Bad Gel Crimps?

Earlier I had a major hiccup on my line. I've said in the past that I can often see installs taking place on my cab by the fact that the line SNR margin or Speeds jump up and down momentarily but usually go back to what they were. A couple of you said this is likely due to a bad gel crimp on the d- or e-side in the cabinet being knocked around by a clumsy contractor!

This afternoon after the line had been up for 40+ days prior to this. it suffered badly from a glitch and in the process lost 10Mbps of d/l speed with the stats showing multiple LOS /LOF and ES (I've not had any LOS/LOF in 4 months 'till then) and the DLM appears to have been at work.There was also a mass of errored seconds for an hour to about 10 x normal

The DSLStats graphs llinked below show it clearly - plus the SNR margin jumped up when another disturbance temporariily cleared the bad connection a little later (and the interleave had also been dropped by about 300 but that was probably due anyway as the line had been performing well with few ES for the past month or so).

A BT Wholesale Speed Test shows the line as underperforming now (red result) at 32Mbps against a profile of 45Mbps (min at this profile should be 35Mbps).

SNR margin
Connection Speed

What's the best way of reporting this to plusnet as a line fault if that is in fact what it is please? Not affecting the telephone AFAIAA. I'm worried that at some point it'll disconnect completely and late on a Friday like now mad

The Live Stats in my sig show it quite well at the moment...

TIA

Edited by tbailey2 (Sat 21-Jun-14 08:21:48)

Beginning to wonder if this current problem is maybe an HG 612 modem fault?

DSLstats is occasionally reporting No DSL Connection (not Modem Not Responding) when there are no events at the time in the stats total to indicate that. And also the stats say the line has only been up just over three hours now (11:10) when, again, there is no indication of anything happening on the graph since around 05:15 - and that does coincide with a glitch on the SNR margin graph. But no indication that the connection was lost or resynced.

The only thing between the modem and the faceplate is a 12" connector and it's a Mk 2 faceplate direct into the master socket with no extensions. The Hlog graph is flat.

I do have my own gel crimps outside in a BT Black Box on the wall about 10 feet away but these seem okay as I poked around for a couple of minutes amongst the black widow spiders without any apparent ill effects (and these are the chock block type gel filled connectors to the pair, the rest of the box is now redundant).

Edit: I could add that when the No DSL message occurs, it results in the browser hanging and not updating for a while as you might expect - but several times I have looked at the Technicolor router when this happens and there is no indication that anything is wrong (no red leds), The HG612 is a bit further way, need to look at that separately next time it happens.

Edited by tbailey2 (Sat 21-Jun-14 12:07:12)

No one any suggestions?

The connection now has matching BT and plusnet profiles of 34Mbps, down from 45....

However, whenever presumably a spider wanders around the cab or a heavy lorry goes by, the SNR margin jumps up to +12db and the attainable Max goes to its previous value of 56Mbps! But only briefly. There are now so few errors at the current DLM settings, I'm tempted to poer off the modem for 5 mins and see what happens... Interleave is currently a lot lower than it ever has been.

Hi tbailey2,

My line is pretty similar to yours, I started off at 53 and then in 2 quite big jumps dropped down to around 32meg that I have now.

I also get the attainable shoot up every so often and have been told also that it's likely to be a loose connection in cabinet. (tends to last between 15mins and 1hr normally)

With regards to DSLstats that's what happens when the line goes down with that program so your line is definitely going down when that happens, does the SNR drop off at all just before it happens, (I find the best way to see whats going on is on the SNRM per Band on the program), I have what looks like a HR fault on my line at the mo in that every now and then at least 1 of the upstream bands noise margin will plummet right down, and when the phone is in use it will either go down so low that it forces a disconnect and it will then connect again or even it wont even come back up at all until the handset is replaced.
As I said I had a similar issue with you in regards to speed drop and with my ISP any speed drop of 25% of more is an instant fault and openreach can be called out to look into it, I'm not sure if this applies to all ISP's as openreach agree that a speed drop of 25% in 1 go is a fault? or if it's just my ISP (AAISP) but you may want to check with yours.

Does your line use D2 band?, what happened with mine was that cross talk had increased from more connections at the cabinet and that inturn caused the Attenuation to go up and over the threshold and as such D2 band is no longer used and so I lost any speed I was getting from that band.

