Can anyone help?

Hello. Sorry if this is a bit long winded.

I'm hoping that someone here can have a look at my stats and see if there is anything wrong. I've been having loads of dropped packets, check here,

http://www.petremembrance.co.uk/tbgraph4.png and

http://www.petremembrance.co.uk/test-27-10-2015.png

Here are tonights speeds http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14459...

over a number of weeks and speeds that get bad mainly in the evening. I know that can be congestion in the exchange, which I'm sure it is as our exchange (Inverness Culloden) is ancient, no work done there since 2006 except to add fibre recently. I'm paying for a a fttc connection at around 40mbps down and around 8.1mbps up but in the evening it slips to anywhere around 5mbps down. It becomes useless to watch anything on youtube as it continually buffers and I have given up on iplayer. I signed up to fttc on 4/8/15 and hoped that I would be free of any previous problems but that isn't the case I'm sorry to say. I couldn't get stats to see what was happening as the openreach modem I was given at installation was the kind that you couldn't get them from so I bought an unlocked BT Openreach Huawei EchoLife HG612 3B VDSL/FTTC Modem G.INP Ready on Ebay. I wasn't quite sure how to work it but the chap I bought it from was very helpful and gave me a step by step guide on what to do. I set it up today and had a fiddle but was amazed when I could access the stats which I've added below. I see lots of errors but don't know if they mean anything serious or not. I hoping that someone here will look at them and see if I can do anything my side of the cabinet to sort the problems or will I have to push UNO to get them to push BT. UNO have been very good at most things but they always seem to put obstacles in the way by saying the likes of "Initial data from our monitoring shows congestion at the cabinet/exchange level but we will first need to see if this is below the product assured rate of 8Mb for a 4 hour rolling period before BT will accept this". I wasn't told anything like "8mb for a 4 hour period etc" when I signed up. I know there are rules but surely they should have been stated before I signed up. I was told my speeds would be between 20mbps and 40mbps when I signed up, that was taking the lowest figure for a impacted line and the highest for a clean line. I'm not the brightest button in the box when it comes to broadband connection rates, noise, errors etc and I know that problems can and do occur but to pay for one speed and get a quarter of it then to be told BT says you cannot have a line problems if you get the 8mb assured rate. Where did that come in on the sheet I read when I signed up? Anyway I would like to know if someone here can interpret these stats and see what's happening. I hope I'm giving the correct information and as much as possible but if there is any other information I should have added please let me know. I have a Netgear D6200 as a router. I've replaced all cables in case any weren't up to the job.
Thanks.

Caley.

Statistics Path 0 Path 1


Downstream Upstream Downstream Upstream

Line rate (kbit/s) 40000 8359 0 0
CRC errors 147 127 18 0
FEC errors 0 0 12 0
HEC errors 90 4294967290 32 0



Line Status Downstream Upstream

Attainable rate (kbit/s) 47800 8359
SNR margin (dB) 22.8 0
Line attenuation (dB) 13.5 6.2
Output power (dBmV) 13.5 6.2



Connection Status

Mode VDSL2
Traffic type PTM
DSL synchronization status Up
DSL up time 0

The speed test and BQMs don't look good. It's better if you use the link immediately below the speed test graph though as it shows us the graph. That can be very helpful for diagnosis of problems.

Re the error stats, the HG612 GUI isn't reliable. For instance your HEC figures. Mine are exactly the same figure. It is displaying junk .

Do you know how to use telnet? If so, at a command prompt type

telnet 192.168.1.1

Then at the login stuff it's just the same as you use to get to the GUI. At the ATP line, type sh

At the # prompt type xdslcmd info --stats

Then copy and paste the lot to here . As in:-


Welcome Visiting Huawei Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:
ATP>sh


BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --stats
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 1
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 14190 Kbps, Downstream rate = 58248 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 14372 Kbps, Downstream rate = 59999 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 5.4 6.2
Attn(dB): 19.8 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 7.4
VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: -6 26
B: 174 237
M: 1 1
T: 0 62
R: 8 16
S: 0.0928 0.5267
L: 15775 3858
D: 16 1
I: 183 127
N: 183 254
Q: 16 0
V: 3 0
RxQueue: 33 0
TxQueue: 11 0
G.INP Framing: 18 0
G.INP lookback: 11 0
RRC bits: 0 24
Bearer 1
MSGc: 122 -6
B: 0 0
M: 2 0
T: 2 0
R: 16 0
S: 8.0000 0.0000
L: 32 0
D: 1 0
I: 32 0
N: 32 0
Q: 0 0
V: 0 0
RxQueue: 0 0
TxQueue: 0 0
G.INP Framing: 0 0
G.INP lookback: 0 0
RRC bits: 0 0
Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 0 1379127
OHFErr: 692 757
RS: 1579969648 1106228
RSCorr: 15997010 11162
RSUnCorr: 0 0
Bearer 1
OHF: 257640902 0
OHFErr: 0 0
RS: 2061126723 0
RSCorr: 1242 0
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx: 56097 0
rtx_c: 120401 0
rtx_uc: 68626 0

