Interleaving on ADSL Max

I have a long, unstable line which was actually helped when ADSL Max came in, as it allows sync down to 160bps downstream. For a long time the profile was set by BT's automated system (the name of which I forget) to include interleaving. This is probably a good thing? However, for the last year or two it has invariably set as Fast Path. When I asked my ISP (now assimilated into Talktalk Business) to change the profile to interleaved, they said they could not do this as it was entirely under the control of BT's automatic system.

Now I was aware that some people who preferred Fast Path for latency reasons were upset in the past as this was automatically changed to interleaved, but I was unaware of the opposite change being automatically applied. Are Talktalk right (it had to happen sometime ...)? Or is there any advantage to Fast Path I haven't thought of, such as allowing lower sync speeds?

I thought I would ask the experts here to get my facts straight, before perhaps taking it up in an ISP forum.

Many thanks

Roger

Your ISP is talking rubbish.

The BT Wholesale DLM (Dynamic Line Management) can be set to Auto or Interleaved, that being a setting the ISP can select. Normally at initial setup time. IIRC it can also be set to Fast Path, but in severe problem cases it will still switch to Interleaved.

Once it is set, or switches to, interleaved it never automatically switches back to Fast Path.

You say your ISP is now part of TalkTalk Business. Is TalkTalk present at your exchange? Samknows is the best place to check, using your phone number. If you post the URL of the result that would be best for us.

Does this checker recognise your phone number, and is so what does it say please?

Finally, does the BT Performance Checker work for you? If it does, can you continue from the initial results to the Further Diagnostics near the bottom of the page. Then copy and paste the contents of the two results text boxes .

The above will confirm whether you are still on a BT Wholesale service in the first place, and give us useful diagnostics if you are.

Only BT is present at my exchange, and that reluctantly! The last few nights the POTS line has been going down for an hour or so at 1am, I think they reckon rural people don't use the phone at night. (not relevant to current issue) WNCER

In reply to a post by rogerh:

I have a long, unstable line which was actually helped when ADSL Max came in, as it allows sync down to 160bps downstream. For a long time the profile was set by BT's automated system (the name of which I forget) to include interleaving. This is probably a good thing? However, for the last year or two it has invariably set as Fast Path. When I asked my ISP (now assimilated into Talktalk Business) to change the profile to interleaved, they said they could not do this as it was entirely under the control of BT's automatic system.

I think that I have heard that once a line is changed from interleaved to fastpath, usually manually by an ISP, some(?) ISP's can not manually reverse it back to interleaved.

Speedtest: DL 0.01, UL 0.00, Latency 38.38ms Further diagnostics: "an error occurred" and a suggestion to rerun test. Not very helpful I know, but this is a rather marginal line. Officially condemned as unusable by BT.

Is that "can't" or "won't", I can see them not wanting to be bothered? But I certainly never asked them to change it in the first place.

In reply to a post by rogerh:

When I asked my ISP (now assimilated into Talktalk Business) to change the profile to interleaved, they said they could not do this as it was entirely under the control of BT's automatic system.

I suggest that finding you are using an ISP whose support haven't a clue what they are talking about on such a basic matter is a strong hint to change ISP!

They'll have been trained only on TalkTalk LLU, with just a rudimentary briefing on the BT Wholesale option they under-provision.

Which explains it, but is far from an acceptable excuse by the company.

Xilo/uno TTB partial LLU:

"Broadband Interleaving

New lines are set to 'Auto' which is our recommended setting.

If interleaving has been applied due to poor line conditions, we can remove this to lower latency for gaming by setting 'Opt Out' or if you would like better stability over latency, please set to 'Opt In'.

[If] We are unable to determine the current status of interleaving on your line.

If you would like to make a change, please complete the form below and your request will be actioned manually."

Edited by 4M2 (Sat 14-Sep-13 16:54:26)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

New lines are set to 'Auto' which is our recommended setting.

If interleaving has been applied due to poor line conditions, we can remove this to lower latency for gaming by setting 'Opt Out' or if you would like better stability over latency, please set to 'Opt In'.

Opt in would be appropriate on a very long line.