Regarding on if you should power off for 5mins, what is your attainable??, if it's only a little higher than what you have now and you have interleaving on your line then there is no point as you will just sync at the same speed as interleaving is using that other amount for error correction.
My example is my line is currently at 30meg ish, my attainable is 36meg but I currently have interleaving applied on my line and so it's using that extra for error corrections, when interleaving goes from my line I get around 33meg as I get all the speed it can give me (for some reason you get half the extra between your current and attainable back but no-one knows why for sure) so if that's also the case with your line then there is no point as your slightly higher attainable is being used for interleaving and you will only get that back if interleaving is removed and restarting your modem yourself will not get rid of that, infact it will do the opposite and think the line is unstable and restart the process of getting interleaving turned off.
Does anything happen when you use the phone line at all?, like I said I started off with the same issue as you but it's not get worse due to what looks like a HR (high resistance) fault and I can see this clearly when the phone is used (noise margins plummet).

Thanks for the observations! When I first had my line I had an attainable of 62 and actual of 56Mbps! However, there's a standing external noise level that caused very high ES and SES counts and the DLM jumped in after a few days to take the attainable to 54 and actual to about 49 initially.

I've had the sudden jumps problem for months, usually just a short hiccup in SNR margin and maybe a loss or increase of 0.5 db or so and recovers quickly. Phone usage makes no difference and never has done. Modem stats show no resync count at all.

In 4 months I've never had the line drop other than when I occasionally power off the modem for whatever reason - it had been up for 40 days at a 54Mbps attainable and around 42 actual (high interleave due to the standing noise level) until last week when this happened.

The 56 attainable is still there while currently it's 42 - look at the graphs in my sig. The graph linked HERE shows it happening originally and a couple of later attainable spikes. The ONE HERE shows shows the spikes in attainable that have happened every so often over the past few days and there's a 6db increase in SNRM at the same time. Quiet today so far though.

I'm guessing that the DLM looked at the very high ES count for an hour so so (it's currently running very low counts and normally runs below 10/hour anyway with the previous DLM settings) and clobbered it. I've noticed before that the DLM appears to 'sit' on changes and do nothing until it has to for whatever reason.If, however, you preempt it by powering the modem off and on with a short rest period, it will implement those changes.

Now, assuming that the HR is not permanently affecting it - going by the max attainable that is still there under the right conditions, then I MIGHT get some speed back. I did in fact power/off/on the modem at 13:00 on Saturday 21st but it had little effect, all's I could sport was the interleave dropping by 2 or so (it's currently about 200 lower than it was .when the attainable was 54Mbps. For me anything above 20 down is fine - it's the 8 or more upload I need for large PDFs...

I am very hesitant to report this as the fault it probably is in case, having seen some horror stories, I end up with no connection at all due to botched BT work. That's why I'm trying to set out a wireless repeater link to a neighbour as backup at the moment!

For the moment I'll leave it all alone, maybe the DLM will look favourably at the very low ES counts and do something nice for a change

Hi,

How often does your attainable spike back up to 54meg etc, if it's only for a very short time like in the graphs then if it's like what happened to mine then I'm not sure you will get it back as that's exactly what mine does although mine last for 1hr or so before returning to normal. (normal ended up being the lower figure for mine)
When I explained to the engineers that I had 50+ before and it dropping so much they said it was more than likely due to cross talk and the fact I'm 750-800m away from the cabinet (with it being partly aluminium) and 30 was all I could really expect.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb242/Master_Yoda...

as you can see the attainable spike upwards was there for a while (it actually lasted about 1hr) before it returned to it's normal rate. (normal rate now being the lower number)

Going by your graph and the attainable being around 6meg or so higher than actual I think you could gain about another 3meg if the DLM decides to turn off interleaving.

Do you have the graphs info of your line before you had the issue?, the overall power and the line attenuations of the bands along with a pic of the bit loading tones graph will give us a better overall picture if cross talk has kicked in.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb242/Master_Yoda...

for instance on this one you can see a clear V like shape in the big red download tones cutting out a big chunk of my download bits, resulting in lower speed etc, this is caused by a power cutback , and was done to minimise cross talk with other ADSL signals.

Yes, I have most every graph and text file I recorded from 25th Feb - about 17,000 of them!

It only goes up for a short time, minutes at most. But it's been the weekend and no one has been near the cabinet I guess. No sign of anything today (so far) as you can see.

The point I do not understand is that this happened very suddenly after 40 days of no problems running at 56 or so attainable and ES counts of under 10 per hr for a long time - WWWombat thinks that counts like that are well below what would cause the DLM to intervene - until there was a very high burst of ES 100 + in 15 mins and a recorded 12 LOS (but no resyncs). The spike looks like this:

Latest 15 minutes time = 4 min 37 sec
FEC:		2044		0
CRC:		0		0
ES:		0		0
SES:		0		0
UAS:		0		0
LOS:		0		0
LOF:		0		0

Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC:		65740		10
CRC:		5542		2
ES:		142		2
SES:		87		0
UAS:		32		32
LOS:		12		0
LOF:		10		0

And HERE is the ES graph for that day.