G.INP Counters
LEFTRS: 1831 0
minEFTR: 60009 0
errFreeBits: 3212593032 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 752886683 0
Data Cells: 568596131 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

Bearer 1
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 0 0
Data Cells: 0 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 94 536
SES: 25 1
UAS: 300 289
AS: 4138450

Bearer 0
INP: 47.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 0.00 8.19
OR: 0.01 31.23
AgR: 60106.73 14403.64

Bearer 1
INP: 2.00 0.00
INPRein: 2.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 16.06 0.01
OR: 63.75 0.01
AgR: 63.75 0.01

Bitswap: 3073539/3073541 60490/60668

Total time = 1 days 6 hours 17 min 33 sec
FEC: 20091208 14688
CRC: 1388 1000
ES: 94 536
SES: 25 1
UAS: 300 289
LOS: 1 0
LOF: 9 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 2 min 33 sec
FEC: 66 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 13375 3
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 6 hours 17 min 33 sec
FEC: 208784 28
CRC: 0 1
ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
FEC: 288365 184
CRC: 0 12
ES: 0 7
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 47 days 21 hours 34 min 9 sec
FEC: 15997010 11162
CRC: 692 757
ES: 40 411
SES: 14 1
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
#

While there is some packet loss the one bad spell appears to coincide with you using the connection a lot, so not unreasonable for a router to respond slowly to ICMP pings at that point

The only really dodgy looking figure is the HEC count which looks like it may not be a real figure but a negative value displayed wrong in the web gui of the modem.

When linking to a speed test better to link to the results page itself e.g. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html... as the shape of the lines can be informative sometimes.

If it is congestion then speeds will probably improve from late evening onwards and get worse again from 4pm onwards, so its seeing if its that pattern, if its errors on your line then they tend to be more random.

One thing you could try is see how a neighbours service is performing, if they get good speeds then an exchange wide issue can ruled out.

NOTE: The exchange can be 500 years old, the FTTC service will be going over a modern network, as its Xilo you might want to ask who they are using for backhaul from your exchange.

Thanks for the response and the step by step info RobertoS.

After a 20minute search I managed to find that telnet wasn't activated on my computer so spent more time looking how to do that. However with your guidance once I got the prompt I manage to get the stats below. I hope they mean something to you because they are a foreign language to me
Caley.



BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --stats
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 8359 Kbps, Downstream rate = 47540 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 8359 Kbps, Downstream rate = 40000 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 10.0 6.0
Attn(dB): 22.8 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 6.1
VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: -6 26
B: 138 237
M: 1 1
T: 0 37
R: 8 16
S: 0.1101 0.9043
L: 10684 2247
D: 16 1
I: 147 127
N: 147 254
Q: 16 0
V: 12 0
RxQueue: 27 0
TxQueue: 9 0
G.INP Framing: 18 0
G.INP lookback: 9 0
RRC bits: 0 24
Bearer 1
MSGc: 90 -6
B: 0 0
M: 2 0
T: 2 0
R: 16 0
S: 10.6667 0.0000
L: 24 0
D: 1 0
I: 32 0
N: 32 0
Q: 0 0
V: 0 0
RxQueue: 0 0
TxQueue: 0 0
G.INP Framing: 0 0
G.INP lookback: 0 0
RRC bits: 0 0
Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 0 62340
OHFErr: 0 35
RS: 1840814256 1584585
RSCorr: 3130 15
RSUnCorr: 0 0
Bearer 1
OHF: 3166007 0
OHFErr: 0 0
RS: 18995673 0
RSCorr: 3 0
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx: 1601730 0
rtx_c: 342 0
rtx_uc: 0 0

G.INP Counters
LEFTRS: 4 0
minEFTR: 39989 0
errFreeBits: 31020778 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 3911761299 0
Data Cells: 12578012 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

