Status of vectoring on Openreach network?

What is the current state of play with vectoring on the BT Openreach network - is it currently enabled? In testing?

Thanks

Andrew.

Not enabled, but may be in test at Martlesham Heath.

Regulations over sub loop unbundling may be a stumbling block too.

Vectoring is no further than being tested throughout the world. The chipset manufacturers were doing connection workshops not *that* long ago.

Like Mr Saffron, I'd expect that it is being tested at Martlesham but probably not out in the wild yet.

I did find some interesting info from Alcatel:
Vectoring intro from 2011
Vectoring intro from 2012
Recent trial results, showing over 100Mbps for 400-500 metres
Troubleshooting with vectoring

Regulations over sub loop unbundling may be a stumbling block too.

Does this mean that vectoring would cause frequencies outwith the permitted frequency range to be used by the VDSL2 kit?

Thanks

Andrew.

No it more that that vectoring would impact on the other VDSL services that don't have vectoring applied.
Ideal world the two DSLAM would be linked so they can exchange vectoring information.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

the two DSLAM would be linked so they can exchange vectoring information.

One of the linked articles suggests that a 48-port card can generate 20 Gbps of vectoring data. That's a lot by itself, but once you aggregate a few cards, and need a longer, more robust bus between multiple cabinets, you're adding up the complications.

you know its been rolled out in active service in some countries right.

dutch telecom have active plans to use it and its been used in holland, belgium.

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/techzine/wp-content/u...

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 15-Mar-13 06:02:24)

I'm not sure I'd define it as "rolled out" and "live". There may be some live field trials going on, but they'll be with restrictions.

Alcatel are very much at the head of the pack in developing vectoring products, so it isn't a surprise that we can see trials from them in "friendly" locations - Belgium and Holland being prime places.

The chipset manufacturers are still going through interoperability tests, so there isn't a free & open market for modems vs. cabinets - so anything "live" right now will require friendly customers, and restricted modem options.

It isn't far off, but it isn't truly available "freely" yet. Tantalisingly close though - and almost certainly this year.

BT tend to be a little more reserved (aka professional) at rushing things out into public service, wanting to be a little more sure about adverse effects on existing live service. They will be restricting trials to Martlesham at first - but I reckon live service here is more likely to be a 2015 thing.

BTW: The link wasn't anything about about live service. Just about the varying impact of vectoring on different pairs in a cable bundle.

yes that was intentional for the link, to show people here the impact of crosstalk, as some think its just a couple of mbit loss here and there.

And it does show that rather well.

This image shows what the impact can be from just a single well-chosen "disturber" line on the "victim" line (or badly-chosen, as the case may be). That shows how much impact can occur from just one "neighbour" taking the service.

My rule of thumb was that the Original FTTC spec would give us one-third of the ultimate speed, the 17a profile would give us the next third, and that vectoring would give us a final third. "us" being people within around 600 metres.

The latest trials suggests that Vectoring is doing even better than that, and works for people out beyond 1km. I don't know whether it will be enough for BT to increase the headline rate for FTTC though.

I also note a mention of a "G.inp" spec which replaces the FEC mechanism with a retransmission-on-error mechanism instead. That loses the fixed overhead of FEC parity bytes, and re-transmits blocks only in the event of an error... and hopefully there are fewer of those with the reduced crosstalk.

found out last week a neighbour managed to recover a ton of sync speed by swapping pairs on the pair crosstalk lottery, however he had a hard time getting the engineer to do it. It also took 3 pair swaps.

His sync started out at about 75mbit, and up until he got the engineer was down to 58mbit. He said the first 2 swaps were both improvements but only low 60s and the 3rd swap has given him the full 80mbit. However since he had the swap my line is down to 68mbit attainable so I have lost some more. I dont know what his attainable is. Engineer refused to answer questions about ali, joints etc. Probably arsy he couldnt just sign the job off without doing some proper work.

I guess if we consider BT only originally planned a 40/10 rollout, its easy to see why vectoring wasnt bothered with as on a 40/10 service even with the crosstalk chaos most lines would handle it.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 18-Mar-13 08:44:20)

That's interesting. So did your neighbour phone up and get an engineer booking?

I need to ask him, he is on infinity like me, so am curious myself.

I only knew he had it as he had a openreach van outside and I noticed it out my window.

I asked if it was an install he said no, he was getting his sync fixed and then I found out about the pair swaps etc. after the engineer had gone.

Thanks - I got the full 80/20 for 10 days LOL then I got bumped down to 60/20. However, my BT checker says 55/15.
Since I bought a HG612 I've manually rebooted the modem when I had a better attainable, so for 1 week I've been on 67/20 (IP profile 64.5/20). Its currently at 5.7 SNR so attainable has dropped to 65/22.
I'm pretty certain that my speed drop is due to being dumped on a lower quality pair..

I did suspect a pair swap myself at first but my downtime was too low for that. I believe its down to new installations and severe crosstalk.

My 110/36 (assuming if was the same prior to unlocking modem) lasted just 2 weeks. Then the 90/36 after only lasted a week, so basically I only had 80/20 for 3 weeks, when I originally had a huge 30mbit buffer.

However I do know openreach have been disconnecting lines in the cabinet, and I have to wonder why they doing that if they not swapping pairs, occasionally my attainable shoots up to 85-90 range (upstream does also) and the 2 times I went to the cabinet there was a engineer there fiddling with pairs, and one of them openly told me he had a line disconnected at that time.

I asked Plusnet if they can get my pairs swapped last year, and the answer was no, they said OR would not do it unless there was a fault.

Of course this depends on whats classed as a fault, but we all know what OR are like there.

OR will do it after all other fault finding has been done and the fault remains. Why would you need it doing if you don't have a fault?

Because in my opinion having a sync speed of around 40Mbps on 450 meter line is a fault, sometimes it fluctuates higher when it manages to use the D3 band, then I get about 45Mbps. But in OR opinion this is not a fault.

I was the first on the cabinet, and my line has always been a bit unstable, as in it fluctuates up down a lot. My neighbour when I spoke to him about it was getting 55Mbps speed tests, which means his sync is probably about 60Mbps, which is more inline with what others at similar distances see.

Ok I got the story now.

He reported disconnections on his service.

BT seen the disconnections in their logs, and allowed an engineer out. However the disconnections he did himself deliberatly to pretend the fault.

The engineer spent an hour checking equipment and was about to leave stating no fault on the service.

My neighbour was angry saying to the engineer he didnt consider checking of his equipment as if he is a toddler as a fault investigation. Engineer apparently said tough luck and left.

However the engineer accidently left behind his tool. My neighbour refused to let him back in to get it saying tough luck.

At that point the engineer agreed to check the cabinet and swap the pair.

It seems my neighbour was lucky and brave to try that on, as I guess the police could have been called, or the engineer could have still simply drove off leaving it behind. In the end he was there for over 2 hours on a fault callout.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

OR will do it after all other fault finding has been done and the fault remains. Why would you need it doing if you don't have a fault?

consider that OR raise a charge if no fault found.

If they tried that on with me I would refuse payment unless a no fault is proven, not finding a fault after only checking inside the customers property is not proving there is no fault.

Obviously you may say I am talking out my backside as I havent tried this on with OR, but I am now going to be reporting a few things, and if an engineer is sent out as a matter of procedure I expect BT's side to be checked.