And that event lost 25% a little later of what has been steady speeds for over a month. I have watched them slowly decrease over time from 54 to 42 as connections get added.

Unless this is a new connection that has introduced pretty massive crosstalk of course but I still don't understand the burst if is crosstalk?

The trough in the Bit Loading has been there since day one after the DLM kicked in - but the earliest graph I have for that is 1st April HERE as didn't save them before then, the current one is in the live stats. The attainable at that point was about 60Mbps.and sync at 53 or so. Current BT estimate is 43Mbps so was pretty well on that.

I'd also be interested to know what WWWombat thinks please?

Anyway, our exchange is slated for native FTTP but not available yet. So will have to wait in hope if this isn't fixable!

Again, thanks for your thoughts.

yeah whats amusing is when my attinable was sporadically shooting up, BT considered that a fault, the fault been it was shooting up rather than "not staying up".

After I had an engineer visit in early 2013 (which was done because of nightime packetloss) these sporadic boosts in attainable stopped, the engineer claimed he didnt do anything.

In my case they lasted sometimes as short as 10-15 mins, other times they could last over the weekend. The change only ever happened during weekdays so it might shoot up or down mon-fri but would never jump up/down on a saturday or sunday which meant if the attainable was high on a saturday it was going to stay until monday at least.

Hi again,

Looking at your bitloading graph, it looks like your D3 band is no longer being used (no doubt due to attenuation going over the threshold) so that's where some of your speed would have gone.
You are also running old firmware for the modem as the bands have changed from what yours is using.

What is your power figures for the same period (especially before and after the drop), as the lowering of this will ultimately result in the lowering of speeds as well.

Thanks -can't do anything at the moment (200 miles away using Teamviewer). I'll dig out the power readings and I think D3 went months ago though. As regards firmware, last time I looked on Kitz it was still current so will have a look again. I have a spare HG612 I can flash to eliminate one other possibility.

In reply to a post by IranianGiraffe:

Hi again,

You are also running old firmware for the modem as the bands have changed from what yours is using.

I have A2pv6C035m.d22g from Oct 2013 which is the latest unlocked blob I can find on Kitz?

If there is another later one I assume RONSKI would know?

A2pv6C038m.d24j is the latest one. it's on Kitz site but I'm sure it's listed as 035m on it.

038m though is deffo the latest one as I have it (unlocked and no bt agent etc)

I take it you got your firmware from here before

http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=13130.0 (near bottom of page is the link)

It says 035m in it but apparently that's a typo apparently (I know for sure if you go to the one in the experimental folder that for sure is 038m as that's the one and my 3 friends are using and it works perfect).

When you upgrade the firmware you have to do it exactly how you did it to unlock it in the first place, if you just select the update firmware from the unlocked modems pages then it doesn't work, although it looks like it does until you look at the actual firmware and realise it's still on the old one (took me 2 goes before I realised that)

So, just to confirm, you are saying to use this one from the Experimental folder?

bcm96368MVWG_fs_kernel_HG612V100R001C01B030SP06_unlockedgui-nobtagent

TIA

Just checked and yes that's the one I'm using, like I said though make sure you update it by using the same instructions as you did to unlock it and then select that firmware, otherwise the firmware doesn't seem to update.

Hi Tony,

I'm using the same firmware as Iranian Giraffe and it does work well.

Thanks
Tim

Thanks both for the confirmation! I'll unlock a second HG612 I have and use that for now.

Sometime tomorrow hopefully at the moment. Also gives me a chance to reroute some of the wiring around near the modem.

timl
Did you know the Hurst exchange is slated for native FTTP? Not available yet but hopefully it will come to at least some cabs. You can start saving towards the install costs now (although you are close to max for FTTC already I believe)

Okay well the other modem is flashed and now showing version d24..

I'll put it on this afternoon and also find the other data. Matter of interest, what are the band changes then?

Thanks

Okay. I did a bit of a wiring tidy up and swapped the modems over at 14:35 so using the latest firmware now. Hasn't made much difference to the line rate though the upload is a bit higher. There is though a major change in the Bitswap graph shape in current stats (last graph) and as I write this the ES count is rising rapidly but not sure why - ah a large burst of interference!

You asked for some stats. I don't have timed bitloading graphs back in time except
for a few in April - HERE is one.

