BT Total BB - 5 months of hell (HomeHub 3 Stats)

Hi, I moved house about 6 months ago and after a month my BT BB service was enabled. There were some initial problems with the stability which were traced to some suspect wiring inside the house but 2 different engineers on 2 different occasions supposedly fixed those issues.
I live in a pretty rural location although not too far from the nearest exchange and my line should support up to 5mbps although on the odd week the BB has behaved I have only seen around 3.8mbps - not a problem.
Over the last 5 months the broadband routinely drops out, then when it comes back on it is around 1.6mbps but after 12-24 hours it then settles at 300kbps. I have 4 engineers out who can find no problems inside the house and have also had a new HomeHub 3. The issue seems to be not so bad with the new router, although the speed now only clocks 2.6mbps and is very unstable - when playing on xbox live it disconnects me fairly frequently.

I thought I'd post the info from the router and see if it points anyone to what might be the issue. The 'Error Seconds' look pretty high to me but I have no idea what that figure actually means!!

All help greatly appreciated!

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 2 days, 23:49:45
Downstream: 5.313 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 9.5 dB / 21.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.9 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.6 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 1705639 / 250
CRC Events (Down/Up): 35730 / 166
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 164713 / 138
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 7211 / 156

What did the engineers do?

Line is supporting 5.3Meg, so they are meeting their promise, the estimates given are connection speed, not throughput promises.

The mode is saying it has been connected at 5.3Meg for almost three days. If XBox has been disconnecting in the last day or two then it is possible the problem is NOT ADSL related.

The error seconds show that an error was detected in 7211 seconds in the three day period, this errors were probably largely corrected, hence the FEC figure.

Based on your attenuation you are connecting at a slower than to be expected speed, so I would question whether the phone wiring has been resolved. Do you have a master socket, and if so, can you get the line stats when plugged into the internal test socket.

Your broadband connection has not dropped for 3 full days!

If these disconnections have been happening in the last 3 days - IT'S NOT THE BROADBAND! This hasn't gone off once.

However for the line attentuaton your speed should be ALOT better. This suggests your setup internally is incorrect.

If your setup is incorrect, the ONLY effect it's having is causing the router to sync at 5 meg, instead of a few meg higher. It's not causing the broadband to drop...

Based on the statistics your line is completely stable and is not dropping.

Also your sync is what BT have promised. 5 meg. As already stated, this is a connection speed. Expect to see around 60 - 80% of the connection speed. So around 3 - 5 meg is ok.

I think we need a few photos of your phone sockets and the wiring. So we can see how old the setup is. However the disconnections don't seem related to your broadband or setup.

EDIT: sorry to repeat what you've already said MrSaffron. Started my reply a while back & then had to pause in the middle.

Are you using wireless?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 04-Apr-11 18:26:30)

Thanks for the feedback both! Just to elaborate slightly:
- You are correct, I can see it hasn't dropped out in 3 days but I think the xbox problem might be an illustration that the speed drops too low to keep a connection to the servers?

- I have tried the router into the master socket and results do not vary

- The wiring in the house is Cat5

- BT engineers have done the following:
1st engineer - Disconnected 8 of the 11 sockets which were running off the master socket!! (no, I don't live in a mansion it's a tiny 3 bed semi but the guy who wired it obviously hadn't heard of wireless handsets!)
2nd engineer - Disconnected 1 more socket as he found a fault with what the other engineer had left
3rd engineer - Performed line test back to exchange, checked all internal wiring and micro filters and found no problems
4th engineer - Checked all internal wiring, micro filters & router & found no problems
5th engineer - Performed line test back to exchange, checked the router and internal wiring and replaced the router

- I am using wireless but ethernet offers no improvement

I now have a 'boost' engineer book for a visit on Thursday so am hoping that it might get resolved once and for all.

Thanks again for the advice,
Ed

I am thinking that the following has occurred however I COULD be wrong.... (I probably am)

Basically the master goes straight out of your household avoiding internal wiring. So nothing inside the property SHOULD interfere.

Additional phone sockets generally go past plug sockets, light cabling, pipe work (hot and cold) etc. The wiring to the master is generally very well shielded, however internal wiring is not.

This can mean that the line is perfectly stable for 10 days. Then suddenly you plug for instance an hoover into the socket which the wiring passes. This causes the router to drop sync from 5 meg to 0.3 meg - for example.

A desk lamp, electric heater or a mobile phone charger etc. may have no effect. It's completely random what's going to interfere. On the flip side, a mobile phone charger may create issues whereas the hoover might not...

