New house line stats

Hi all,

Just moved to a new place (built in 1980s) and have the following stats:

4. Board version:BT Hub 5A
5. DSL uptime:0 days, 05:48:09
6. Data rate:5053 / 39993
7. Maximum data rate:5187 / 41115
8. Noise margin:6.4 / 6.8
9. Line attenuation:35.5 / 23.9
10. Signal attenuation:22.4 / 21.4

Went for Infinity 1 due to an estimate of 45mb. Connection is otherwise stable, but the upstream is what has me curious.

Does anyone know of any potential issue which would cause such a disparity between the upstream line and signal attenuations? My next-door neighbour gets 9mb on the upstream, which is at least where my attenuation suggests I should be. The wiring in the house isn't too complex, but is certainly old.

Wondering if it might be worth getting an Openreach engineer to replace the extension socket and any other wiring?

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

Remove the front plate which should remove the extensions, then with a "dangly" filter take another set of stats using the "test" socket".

The modem is looking at signal levels and thus signal attenuation not physical line attenuation so the disparity should not cause an issue.

Your noise margin is 6.4 - close to 6 and may well have been at sync which does suggest the speed is appropriate.

Get a copy of DSL stats and run it on your line and your neighbour's and compare the various graphs to see where the major differences are.

Thanks MHC.

I have used the test socket for a few days and noticed no difference at all, really. This must mean the extension is fine? My SNR doesn't tend to vary by more than 1dB (1.5 at the most) in any given day in the test socket or faceplate.

My neighbour claimed to have had ~50mb download since 2013, after initially connecting at 65mb. He tells me his connection is very stable as well.

It's obvious my line is close to its capacity, but that capacity seems to be sub-par. I just wondered why the discrepancy with attenuation was only on the upstream, and an upload of 5mb on my attenuation definitely seems suspect: used to get much higher on a longer line - the length of copper to this line has been confirmed by an engineer as ~660m.


If new wiring wouldn't increase the upload, then I'm satisfied that there's nothing reasonable I can do here: not that my stats are too disappointing. My neighbour getting 9mb does irritate me, though

I will ask him to get some specific stats.

Does the extension still work when the master socket faceplate is removed?

That's not something I've checked, TBH.

This is roughly day 20 of the new line, and I'm not sure I want to force it to reconnect again after just doing so yesterday.

Really don't want DLM to step in and remove fastpath.

If the extension doesn't work with the faceplate removed, what does that suggest?

Thanks

The extension should NOT work with the faceplate removed. One reason that the faceplate is removable is so that all customer wiring can be removed leaving just the incoming BT owned connection to the master and thus creating a demarcation point. If yours is still connected then you need to remove it and reconnect correctly.

Sort of as MHC says.

If the extension works (for phone or broadband, it doesn't matter which you try) with the master faceplate removed then you have "star wiring", which is very bad news for FTTC and could be the cause of your problem.

You won't cause DLM to cut in through a couple of disconnects.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 11-Aug-15 10:54:41)

Thanks guys.

Went back to the test socket and the extension didn't work, also getting near-identical stats from the router.

So now that I know the internal wiring isn't to blame for the poor upload, I'm at a loss to explain the discrepancy in upload/download stats. Don't think I can recall more than one or two others with stats like these in reading the posts on this site.

Can't really go down the Openreach engineer route now, so I suppose it'll have to remain a curiosity.

Thanks again