Some other data at that time:

01/04
Profile ~50Mbps

Max:    Upstream rate = 10043 Kbps, Downstream rate = 59080 Kbps
Path:   0, Upstream rate = 10932 Kbps, Downstream rate = 51381 Kbps

SNR (dB):        5.9             5.3
Pwr(dBm):        12.3            6.6

B:              51              238
M:              1               1
T:              64              61
R:              12              16
S:              0.0322          0.6955
L:              15900           2933
D:              1005            1
I:              64              255
N:              64              255

Then data from 19-06-2014 and the same as it was for 40+ days before

Profile ~45Mbps

Max:    Upstream rate = 9930 Kbps, Downstream rate = 53216 Kbps
Path:   0, Upstream rate = 10671 Kbps, Downstream rate = 46159 Kbps

SNR (dB):        5.8             6.0
Pwr(dBm):        11.9            6.4

B:              51              238
M:              1               1
T:              64              55
R:              12              16
S:              0.0358          0.7125
L:              14284           2863
D:              903             1
I:              64              255
N:              64              255

Then on 20/06/2014 after hiccup on 19th around 15:45 and with both BT and plusnet profiles synced (they were 45 and 34 at one time)

Profile 34Mbps

Max:    Upstream rate = 9703 Kbps, Downstream rate = 40692 Kbps
Path:   0, Upstream rate = 9592 Kbps, Downstream rate = 35072 Kbps

SNR (dB):        6.1             6.1
Pwr(dBm):        11.8            5.8

B:              51              238
M:              1               1
T:              64              61
R:              12              16
S:              0.0474          0.8009
L:              10800           2547
D:              683             1
I:              64              255
N:              64              255

And currently after HG612 restart and updated firmware

Max:    Upstream rate = 10160 Kbps, Downstream rate = 39976 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 10070 Kbps, Downstream rate = 34771 Kbps

SNR (dB):        6.3             6.1
Pwr(dBm):        11.8            5.9

B:              51              238
M:              1               1
T:              64              2
R:              12              16
S:              0.0470          0.7910
L:              10896           2579
D:              689             1
I:              64              255
N:              64              255

Twice today I've had crackling noises on the phone for short periods but nothing noticeable on the graphs at the time.

I'd like to get my profile reset to see if it gets back to what it was, even if only temporarily if there is a fault. I had it done on ADSL a couple of times by Zen after the DLM reacted to local interference from a duff switched mode PSU on a monitor. Not sure if it's that easy with plusnet / VDSL2?

Edit: there's also:

Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2770) 
DS: (33,857) (1218,1959) (2795,4083) 
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2521) 
DS: (41,857) (1218,1959) 

Attainable Net Data Rate:	    10091 kbps		    39716 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:	       5.9 dBm		     11.8 dBm
====================================================================================
  VDSL Band Status	U0	U1	U2	U3	U4	D1	D2	D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	4.5	37.3	53.3	N/A	N/A	18.1	48.0	75.4
Signal Attenuation(dB):	4.5	37.3	52.9	N/A	N/A	25.1	47.7	N/A
        SNR Margin(dB):	6.1	6.0	6.0	N/A	N/A	6.1	6.1	N/A
         TX Power(dBm):	-3.5	-3.9	4.9	N/A	N/A	9.9	7.4	N/A

Edited by tbailey2 (Wed 25-Jun-14 20:52:15)

This is really for RONSKI but does anyone know if the Summary Stats tab screen on the HG612 Modem Stats GUI is available as an accessible image somehow? It appears to be an internal mage and would be useful to have available remotely - which I am currently trying to do with the rest of the graphs....

Thanks

When you say summary stats tab, are you talking about either the

Connections Stats tab that you see when it first loads up or even the pbParams tab that shows the line Attenuation, signal Attenuation etc

If you are then they are saved in the Current Stats folder

Or is there an actual summary stats screen that I've not seen myself?

Just having a quick look at those figures a few things stand out to me

1) when you are synced on 1/4 one of your SNR's has dropped down to 5.3, so something is effecting it there quite a bit, when you mention that the next data is 40+ days later, what is the SNR for these days leadng upto the 19th june?, is it still close to 6 or is it constantly falling?

2)

VDSL Band Status D2
Line Attenuation(dB):18.1
Signal Attenuation(dB):25.1

If you look at that you can see that the Signal Attenuation is a lot higher than your line attenuation. It is believed that as D2 contains the tones that ADSL uses that the higher attenuation on the signal over the line is due to crosstalk if that's the case they yours is very high (mine is 18.4 line and 21.9 signal)

3) The crackling on the line is obviously not good and something to keep an eye on (ear in this case) as that will need to be logged as a fault (voice side not BB side) if it continues as that will effect BB, you would normally of expected to of seen an issue show up on the BB stats when it happened though.