The BT profile system works in a funny way.

Let�s work on the assumption of the hoover causing the issues. The hoover is plugged in a socket. The additional telephone sockets wiring passes this plug socket.

The hoover causes the sync to fall from 5 Meg to 0.3 Meg.

Later on you notice the speed is slow, and reboot the router. The router resyncs at 5 meg.

HOWEVER, by now the BT profile is set to 0.3 meg. Until the router remains connected for a FULL 4 days, you won�t see above 0.3 meg. After 4 days of constant connection the profile will reset to around 5 meg...

In a worst case scenario internal wiring may cause the noise margin to flap on a regular basis. This causes the noise margin target to be increased. If this occurs you can be waiting 14 days or longer for the speeds to increase.

USING THE MASTER

People who use additional sockets for the broadband regularly experience issues such as slow speeds etc.

They think, let�s try the master... They do a speed test and it's still slow. They think - It must not be the extension socket.

WRONG... By the time they use the master the BT profile has already been reduced. They need to leave the router in the master for 4 - 5 days to see the profile change. At this point it becomes clear that the extension was the issue all along. And guess what, their speeds never slow down again.

Right so; I'm going to ask you to do 3 things for me...

Can you take a photograph of the master socket? I have a feeling it's not going to be an NTE5 socket. If it is we can access the test socket. If not, shame

Can you run a speed test at http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ and copy and paste the results. This lets us see whether the BT profile has been affected.

Can you plug the Home hub into the master socket and copy and paste your statistics once again?


This lets us see how much the extensions affecting the line. E.g. if the noise margin changes, sync, attenuation etc.

ALSO I personally think the disconnections and the speed issues are two different things. Possibly a faulty xbox wifi adaptor or bad wifi channel

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 04-Apr-11 20:42:51)

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tools/bt-master-socket... - pictures of the various normal BT sockets

A useful trick to improve connection speeds.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.htm...

It is also totally feasible that the problems are just a busy BT network, I would suggest when using the XBox to leave a ping running on a PC (that is NOT using wireless), and if the XBox is using wireless to switch to Ethernet, and see if packets are being dropped out.

To run a ping continously
ping -t www.thinkbroadband.com

"After 4 days of constant connection the profile will reset to around 5 meg... " minor correction, big jumps in IP Profile should be faster, i.e. between 1 hour and 5 days. Also disconnects are allowed, it is the connection speed after each reconnect that matters.

I learn something new everytime I post on the good old forums

Pings and dropped packets had completely slipped my mind. We had massive issues with VirginMedia where the line didn't disconnect but the packet loss was so high we couldn't access websites. So it felt like a disconnection.

So many possibilities...

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 04-Apr-11 22:00:33)

Thanks for this and I think you may be spot on. The master is pretty new as the 1st engineer changed it to the new Openreach one. All the cat5 cables run into some trunking with also carries electric and coax for the TVs which are boosted - I dread to think how much potential there is for interference. That said, isn't cat5 shielded?

I think I am going to try and plug the router into the master for 4-5 days and see what happens. I will run the speed test when I get home, before I plug into the master and paste the results.

The good news is that we will be starting an extension soon on the house so I might be able to re-route the cat5 cables to minimise the chance of interference.

If the master is a normal NTE5A where the bottom half of the faceplate can be (carefully) removed, as in this pic then you need to connect the filter directly to the test socket on the wall at the back and take the stats asap afterwards. Don't use a plug-in phone extension cable, just filter >> ADSL cable >> router.

None of the extension sockets will (should!) work, so you may not want to leave it for long like that, but if after taking the stats you plug a DECT base station into the filter that would be OK. Or if it isn't OK, then there's your/a problem!

Just trying using the master external socket doesn't really help.

Can you run a speedtest at http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

This really would help us to see if your BT profile has actually been limited

Also like already advised statistics in the Test socket would be brilliant. If you don't have this kind of master. Get us stats in the master.

Cheers buddy!

Ok, so below are the results of the speed test which suggests my profile is restricted to 3mbps. This test was before plugging the router into the test socket of the master.

I will plug into the test socket and re-test and post results when I'm done.

Thanks,
Ed

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed = 2793 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed = 7150 Kbps

Download speedachieved during the test was - 2793 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5440 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps

Yep, if possible leave it in the test socket for 4 full days. Then reboot the router & hopefully your speeds will be better.

Can you post your statistics in the TEST.

& the profile is definitely being affected. It may take a while to notice any difference as your aware.

