Billion

FTTC is on the way, so I picked up myself a Billion 8800NL R2 over the weekend.

Currently on a ~4.5km line (rubbish E-sides, brand new D-sides) using a Billion 7800DXL, attenuation on ADSL2 of 59.0 and amazingly, despite errors, the line stays stable on a 2db margin syncing at around 2700kbps. Before today the connection was up for 29 days and there's no real notice in throughput slowdown or latency increases due to the errors.

So, I plugged in the 8800NL today, again using ADSL2, the sync on a 2db margin was down at 2200, and interestingly, the attenuation showed as 60.5.

What would be the reason for the increase in attenuation and subsquent reduction in sync speed? I put the 7800DXL back on and it synced up at 2734 straight away and has been stable since.

Have I got a duff 8800NL? Would that transpond to below par sync on VDSL2 when it arrives? Or does the ADSL performance of the modem not translate to VDSL performance? Suspect it'll be a suck it and see, but was just after some input

Edited by lee111s (Sun 12-Feb-17 22:37:54)

The "picked up" may suggest a duff item being cost-recovered. Alternatively, the attenuation change could be you haven't stopped it connecting on ADSL2+ rather than ADSL2.

ADSL2+ uses the ADSL2 frequencies plus some higher ones that attenuate more quickly. The average attenuation calculation on most modems includes those. It then inserts that figure into the sync negotiation resulting in a lower sync being agreed.

At the attenuation levels you have then ADSL2 is almost certain to give a much higher sync than ADSL2+.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 12-Feb-17 22:30:36)

It's a new item, or it was sold as such with a 2 year warranty from Amazon.

It was definitely connecting on ADSL2 (tried different modulations on the 7800DXL and ADSL2 gives thr best performance as you'd expect) which is why I found it strange to have the higher attenuation figure. I'm aware that using 2+ increases it.

Very odd then. What is the noise margin doing, and what time did you connect?

Was around noon today. I set the target margin to 2db as it is in the 7800DXL, so no real room for improvement. I reconnected the 7800DXL and that sync'd up at the 2700mark, again with the lower attenuation figure.

Guess it's going back in the post tomorrow!

Cheers

Pity .

Do I risk getting another? Or look for an alternative?

Above my expertise that question .

Most likely just the chipset used in each device.
The Billion 7800DXL has a Broadcom BCM 6361 Chipset
The Billion BiPAC 8800NL R2 has a Broadcom BCM 63381 Chipset
The original Billion Bipac 8800NL uses BCM 63168 Chipset

The BCM 63381 used in the 8800NL R2 tends to be found in more lower budget devices. The original 8800NL uses a BCM 63168 and is IMO an excellent chipset. Every comparison I've seen between the 2 show the BCM63168 syncs higher (on VDSL2, haven't seen ADSL2 comparisons).

I know little of the BCM 6361. It is found in the BT Home Hub 3B and the Netgear D6300 to name a couple.

Thanks for that

I might just keep the 7800DXL as a router and buy a standalone Modem.

Any suggestions of a decent one that doesn't break the bank?

I should add that I'll be getting BT TV again in the future once FTTC is active so I need a router that supports it (the billion kit does which is why I've favoured them really) - I had it as my old address but given I get 2meg here there's no point as it's not enough to stream even the SD stuff.

Edited by lee111s (Mon 13-Feb-17 09:15:11)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Most likely just the chipset used in each device.
The Billion 7800DXL has a Broadcom BCM 6361 Chipset
The Billion BiPAC 8800NL R2 has a Broadcom BCM 63381 Chipset
The original Billion Bipac 8800NL uses BCM 63168 Chipset

The BCM 63381 used in the 8800NL R2 tends to be found in more lower budget devices. The original 8800NL uses a BCM 63168 and is IMO an excellent chipset. Every comparison I've seen between the 2 show the BCM63168 syncs higher (on VDSL2, haven't seen ADSL2 comparisons).

Dammit!

But my R2 is otherwise fine so far.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Dammit!

But my R2 is otherwise fine so far.

It's a perfectly fine device. I think both versions of the 8800NL are excellent at what they do. The difference in sync won't be worth running out to find the original version, which is pretty much obsolete and very difficult to source anyway.