I mean the first summary tab on the main summary screen - I looked but can't find a graph of that exact screen as such in the folder.

See HERE. The other graphs that either in the all-in-one summary or the separate versions I can handle okay.

Yeah for some reason I thought that was in the current folder along with the other but after looking clearly it's not.

The 40+ days I mentioned refers to the period immediately before the hiccup i.e. back into mid May where it had been stable at around 6dB+/- a fraction for that period.

The SNR margin was dropping slowly after April and into May as installs took place and for various reasons I was powering off the modem for periods. As I said before the SNR and Attainables would also jump about when I knew that installs had taken place usually up or down maybe 0.5 - 1dB suddenly (and maybe back UP again back to where they were) which is when the suggestion that there were one or more bad crimps that contractors were disturbing came from one of the engineers (I'm assuming this is where the crackling is now coming from?).

These were my stats a couple of hours after installation back in Feb

Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 15178 Kbps, Downstream rate = 61964 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 9995 Kbps, Downstream rate = 39973 Kbps

Link Power State:	L0
Mode:			VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile:		Profile 17a
TPS-TC:			PTM Mode
Trellis:		U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:		No Defect
Training Status:	Showtime
		Down		Up
SNR (dB):	 16.8		 9.8
Attn(dB):	 0.0		 0.0
Pwr(dBm):	 11.7		 6.0

At that time, I had been put on 40/10 and not 80/20 as ordered.

When that was fixed I got:

Max:	Upstream rate =    15044 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60292 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 14841 Kbps, Downstream rate = 59613 Kbps
                  Up             Down
SNR (dB):	 6.4		 6.2
Attn(dB):	 0.0		 0.0
Pwr(dBm):	 11.8		 6.9

Happy Days!!

Anyway, when I restarted the modem it has always resynced at 6db but I don't recollect it ever sliding below about 5dB - and at no point (until the last week that is) has it ever resynched via the DLM except for the initial one in early March when I had millions of errors (and synced at 60!)

I notice that DSLStats reports both Line and Signal attenuation in pbParams whereas HG612Stats just reports Line attenuation in that summary I referred to - but the latter reports the Line attenuation using the Signal attenuation figure!

Also your quote of D2 figs looks instead like the D1 data?

The stats from the upgraded firmware have a bit more info inc D3 attenuation (at 13:46 today)

Max:	Upstream rate = 10177 Kbps, Downstream rate = 40364 Kbps
Bearer:	0, Upstream rate = 10070 Kbps, Downstream rate = 34771 Kbps

Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2770) 
DS: (33,857) (1218,1959) (2795,4083) 
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2521) 
DS: (41,857) (1218,1959) 
	  VDSL Port Details		  Upstream		  Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate:	    10177 kbps		    40364 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:	       6.0 dBm		     11.8 dBm
====================================================================================
  VDSL Band Status	U0	U1	U2	U3	U4	D1	D2	D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	4.5	37.3	53.3	N/A	N/A	18.1	48.0	75.4
Signal Attenuation(dB):	4.5	37.3	52.9	N/A	N/A	25.1	47.7	N/A
        SNR Margin(dB):	6.3	6.0	6.2	N/A	N/A	6.4	6.4	N/A
         TX Power(dBm):	-3.5	-3.9	4.9	N/A	N/A	9.9	7.4	N/A

I have DSLStats producing this text file now so will add to the live view in my sig.

FWIW the new modem is a 3B and the old one was a 2B.

Another slight oddity, in DSLStats the firmware line says Annex A whereas the Stats table shows Annex B??

I am using that one also and have so for many months now.

Hi Tony,

Sorry I did obviously mean D1 band not D2 (not sure why I put that), but the answer is still the same, D1 uses the same bands as ADSL so people believe that the higher signal attenuation is a result of cross talk and going by the figures I've seen against others yours is high.

Our figures are very similar which is not really surprising considering my cabinet is 700m away and yours is 800m, you have higher speeds than me though which would be a little bit of a surprise if part of my line wasn't aluminium, anyway here is my stats below.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb242/Master_Yoda...


Just out of interest what does the BT checker say your estimated speeds are now??, If you are 800m away your line was doing [censored] well to have those 60meg speeds.

If you look here

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband....

you can see what the estimated speeds are with cross talk and going by mine and my friends figures these appear to be pretty darn close, maybe a little low but then obviously each line is different.