And the results of a ping after plugging into the test socket:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ping statistics for 80.249.99.130:
Packets: Sent = 1764, Received = 1763, Lost = 1
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 87ms, Average = 25ms

And the ping results whilst playing xbox AND the BB dropping completely:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ping statistics for 80.249.99.130:
Packets: Sent = 1764, Received = 1763, Lost = 1
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 87ms, Average = 25ms

And the speedtest results after a few hours of being plugged into the test socket and following the BB dropping out:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed = 2754 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed = 7150 Kbps

Download speedachieved during the test was - 2754 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5696 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps

If the broadband was dropping it wouldn't be able to ping a website.

Is the xbox plugged in via ethernet or wireless?

Can you get statistics, from the BT homehub page. The same as ones you provided earlier.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 06-Apr-11 13:12:53)

And finally (for now) here are the router stats since the BB came back up:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADSL Line Status

Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 00:33:40
Downstream: 5.563 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 9.4 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 37.1 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.5 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 258 / 0
CRC Events (Down/Up): 7 / 5
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 17 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 40 / 16

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In case it makes a difference - I conducted all the test since I plugged the router into the test socket, with the PC connected to the router via ethernet.

BT Boost engineer is due tomorrow between 08:00 and 13:00 so I will update tomorrow with his findings

The BB DID drop out completely - orange light on router etc. It did this in the middle of the ping, therefore it sat there for a while saying 'Request timed out'.

I also noticed this on one of the other pings I did, but it was just one in the middle of a load of successful packets

Interesting...

The BT network is made up of two parts, an e side and d side

The e side is the cabling from the local telephone exchange to the green cabinet (usually on street corners)

The d side is the cabling from the green cabinet to your telegraph pole

Generally the e side is longer than the d side.

The engineer tomorrow, not sure what he can do as I haven't heard of a 'boost' engineer before.

BUT if he seems to be claiming the whole "it's fine" and I can't find any errors lot...

I'd be very nice and suggest that he looks for a better quality cable on the e side / d side.

This is because generally there are various different e sides from the exchange to your local green cabinet. One of these routes can be 3 miles long, another can be 0.8 miles long. One route can be made of poor quality ali cable, another can be made of nice new copper cabling.

By swapping the e side the majority of wiring to your property goes a completely different route. This means if the lines getting interference from a lamp-post currently, the new route probably wont pass that lamp post.

The engineer will be able to see whether you're already on the best e side. If not he can see if there's any space on a better e side. He can then at his choice swap the e side.

It's unlikely he'll have time to change both the e side and the d side.

Also if the engineer can pop a pre-filtered faceplate on, this may help a little. It basically filters your extensions at the master, so the extensions shouldn't interfere with the broadband... Although it means you HAVE to use the master.

Eventually the ISP will prob request an RF3 filter too...

They might want to try a lift & shift before doing any of the above though. This is basically moving the line in the exchange (bit more complicated but haven't got time to explain).

I hope it all works out well!! If the engineers getting on with all sorts obviously let him do it, he knows far more than me.

I have a feeling that a previous engineer may have mention aluminium line, but I might be wrong. Also the last engineer mentioned that a lift and shift at the exchange would be the next logical step.

I am pretty sure I have one of the master sockets with a built in filter, although when you say I would 'HAVE' to use it what exactly do you mean? Do you mean to plug the router into? At the moment I don't have anything plugged into it - the router and a phone are in one extension and just a phone in the other, leaving the master empty

So rather than even go and look at the cabinet or the exchange he is running a new cable from where the cable reaches the house from the pole. He was going to run a new one from the pole but it goes over one electricity cable and under another so he doesn't want to touch it, and I don't blame him!!

Oh forgot to say that a 'boost' engineer is some magical hybrid of a line engineer and a broadband engineer - or that's pretty much what I was told by BT - not word for word obviously

Does your master look like this?

http://www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/images/nte5-web.png

Also...

Running between 2 electrical lines... Lots of interference!! Are the lines touching?

& I highly doubt that changing this bit of cabling will make a difference. Unless it's old figure of 8 style wiring / flat electrical cabling.

This said there must be something wrong with it, else why would the engineer want to change it?

A lift & shift is a good idea.

Then changing e side and d side

If none of this then it's prob REIN. The ISP is likely to turn around and admit they can't provide you a service at this stage as diagnosing REIN is costly.

Best of luck, how are things?

