/consumerFaultTracking/public/faul...

In reply to a post by os1:

... he confirmed the notes show the UK team would be dealing with it from now on so he ended the call.

Best of luck: the last time I dealt with a BT Retail UK based faults team they told me the only way they could communicate with Openreach was via email...

Sounds to me like you just have a voice fault BT side of the NTE5 which is causing problems with the broadband and that needs attention.