Suspected REIN Fault, Cab 14 Newtown, Powys

Im having a long standing issue with a FTTC install, with Openreach alternating between blaming the customer equipment and a REIN fault, which they then deny any knowledge of. This has been going on now for over three months and we're no closer to a resolution. We've had all the CPE replaced and at least 3 Openreach SFI visits.

The line in question syncs to the cabinet at a rock solid 80/20, but experiences packet loss that varies between 30 and 100% which makes establishing and maintaining a PPP session to the ISP almost impossible.

The latest Openreach engineer to visit yesterday says he knows of several other properties fed from the same cabinet having exactly the same problem.

I witnessed first hand him trying to escalate this back to the REIN team, and receiving what can only being described as a bo****king from their help desk for having disclosed information to the end user with regards to the REIN fault.

But something doesn't add up with this being explained as a REIN fault, the Openreach modem never looses sync, my understanding of how the VDSL part of the circuit works is that if their was REIN present sufficient to cause this level of packet loss it would prevent the modem from acheiving sync, or cause it to regularly retrain. I also believe that when Openreach ran a BRAT for REIN it passed.

I'm at my wits end, as is I am suspecting is my ISP . Any advice anybody can offer?

The rock solid 80/20 sync would rule out a REIN issue in my book.

If it's packet loss it may be worth running trace routes at good and bad times to see if you can identify where the problem lies.

If the engineer mentioned other local properties with similar issues, then maybe a lift and shift of the DSLAM ties may resolve the issue ?

Thanks Zarjaz your comments regarding sync kind of confirmed my own suspicions that it was unlikely to be a REIN issue.

The packet loss is when pinging the first hop to the ISP gateway, as I increase the packet size the loss % goes up until at about 1000 bytes its in the 80-100%, being ethernet frame based there should be little or preferably no packet loss with a packets upto 1500 bytes.

Confusingly the packet loss appears to be marginally better for a few days once we've had rain

I think there are known faults with the optical link from the cabinet to the exchange.

A few of my neighbours on FTTC with Sky,BT and Zen have all been experiencing severe packet loss over the last two weeks and the common factor is the connection/equipment from the cabinet to the exchange. Sync speeds are perfect so VDSL is not the issue. Seems to be upstream packet loss. Speed tests show very poor upload speeds as most packets are being dropped. Speed Test
BT support don't believe there is an issue as they can't 'see' a problem, they don't have the means to test anything other than download speeds and blamed the poor upload on the speed test being variable. They even told a neighbour it was noise on his line and would go away...useless

Zen confirmed there is a packet loss issue and have been working with Openreach to get it resolved. (good reason to leave BT for Zen) Unfortunately it's taking a while and we are still suffering after two weeks.

I think that there are known faults with the Huawei MA5616T DSLAM (link to cabinet info)used in the cabinet or another common component such as the optical uplink to the exchange as there seem to be others with the same packet loss issues on the forums. A faulty optical card at either end could affect just the uplink and cause severe packet loss for everyone on the same cabinet. Pingplotter shows packet loss at the first IP hop the same as you found adtyne.

What cabinet are you connected to? Is it the same MA5616T DSLAM?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The rock solid 80/20 sync would rule out a REIN issue in my book.

If it's packet loss it may be worth running trace routes at good and bad times to see if you can identify where the problem lies.

If the engineer mentioned other local properties with similar issues, then maybe a lift and shift of the DSLAM ties may resolve the issue ?

My own experience of REIN on an ADSL2 line included symptoms of 'large packets being lost, smaller packets getting through'. The interference did not cause the modem to lose sync, or if it did, the nature of interference meant it still negotiated a rate still too fast (too low a SNR) and hence still suffered large packet corruption/loss. CRC error type counters went absolutely mental of course The faulty switch mode PSU in a Sky box in the next street(!) was eventually replaced and calm restored. I've had 2 other REIN events since that, averaging 1 every 2 years, all faulty power supplies.