Ok, so here it goes:
- He changed the cable all the way from the pole to the house in the end

- The cable WAS touching both electric cables although previous engineers said it shouldn't cause a problem as they are well shielded. Now he has replace the wire, it is not touching

- He has run the new cable into the study upstairs and has put on a box, not like the one pictured (but like http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/iplate/bt-adsl-...), it sticks out a lot and has 2 sockets, on phone one for the router and has ADSL on it. He has ended the broadband here so the router has to stay in that room (I now understand what you were talking about!)

- He has then run the downstairs socket from this

Apparently I need to wait for around 24 hours and the profile should change from the current 3mbps cap to higher once the system detects that everything is now fine - this is a big assumption as, in my opinion, without even going to the exchange or the cabinet how can he be sure??

I did ask whether he would check them out and he said 'no, this will definitely fix it'. Forgive me, but I have had about 20 conversations with various call centre people and engineers saying the same thing, so the jury is out on this!

So - results after 6 hours since the engineer left:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BT Speed Test Results
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download Speed = 2794 Kbps

Download speedachieved during the test was - 2794 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Hub Stats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 06:14:16
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 8.5 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.7 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.7 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 3774 / 116
CRC Events (Down/Up): 173 / 6
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 401 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 79 / 3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ping Results (only ran it for a 3-5 minutes)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ping statistics for 80.249.99.130:
Packets: Sent = 314, Received = 313, Lost = 1 (0%)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 25ms, Maximum = 229ms, Average = 32ms
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ping still lost a packet and the max looks high, but not sure if this is just normal??

...

Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Hub Stats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 06:14:16
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps

... What happened in between the BT speed test and reading the stats?

Yep the sync speeds are different. So something happened, was it unplugged?

It's nice you have a proper filtered faceplate now, so the extensions shouldn't be causing any issues.

No engineer is gonna take you seriously when your internal setup is wrong. The router wasn't in the master when it should have been. Thus your basically shouting out MY SETUP IS WRONG! The engineers therefore have been spending time correcting the internal setup and not looking at the external line. They will only look at a tie pair shift, and switching e side / d side once they are confident the faults not at your end.

Anyway now your setup is now perfect!!!

BUT I'm still very unhappy that you're only getting 6 (well 5.7) meg with that line attentuation. Definitely ali wiring / fault somewhere. I wont be happy till I see 8. In my old house the attentuation was 35.5db and I saw 11 meg on LLU.

Personally though. As I know your line still dropped plugged into the TEST socket I don't think anything they have done is going to help. The test bypassed all of the extensions.

I think you'll be calling them out again. BUT LETS HOPE!!

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 07-Apr-11 22:35:58)

You are right - I did always feel a little guilty for complaining about the problems when it was always in the back of my mind that it was the state of the internal wiring!!.

I forgot to say that the tests I posted last night were via WiFi so I should probably repeat them plugged into the router - that way any packet loss would not be down to the wireless signal.

The BT speed test shows that I am still on a 3mbps profile this morning but not sure how long the system would normal take to move me up??

I get 5696kbps on a 50db line.

It appears your noise margin could possibly be 9db which would lower the sync.

Try ringing your ISP and ask them to reset your line, that way it will start the 10 day training period again and your SNR will drop down to 6db.

To be honest wifi made no difference as the issue is

1. Lose sync for the attenuation
2. Different sync between stats you posted and speedtester - thus probably still not stable

End result is that it says all that was changed did nothing by the looks of it.

I can't remember doing anything between the 2 readings so I have done them again straight after each other:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 19:47:18
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 9.2 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.7 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.7 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 6670 / 120
CRC Events (Down/Up): 295 / 7
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 661 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 169 / 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download speedachieved during the test was - 2795 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have also just called BT and asked to have my profile reset. After 40 minutes of being bounced around and being on hold, someone finally said they will speak to the tech dept and ask for the profile to be raised to 3.5 - 4mbps which should take effect within 72 hours.

Why can't they put it up to 5mbps?!?!?!

because you need to be connected at 5696 or faster to get a 5Meg profile

I predict you will go back down to a low profile shortly after the fix, because you appear to have something unstable with the line/hardware somewhere.

With your line suffering two (related) problems, these are the key bits of info:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Connection time: 0 days, 06:14:16
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps

Noise margin (Down/Up): 8.5 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.7 dB / 22.0 dB

The low "IP Profile" is a consequence of the information above, and the low "download speed" (on speedtesters) is a consequence of the low "IP Profile".

The first, and most important problem, is your connection time. The fact this is low suggests you suffered from at least one disconnection (although the evidence of the "ping" tests suggests otherwise); the worry is that you are suffering from more than this one.

The main thing needed to solve your problems is to get the modem to stay connected for as long as possible, without any disconnections - and this includes human-induced disconnections, such as turning the power off, or unplugging the modem from the DSL port of the master socket.