Bearer 1
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 0 0
Data Cells: 0 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 0 35
SES: 0 0
UAS: 113 113
AS: 50855

Bearer 0
INP: 45.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 0.00 8.39
OR: 0.01 30.48
AgR: 40252.99 8389.05

Bearer 1
INP: 2.50 0.00
INPRein: 2.50 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 16.06 0.01
OR: 47.81 0.01
AgR: 47.81 0.01

Bitswap: 34395/34395 264/264

Total time = 14 hours 9 min 28 sec
FEC: 3130 15
CRC: 0 35
ES: 0 35
SES: 0 0
UAS: 113 113
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 9 min 28 sec
FEC: 338 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 26 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 14 hours 9 min 28 sec
FEC: 3130 15
CRC: 0 35
ES: 0 35
SES: 0 0
UAS: 113 113
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 14 hours 7 min 33 sec
FEC: 3130 15
CRC: 0 35
ES: 0 35
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0

Thanks for the help Mr Saffron.
I don't really use this connection a lot so not sure why it would show up as using the connection a lot. Sorry about posting the wrong test results but I think this might be the right one.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

All my neighbours are still on ADSL so not sure what speeds they get. I know that UNO use BT. Before I went with Xilo on adsl2+ with a TT Business backdrop, I was with Zen who used BT as their backdrop and I only lasted a month there as the speeds were abysmal. I'm hoping to get an isp that has TT business as a back haul but then again I don't want to move my phone away from Idnet. I haven't really had a lot of help from UNO on this problem. Matt is always very good and helpful with good information etc but since my move to UNO things have changed.

Caley.

Well done .

There's nothing obviously a problem there so far as I can see. When you do the speed tests, are you connected wired or wirelessly to your router?

Just as an interesting point, compare the SNR; attenuation and power lines in the telnet with those from the GUI in your OP! Can you see what it has done wrong in the GUI for those lines?

For info if you've read about G.INP, it is active on the line. The fact that Bearer 1 is present is the clue.

I always do speed checks wired. I don't use wireless a lot. I see the difference in the figures for the SNR attenuation and power lines but what do those figures mean? So your saying I'm stuck with these unreliable connection speeds unless I move to another isp? Don't think I'll manage to last long where I am if I can't use youtube and the iplayer in the evening. Don't use them a lot but want to when I want to if you see what I mean.

Caley.

It looks like the VDSL2 side is fine, so its time to create a time profile from speed tests to see if the pattern is a regular predictable pattern.

If the ISP is shipping the data over the BT Wholesale WBC network then congestion is usually rare, and if you are one of the first customers on FTTC very unlikely

There's nothing unreliable about your connection speeds. You are on an "up to 40/10Mbps" product and actual connection is 40/8.46Mbps. Everything there is fine.

As MrSaffron has said, the slowdown looks to be related to the backhaul at busy times.

If you go to a command prompt again, what do you get from:-

tracert bbc.co.uk

I think we're still waiting for speedtest results from you.

The last update was Monday early morning advising they'd be added that evening but nothing received as yet.

The only real change is you're on a completely different product and issues such as this are dealt with differently.

Without the data we need (as per that ticket), if we raise such a fault now, BT will play the game of finding no fault and offering a SFI, which as many will know, cannot fix a congestion issue. With good data proving such an issue, BT have no avenue to do this and as we've seen over the years with FTTC, BT will likely increase the SFBB provisioned to the cabinet to resolve this.

Matt

Getting quite used to this telnet lark What does this tell you? It seemed very slow when waiting for it to finish. Well if it's being busy that's causing the problem then it's time to look for pastures new I think. Sorry if I have to leave UNO as Matt was always very good with a non techie like me.

Caley.


C:\>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms lo0.ar88.ts1.bb.daisyplc.net [62.72.136.179]
3 25 ms 24 ms 24 ms 62.72.134.249
4 26 ms 24 ms 26 ms 62.72.134.249
5 24 ms 26 ms 25 ms 62.72.134.198
6 27 ms 29 ms 28 ms 62.72.134.198
7 35 ms 25 ms 24 ms daisy-te4-3-503.thdo.bbc.co.uk [62.72.139.66]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 30 ms 25 ms 28 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
10 27 ms 25 ms 26 ms 132.185.255.165
11 78 ms 31 ms 25 ms fmt-vip132.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]

Trace complete.