I had an engineer come round to fix the issue I had and it was that it had a loose connection in the cabinet and I've not got a boost of speed back like I lost a while back (like you have), I also had the boost when engineer was at the cab etc)

I hope you get your speed back but since this is pretty much exactly the same as what happened to my line and it is believed to be cross talk that's the issue then I don't think you will be getting that speed back, especially if you are indeed 800m away from your cabinet.

Like I said I'm hope I'm wrong, I'm just going by what I've been told by the OR engineers that have been to my line and I know how frustrating the speed drop is (I went from 53 down to 31ish) and no-one really knows for sure why, I've just been told cross talk and length of line and that it's within the expected speeds.

Will be interesting to see what your BT estimated speeds on the checker are though.

Okay. You need to look at this thread on the HG612 Stats I started as there is a query on those actual figures! BaldEagle1 has just made some comments that I haven't quite fathomed out yet... Feel free to pile in!

I always had a higher ADSL2 speed than the estimates - around 9.5-10Mbps. One thing in my favour is that when I worked for BT back in the 90s, they had to get various Kilostream and other feeds in here and I needed a new armoured cable to replace what I had. This line is on one of those pairs (I do have another line if necessary, I did have ADSL on both at one point). That new cable was run down from some way up the road... There is aluminum around here but it's on the other side of the cab.

My estimates are:

Telephone Number ****** on Exchange HURSTPIERPOINT is served by Cabinet 4 

FTTC Range A (Clean) 	        43.9 	32.8 	9.3 	6.6 	-- 	Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 	37.5 	20 	9.3 	5.3 	-- 	Available
 
WBC ADSL 2+ 	          Up to 6 	-- 	3 to 8.5 	Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M 	Up to 6 	Up to 1 	3 to 8.5 	Available
ADSL Max 	Up to 5 	-- 	4 to 6 	Available
WBC Fixed Rate 	2 	-- 	-- 	Available
Fixed Rate 	2 	-- 	-- 	Available

Which is pretty well dead on - or was for 40 days+ Now it's at the bottom end of Clean. The 800m is a pretty good estimate it's all underground on a country lane which is not too bent with fields on three sides and I can follow the chambers in the road. There are a few telegraph poles to ca 1870 period properties. Neighbour immediately opposite gets 44Mbps, and next door 41. I was first on the cab which may explain the high initial speeds.

I'm working on getting HG612 Stats live online at the moment as well as DSLstats

I may be wrong but I still think there is a loose connection and room for improvement! Hope springs eternal...

Edited by tbailey2 (Fri 27-Jun-14 22:01:16)

In reply to a post by tbailey2:

I may be wrong but I still think there is a loose connection and room for improvement! Hope springs eternal...

I hope your right for your case, but...... if you're pinning your hope on it being a loose connection and that it will go back to the attainable speeds (that are boosted for a short time) I feel you will prob be dissapointed, My issue was sorted earlier this week and it was a loose connection at the cabinet and I got no extra speed and I also still get the attainable boosts every now and again that I did before.
You definately still have room for a speed improvement though, especially if the DLM decides to remove interleaving on your line.
All lines are different though and as you say Hope springs eternal.
Good luck anyway.

No, for that to happen for sure there would need to be a reset of the DLM I believe? Did you ask for or get one after the repair?

The OR DLM will normally add or remove interleaving as it sees fit.

Yes but I meant a reset is needed after a line fault has been fixed to get a higher profile back ? Or not maybe? Or is that a separate operation? Or...

Sorry, I was having brain fade and mis-read your previous post.

I think it removes banding after quite a while. Ideally the engineers have it reset when they have fixed the fault.

Thanks and that's okay as it's all getting very confusing ...

I'll leave it as is for now but if the noises on the POTS get worse, it'll give me an excuse to report a line fault maybe.

If you look at that you can see that the Signal Attenuation is a lot higher than your line attenuation. It is believed that as D2 contains the tones that ADSL uses that the higher attenuation on the signal over the line is due to crosstalk if that's the case they yours is very high (mine is 18.4 line and 21.9 signal)

Well plusnet have tested my line and I have to report that there is nothing wrong with it (well there wouldn't be would there if it's intermittent), however the most interesting thing of all is that the tests show that I have no crosstalk whatsoever .

it'll give me an excuse to report a line fault maybe.

If you raise a 'noisy' line fault, then the engineer won't be doing a DLM reset on your FTTC service.

Yes thanks - that is then not a an idea to use.

However, am I right in remembering that a drop of 25% in line speed over 14 days counts as a line fault to BTW? At the moment I'm at 24.79% over 12 days!

What are your thoughts on a gel crimp(s) being the problem? There was another little spike up and then down then back up again this morning at around 11:00 on upstream.

Plusnet seem reluctant to do anything - they consider the line pretty perfect after testing it...

