1km away from cabinet.

Hi

I had FTTC installed 11 days ago. The first in my village so the engineer said. I have been speed testing daily and I get speeds of around 14 down and 1 up. Very little variation.

I am 1km from the cabinet.

When I put my phone number in here: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Teleph...
it says I should get 15.6.

When I put the phone number of all the neighbours around me (all almost exactly the same distance from the cabinet) it shows speeds of 30. I can't verify their actual speed as they haven't installed yet.

Although I have had a significant speed boost from ADSL d/l speed of about 3 or 4, I feel as if I should be getting closer to 30 now.

Is there anything I can do to boost this? Will BT investigate and do anything?

Well, I dunno on the 'guessimates' that BT give, but with my new spanking shiny fttc connection:

80 odd yards away to GPO box which is 60 yards or so to the fibre box I get (on a 40/2 profile):

35/36 down
a constant 1.8 up

So, I guess you will not make 30 by any means.

Nick

[edit] Actually, thinking, remember you have route to the GPO box that then goes to the fttc box - so it could be a lot more distance than stated. I am actually only 50 yards away from the fttc box, but where my phone line hooks in to the GPO is further!

Edited by deleted (Mon 04-Nov-13 16:49:00)

Best speed possible on 40 Meg is 38 Meg from a speedtest and assumes a perfectly setup PC/router...so 36 or so is in the realms of if you signed up to a faster product you might go faster

The checker is only an estimate, not an absolute measure. The only absolute measure is to enable the line and see how it behaves.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.... gives a secondary guide to FTTC speeds, and you are not massively out for 1km..

The neighbours estimates might simply be more wrong, rather than indicating you have a problem.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Best speed possible on 40 Meg is 38 Meg from a speedtest and assumes a perfectly setup PC/router...so 36 or so is in the realms of if you signed up to a faster product you might go faster

Not being being sarky, but have you been on the sherry? Obviously if I signed up to faster product it would go faster...

I was just stating that topographically, no matter how close the fttc box is, you still need to measure the GPO box your phone line goes to and then how far that is away from the fttc box.

Nick

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I should wait to see what the neighbours get if/when they switch.

Don't know where the 'GPO' box is. The copper wires all go along wooden poles as far as I can see. Pretty sure it's almost exactly 1km. Actually 910m as measured on google maps.

The upload speed as way off according to the secondary guide. It says 9 Mbps, I'm getting 1 Mbps.

Do I have any sort of leg to stand on if it turns out the neighbours get faster speeds?

Well, the GPO box thing is a mystery.

I have one 40 yards away that is 10 yards away to the fttc box. There is another GPO box 80 yards away in a side side street that is 70 yards away to the fttc box.

Guess which one my phone line goes to?

Nick

In reply to a post by monkeychops:

Do I have any sort of leg to stand on if it turns out the neighbours get faster speeds?

In a word, no. The speeds given are estimates, nothing more. If you are way below the estimated speed, you might be able to secure release from the contract, but that won't help you if you want the fastest possible connection and your fairly slow FTTC is faster than whatever you had before.

Was just making sure you were not implying that 35 to 36 was the speed to be expected at your sort of distance

To be honest your line may just go a longer route. Nothing can really be done, it's never been a case of the neighbours lines guaranteed to take the same route as yours. In reality you often see a neighbours line taking a much shorter route to your own, or vice-versa.

An example is I had an attenuation of 28 and a sync around 17Mbps. My neighbour had an attenuation of 42 and a sync around 9Mbps. We were both in the master socket with no extensions. The attenuation measures line length so it was clear their line was much much longer than mine.

Simply put when lines were installed it was only a concern to get a voice signal down the lines, broadband didn't exist so there was no worry about the route taken or the length of cabling, you got what was easiest. Extremely long lines delivered voice fine so it made no odds.

Even now on new estates you still get what's easiest / cheapest vs what's shortest...

If the neighbours line goes down some ducting which was full, the you'd take another route even if it ends up much longer. Often your line goes the wrong direction to eventually do a u-turn on itself. If you're near an airport or a large park often the lines loop around the entire airport / park rather than going straight through too. It's not a fault as such it's how the networks were designed.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 04-Nov-13 19:20:56)

No I didn't mean to imply - just give what I get.

So, to recap, I get a good average of 35 down, 1.8 up at these distances on a 40/2 connection. I will also add no disconnections either!

Nick

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

The attenuation measures line length so it was clear their line was much much longer than mine.

It also measures line quality, like thicker copper is better than thin, and, aluminium can be very poor

Oh yes of course!! So many factors at play.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 04-Nov-13 21:03:20)

FWIW, my connection is also around 1000m in length.

I did achieve almost 30Mbps sync speed for around 7 months.

However, I have seen progressive drops in sync speed since January & my connection now syncs at around 20.7 Mbps.