Hi Matt.

Thanks for the input. I know I've got tests to send to you but I wanted to get the stats from this openreach unlocked modem to see what they said. Didn't want to shout if the fault was here at home. I will do the test for you but no sense in doing them when the speed isn't too bad. Here is a speed test I took earlier this evening. I know you said a third party test result won't count but it should give you an idea of what's happening here.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Caley.

We don't need the stats as the line tests give us all the data that we need in regard to the line itself Happy to paste those on the ticket when you update it.

Still need the BT results i'm afraid - they will just ask theirs to be run even if we supply our own data (both latency via your portal and the tester there too).

Matt

You might not need the modem stats but I do as I couldn't see what the modem was registering until I got an unlocked one. With Mr Saffron and RobertoS explaining what is happening with the connection I've learned a lot tonight. Still want to get my speeds sorted though as I hate buffering on the things I'm trying to view. I will do the speed test for you though.

Caley.

I misread that you were waiting to send those over based on the stats to send too.

Please do get the data we're after so we can progress it!

Matt

Matt is a great guy, there's no question about that.

That tracert shows the connection routing through a firm called Daisy, who provide the underlying service to many resellers. The latency at each step there looks fine, (the timed out line just means the router at that point is set to not respond to pings), so it looks as though any congestion problem is only affecting the speed.

As MrSaffron suggests, a few speed tests each day for two-three days as near as possible to the same time. Say two or three at good times, and two or three at slow times with half an hour or an hour between them. So we can see if there's a consistent pattern.

Thanks RobertoS.

I'll start the tests tomorrow. The mornings are ok normally but as was said previously the speed rate starts to become erratic mid afternoon. When I say erratic I mean the needle goes from 5mbps upward to 10mbps then back down and can go down as far as 1mbps and by the time evening arrives the needle is all over the place. In the evening that is when you start to see the packet losses and when the blue colour starts to wriggle up and over the yellow on the graph. That can go on till well into the late late evening so I normally give up and go to bed. By morning things are normal again. I was getting line drops when I first moved over to UNO (had them with Xilo too). The line would stay connected for 3 or 4 days then drop. However, a while back I thought things were improving as the line was held for 1276 hours before it dropped again yesterday. I was so disappointed. I still had the speed and packet loss issues though.

Caley.

The line shouldn't be dropping. We will need to look into that at some stage, but let's have the speed test recording first .

Will do.

Caley.

I've now finished 3 days of logging speeds on my UNO connection. You can view the tests on the link below.
I have also done a test which UNO requested using the speedtest.btwholesale.com tester and it showed up problems. I've had contact from UNO (Matt) saying BT confirmed it was congestion and the matter was being looked at.
I got an email tonight saying that BT are moving me onto another SVLAN sometime next week and it won't come a minute too soon for me. Speeds don't seem too bad tonight but it could be one of those intermittent evenings. I don't know however if the move will solve the dropped WAN connections that I have been suffering from since Xilo days and now UNO. As mentioned before I had over 1000hours connection time this past while which was a record but that all came to an end early this morning when the WAN dropped at around 2am. I've added a TBB graph monitor to the test page to show when the line dropped in case that will help with advice. I should say that the thick red line just after 6am on the bottom graph is where I had to reboot the modem as the speed indicator had gone crazy. Thanks for any help and advice you can give after checking the speed tests.

Caley


http://www.petremembrance.co.uk/tbb/speeds.html

That speed test tonight looks a lot better. I wonder if the SVLAN change was that 2am re-sync, and just the usual BT messaging to Xilo didn't get out until later. Let's see how things are tomorrow.

Well according to Matt the change won't happen till Monday at the earliest so don't think it was a change to SVLAN. Friday night is not too bad usually for speed because I think quite a lot of the usual net users are in the pub Tomorrow is another day and I think we'll be back to erratic speeds in the evening. I'll post tomorrow evenings graph and we'll see what it looks like.

Caley.

Have now done another test image at

http://www.petremembrance.co.uk/test_1st_nov_20.49.jpg

The BQM looks very steady but the speed test isn't so hot, although it gives "Your test shows a variable stream result" warning. The WANs been up for nearly 62hrs without dropping but I'm not holding my breath for that to remain like that. Hopefully sometime this week UNO will have good news for me from BT and my connection and speed problems will be sorted. Wish I could believe that
Thanks for all the advice you've given me and I'll let you know what happens with the changeover.


Caley