The second problem is that your "downlink noise margin" seems to be set to 9dB; this will be BT's exchange running DLM (dynamic line management), and setting a higher noise margin as a response to your disconnections. With no disconnections, this noise margin will drop to 6dB, and your sync speed will increase by 500-800kbps... but the DLM will take a number of days to set this - stability is key for this to happen.

According to this page at Kitz, getting your sync speed up into the range 6240-6784kbps will then result in an IP Profile of 5500. This too will take a number of days to achieve, requiring more stability.

The third problem is just comparing your "downlink sync speed" against the "downlink attenuation", and the implied theoretical speed for your line. Your line stats report that you are connected with "Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A", which means standard ADSL1 (G.992.5 would be ADSL2+); According to this page at Kitz, an attenuation of 37dB would be expected to get a "sync speed" of 7328kbps on ADSL1, and an IP Profile of 6000.

The main issue, for now, is stopping the disconnections - and that probably means monitoring the router's stats to find out if you are indeed suffering from that. You can do that manually (just keep checking the connection time), but Routerstats is a popular tool to help graph your line's sync speed and noise margin (to show any disconnections) - I don't know if it works with the home hub.

BTW - you are almost always going to lose a packet on the ping. By chance, you're likely to interrupt it when it has sent out a packet, but not yet got an answer; the last ping therefore almost always goes unanswered.

Hmmmm. At 21:07 last night, your reported:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BT Speed Test Results
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Hub Stats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection time: 0 days, 06:14:16
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And this morning, you report:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 3000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection time: 0 days, 19:47:18
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those show that you haven't disconnected overnight, which is good.

But notice the discrepancy... Your line is actually synced at 5,594, while the BT speedtest is reporting 5728, and an IP Profile of 3000.

I wonder if the BT speed reporting & IP-Profile system has got stuck here somewhere.

I'm with a different ISP (Plusnet), and their forum has had a few cases where the BT IP-Profile system has become disjoint and stuck. Apparently there are 2 different places where the IP Profile is held in the BT system, which ought to agree, but doesn't always.

Perhaps your call have freed something up.

How is everything? Nice to be kept updated, especially if it's resolved

Well the speed didn't pick up until yesterday and it hasn't dropped yet and does seem a much more constant speed. Here are the results from this morning:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Hub Stats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 3 days, 15:32:38
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 9.4 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.7 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.7 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 25106 / 222
CRC Events (Down/Up): 1091 / 7
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 2304 / 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 691 / 8
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speed Test
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download speedachieved during the test was - 4670 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5000 Kbps
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will be keeping a close eye on it to see if it gets throttled down again, but it looks pretty good so far!!

Thanks again for all the help everyone,
Ed

Still not happy with that 9db noise margin. HOPEFULLY this will come down to 6 db and you'll see 6 meg. Of course the profile will need to update.

I've seen this take upto 14 days of solid connection.

I swear by using the master socket, it's never quite perfect otherwise.

The profile shows that the lines much more healthy than before. & it's holding which is good!!

The speed does seem to fluctuate much less, but I was not sure if this was just less noticeable as the speed was higher. Still, I will keep an eye on it and may be post the stats again at the weekend.

The discrepency is still there, but BT has acted on their number, and given you a higher IP Profile (5000) because of it.

Right now, the crux of keeping this performance, and possibly getting better, is for the line to stay connected, with no disturbances. So its nice to see that it has survived for nearly 4 days so far.

So, a week on and I thought I'd post an update. The good news is that it hasn't dropped out once, but looking at the router stats the noise level has gone up slightly and it still seems as though there are errors - however, I don't know if this is in an 'acceptable range'??
Here's the info:

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Connection Information

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 7 days, 20:08:23
Downstream: 5.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 9.6 dB / 20.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 36.7 dB / 22.0 dB
Output power (Down/Up): 19.7 dBm / 11.9 dBm
FEC Events (Down/Up): 52210 / 526
CRC Events (Down/Up): 2314 / 11
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
HEC Events (Down/Up): 4872 / 3
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 1452 / 16
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Download speedachieved during the test was - 4545 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5728 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5000 Kbps
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How is your connection reliability now?

Is there anybody with an idea of what is an expected or acceptable value for the number of HEC/FEC is a 15 mins or 24 hours period?

HEC should really be zero. FEC, how long is a piece of string? Remember FEC are corrected errors so although they indicate noise on the line they won't cause any problems. CRC and HEC errors are serious and will normally require packet retransmission.