The reductions in sync speed have been put down to increased crosstalk as more users become connected (updated firmware):-

Text

1 23 45 67 89 1011 1213 1415 1617 1819 2021 2223 24

xdslcmd info --pbParams xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY statusStatus: Showtime Retrain Reason: 0Last initialization procedure status:   0 Max:    Upstream rate = 4795 Kbps, Downstream rate = 22208 KbpsBearer: 0, Upstream rate = 4561 Kbps, Downstream rate = 20721 Kbps  Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782) DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3970) Medley Phase (Final) Band PlanUS: (7,32) (871,1196) DS: (33,859) (1216,1772)           VDSL Port Details               Upstream                Downstream Attainable Net Data Rate:            4795 kbps              22208 kbpsActual Aggregate Tx Power:             6.8 dBm               12.6 dBm ====================================================================================  VDSL Band Status       U0      U1      U2      U3      U4      D1      D2      D3   Line Attenuation(dB):  8.2     54.4     N/A     N/A     N/A    21.9    66.9     N/A   Signal Attenuation(dB):  8.2     53.0     N/A     N/A     N/A    30.9    66.7     N/A           SNR Margin(dB):  6.7     6.7      N/A     N/A     N/A    5.3     5.3      N/A            TX Power(dBm):  0.2     5.9      N/A     N/A     N/A    11.6    5.9      N/A .

Edited by deleted (Mon 04-Nov-13 21:11:48)

Is there an easy way to see these line stats?
The BT engineer installed a modem which he basically said was a 'black box'.

Is your modem a Huawei or an ECI?

There is/was.

I developed a few programs to harvest the modem's ongoing data 24/7 and/or generate 'snapshot' data & graphs either on a fixed schedule or at will.


October's remotely installed modem firmware updates caught us completely off guard & the programs ceased to function as intended due to 'differently' formatted modem data.

That has now been resolved & following a very short period of further testing, I will be releasing an updated monitoring/graphing package for free download.

My updated programs will work with either updated or non-updated Huawei HG612 modems.
These modems do need to be unlocked by users - this is a simple process of installing 'unlocked' firmware.

The original unlocking firmware can be used, allowing BT to remotely update it in due course.
'Others' in the Kitz forum are also developing new unlocked firmware, already including the recent updates, but I'm not 100% sure they are ready for general release (yet).


My soon to be released updated programs do NOT work with ECI modems. However, spare Huawei HG612 modems can be cheaply obtained via that famous online auction site that we all know & love/hate

HTH.

I'm a bit further from the FTTC cabinet than that. The BT estimate of the FTTC speed was 10.7 Mb then it changed to 9.9Mb but about a month ago it changed to 24.7Mb.

When first installed (I think it was one of the first in the cabinet) the sync profile was 39Mb but that dropped to a bit over 30Mb for about 18 months*. In the last month is has improved. It is currently at 32998Kb/sec

Presumably the actual sync is higher: these are the profile rates.

*Except for December 2012, when it dropped to 27Mb - this low speed coincided with the Xmas lights being on on the lamppost near the phone wire pole. Just ordinary bulbs. Can't see why they'd make such a difference!

I'm about 900m from the cabinet.

I was originally sync'ing at 24Mbps and achieving 22Mbps on speed-tests.

The recent BT update of firmware on my HG612 Openreach modem now gets me a 28Mbps sync and 25Mbps on the speed-test.

I am lead to believe that our village cabling is mainly aluminium with many junction boxes en-route to the top of our road.

Therefore, I suspect that around 30Mbps is the typical downlink sync rate for a 1km line.

Edited by ToneDeaf (Sat 09-Nov-13 18:42:13)

In reply to a post by hoopla:

*Except for December 2012, when it dropped to 27Mb - this low speed coincided with the Xmas lights being on on the lamppost near the phone wire pole. Just ordinary bulbs. Can't see why they'd make such a difference!

Were they flashing at all?

Or they could have been picking up radiated noise from the street lamp and then re-radiating it.

What's this latest version of the HG612 modem?

I'm trying to PD some line drops and have gone back from the HH5 integrated modem, to ECI external, to now using a hacked HG612 (so I can see more stats).

I'm running base sw V100R001C01B028SP10 but unlocked, and modified with an upgraded vdsl driver of A2pv6C035m.d22g

The new driver has definately boosted speeds -- is the sane BT one later? Is there an unlocked version yet?

Found the answer over on kitz/in other threads here. Now on 038.

I was previously 470km away and synced at full speed (I don't have the stats but basically 80/20).

I've now moved and am further away but not sure how far. Probably getting on for a km. With the latest firmware I'm syncing at 36090/7269 -- this is around 10% higher than the HH5 and older Huwaii firmware.

In reply to a post by planetf1:

Found the answer over on kitz/in other threads here. Now on 038.

I was previously 470km away and synced at full speed (I don't have the stats but basically 80/20).

Wow, that's one long line

I've now moved and am further away but not sure how far. Probably getting on for a km. With the latest firmware I'm syncing at 36090/7269 -- this is around 10% higher than the HH5 and older Huwaii firmware.

If you're getting 36 at about 1000 meters you are doing very well, and to get the full 80 at 470m is extremely good to, I'm 450 meters and get 47, at work we are 500 meters and get 36 Meg.

Bit of a slow reply, this!

No, they were incandescent bulbs and not flashing.

This year I saw the men installing them and I asked them to make sure they made the connections good and tight to stop any interference. They said they would, and there was noo slowdown this year.