Thanks

I had a 30% drop in speed (from 72 Mbps to 50 Mbps) in about 3 mins and my ISP raised a ticket with Openreach a week later. The engineer came out tested the line, said it was OK and the line could never sync higher than 50 Mbps and went. Probably being 2:30pm on the day of the FA Cup final may have had some bearing on the visit only lasting 15 minutes.

Complained to my ISP, they got on to Openreach to get another engineer out, the same guy that came before turned up, tested the line. Made a call to some department and mentioned that the "customer said the line used to sync at around 72 Mbps", ended the call and said there is no record that the line has ever synced higher than 50 Mbps and left.

Your ISP may well have the evidence that your line synced higher, I know Plusnet would have.

Thanks Zarjaz and also note RONSKI's comments - I am also with plusnet.

Would the following help my case in establishing that the current profile is NOT normal for my line (see plusnet diagnostics and their comments near the end of this)?

I have some 18,000 graphs and log files archived from DSLStats back to 26th Feb that show my line syncing at 60Mbps initally (but with too many errors to survive that for too long) plus all the changes since.... Here are a few extracts (I have the graphs to match with date stamps)

(BTW, this isn't the modem BT supplied for the install - in fact the contractor didn't bring one in with him as he didn't think one was wanted, luckily I already had one from ebay! He did poke aound in his van at the end and dig out an ECI one that is still in its box.)

Installed 22nd Feb 2014

25th Feb
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 14932 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60968 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 14841 Kbps, Downstream rate = 59613 Kbps

1st March
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 13657 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60516 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 13407 Kbps, Downstream rate = 59737 Kbps

5th March  - DLM had intervened
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 13398 Kbps, Downstream rate = 62272 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 13231 Kbps, Downstream rate = 53188 Kbps

11th March
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 12723 Kbps, Downstream rate = 63644 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 12877 Kbps, Downstream rate = 55130 Kbps

26th March
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:	0
Max:	Upstream rate = 10395 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60024 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10932 Kbps, Downstream rate = 51381 Kbps

1st April
Max:	Upstream rate = 10006 Kbps, Downstream rate = 58752 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10932 Kbps, Downstream rate = 51381 Kbps

1st May
Max:	Upstream rate = 9684 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57436 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 9693 Kbps, Downstream rate = 49084 Kbps

Below is is the start of the 40 days up at approx the same sync speed
8th May 
Max:	Upstream rate = 10605 Kbps, Downstream rate = 52740 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10641 Kbps, Downstream rate = 45122 Kbps

1st June
Max:	Upstream rate = 10405 Kbps, Downstream rate = 54120 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10671 Kbps, Downstream rate = 46159 Kbps

10th June
Max:	Upstream rate = 9728 Kbps, Downstream rate = 53732 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10671 Kbps, Downstream rate = 46159 Kbps

15th June
Max:	Upstream rate = 9663 Kbps, Downstream rate = 53604 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10671 Kbps, Downstream rate = 46159 Kbps

19th June
Max:	Upstream rate = 9978 Kbps, Downstream rate = 52956 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 10671 Kbps, Downstream rate = 46159 Kbps

20th June after 'event''
Max:	Upstream rate = 9716 Kbps, Downstream rate = 40472 Kbps
Path:	0, Upstream rate = 9742 Kbps, Downstream rate = 35104 Kbps

and there it has stayed.

HERE is the plusnet diagnostic report. The comments with it are:

Thanks for raising this to our attention.

I've just run through a full set of intrusive faults testing on your broadband service and found that everything appears to be fine and within limits. You're not affected by the banding of the line and all tests completed with a pass result as shown below.

If you would like to progress this then you can raise a fault and we'll take a look into this for you however the likelihood of this being returned as no fault found by BTW would be very high.

From which I assume they never bothered to look back at any stats and don't appear to be particularly interested in the problem? I did ask why it was so sudden if no fault and why the plusnet profile dropped first but no response yet.

In fact, the profiles were out of sync for at least 36 hours (plusnet 34, BT tester 45 with 2 of the BTW tests I did showing the line speed in red and below par) before I restarted the modem on the following Monday morning and they then matched (wrong way round unfortunately)

I don't understand the 'Crosstalk not detected' report testing. So why the gradual drop from 50Mbps down to 42Mbps over a couple of months? And neighbours are still getting 40-44 around me.

They do have evidence of the higher sync spreed but it seems this particular engineer has a fixation on their current estimated speed for my line which is 55 Mbps (the original estimate when I got fibre 2 years ago was 65 Mbps).

The current 55 Mbps seems to have been derived from the average of the two low values from the checker (63 and 47) with the engineer saying if the sync speed is +/- 5 Mbps then it's OK, which according to him is Openreach's policy when dealing with estimated sync speeds.

In reply to a post by tbailey2:

I don't understand the 'Crosstalk not detected' report testing. So why the gradual drop from 50Mbps down to 42Mbps over a couple of months? And neighbours are still getting 40-44 around me.

I had a very similar report from Plusnet when I first reported reduced speeds.

Visiting engineer notes & Plusnet's own notes confirmed the diagnosis of increased crosstalk, but the table in my fault ticket also showed "Not detected".

Plusnet did admit that that particular test is not perfect & the result that nothing was detected means just that - the test didn't detect it.
However, it doesn't actually mean that there is none present.

As it has 'stolen' around 33% of my connection's previous capability, there clearly is an issue.



BT's response?

They reduced my speed estimates so that I'm no longer more than 25% below estimated speed!!!!!!!!!!

In reply to a post by Bald_Eagle1:

BT's response?

They reduced my speed estimates so that I'm no longer more than 25% below estimated speed!!!!!!!!!!

That's pretty much what they do unfortunately. As my fixated engineer said the data is uploaded from the JDSU and if there aren't any faults the estimates get updated in a few days.

It's now a lose-lose situation for customers because line faults causing reduced sync speeds are going to just get passed as acceptable. I wonder how many new fibre customers are having to accept lower speeds just because of this.

Thanks to all who replied - the latest reply on the plusnet forum is laughable and shows that he hasn't even bothered to read the details I gave in the first place, probably a cut and paste job from the 101 Reasons Why chart .

I'll just end up going in circles and get more and more ***** off if I pursue this. Still no explanation of why the two profles weren't in sync for some time.

What I may well do is have another FTTC connection put on my other line from another ISP and see what that does - okay it's the same derived feed but it's a different pair. Then decide when the contracts run out.

Did I hear it's self install now on all flavours of FTTC?

In reply to a post by tbailey2:

Thanks to all who replied - the latest reply on the plusnet forum is laughable and shows that he hasn't even bothered to read the details I gave in the first place, probably a cut and paste job from the 101 Reasons Why chart .

Can you provide a link to that thread?
If so, I'll have a read of it all.

Hi

It's HERE. I'd call it patronising but maybe I'm too close to it....

simon I have had all sorts of stories, my view is they make it up as they go along to suit their argument of the day.

When i was on adsl I had a engineer sync below the FTR of the line and then blatantly ignore it and say pretty much "tough luck, it is what it is". Granted the line was heavily snrm'd and interleaved at the tinme pushing it down but was still below the FTR.

On FTTC when plusnet were sending me engineer after engineer, I had varying responses.

The first guy said the estimated speeds were meaningless, and that my 72-73 estimate was for when you next door to cabinet. He kept saying its up to 72-73 not 72-73. When I told him I think the ASA would have an issue with that statement he looked like he wanted to punch me.
Other engineer swere much more polite but all but one were persisting that speeds around what I was getting on their visit was "within spec" they kept using the phrase "within spec". At the time I had a sync below 60 on a 73 estimate which is over your +/- 5mbit.

I had engineers telling me 80mbit is FTTP only. Also that an attainable cannot go over 80, impossible. All but one insisted 76(80) is a technical limit not a openreach cap.

The one guy who seemed to know something is up was acting like his hands were tied, he kept saying things like i cannot do anything unless the JDSU tells me.

Finally when I told plusnet to stop the engineers, unless they could send a speed boost guy out as after all thats what I wanted not an SFI, plusnet told me this.

They told me they dont do speed boost engineers on FTTC but are currently working on a business case to do so.
When I asked what sync speed I would need to be "outside of spec", I was told under 40mbit. Which is over 30mbit below my estimate.
Also on my support ticket notes there appeared to be what looked like a response from BTw/openreach stating a refusal to do a pair swap on my line on the basis it will make things worse for other customers, which suggested to me BT were aware of issues on the local loop in my area and moving customers around triggers those issues, e.g. there might be excessive crosstalk in my area, and if I got moved someone else would probably raise a fault when they get a huge drop in speed.

Point of my post, is the reasonings given for a refusal to act were not consistent. The impression I get is excuses are made up on an ongoing basis.

Also regarding the line test results plusnet provide.

My sync speed has dropped from an attainable peak of 110 down to 64-72 (at 6db snrm fast path) and that test reports "no crosstalk detected", meaning either crosstalk isnt my issue or the test isnt reliable at detecting crosstalk.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 01-Jul-14 20:38:30)