'Hot' exchange?

Recent 'investigations by Plusnet on sudden dramatic drops in download speeds (only) on my line (they have responded well, incidentally!) have informed me that my connection is 'hot'/'red' and 'BT are trying to cool it' . I could get little other sense out of the 'agent' I was speaking to.

I assume this is ISP-speak for an overloaded system? Is that correct?

Can someone explain in simple words, please:

Does it mean that
a) The exchange has insufficient backhaul
b) My cabinet is inadequately provided with either cards or tie-lines or
c) There are too many 'customers' on my local loop or

ALL THE ABOVE?

What are the prospects for the man with the bucket of water and sponges to sort this out?

In the past I have heard similar described as a 'hot VP' (virtual path) Basically too much traffic going down a particular route on the back haul from the exchange.

Yeah spot on, basically too much traffic going through a certain route. They will either add more capacity, or move users around to spread the high bandwidth circuits across the various VP's to lighten the load.

Thanks - to clarify - where is this backhaul 'heat'? At the exchange or at the cabinet?

Usually between the exchange and the various nodes or routers throught the backhaul network that takes the connection to the peering link which gives connectivity to the internet.

Fibre links back to the exchange have many gpbs capacity. I've not came across a slow speed issue yet that was down the problems in capacity between the cab and layer 2 switch in the exchange.

I did ask in post 1 for
"Can someone explain in simple words, please:"

So can I have that last one in English please?

Take a read through this http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/equip.htm

The information is old but essentially still how it works.

The only real different with FTTC is that the DSLAM is in the street cabinet and there's a fibre link that connects it to the layer 2 switch (which connects to the various supplier backhals) in the exchange.

For example Sky have their own backhaul network, seperate to that of BT Wholesale.

Edited by deleted (Sat 02-Apr-16 15:34:11)

Well, I have tried! Cannot find "peering link" OR "layer 2 switch in the exchange" there.

Anyone else w\nt to try in my mother tongue?. I THINK I understand the answer was a)?

Google such phrases, you'll find them with a much better explanation than I can be bothered to type out

Pretty much the answer is a.

Pretty much the answer is a but it'll be specific to your isp's backhaul provider (be that BT Wholesale who the ISP uses or otherwise. As I explained, sky and talk talk have their own backahul network).

FYI Plusnet =BTW

Thanks for the answer. The problem I had was the first call from PN was that there was "a problem with eqipment connected to your line and we need to send an engineer round to check - there will be a £50 charge blah blah blah" at which point I said "hold those horse, boy".

I must admit the 'boy' did sound 'very nice' and when he started talking about my line being 'hot' I wondered if he was propositioning me...................... This comes as a relief.......

Thought I should 'update' in view of the bad press PN get and they ARE keeping me 'in the loop' - they are still actioning my line speeds. I am still below the BTW download 'range' on test.

I'm not sure how the OR man with the bucket and sponge is doing 'cooling' my line in the exchange but it looks as if I might be 'moved' to a 'cooler' one.

Further update - give PN their due!

"Thank you for your continued patience.

I have contacted our suppliers today for an update and they have advised us that the Capacity Management team are currently carrying out network re balancing work to alleviate the capacity issues.

We should have further updates on this from 11/04/16. Please note we will be in touch within 72 hours of this date.

Please bear with us while we get this issue resolved."

Things appear to have settled down with a move to a 'colder' delivery route and speeds are back to 'normal'. Credit to PN for persisting with this.

In reply to a post by mikejp:

Credit to PN for persisting with this.

That's their job.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 18-Apr-16 11:18:14)

Very glib! You are assuming, of course, that all CP's 'do their job'? You would not think so on this forum.

I could have sworn I have seen some criticism of PN's customer service here - I could be wrong.

Oh I agree with you . It was still worth pointing out.

In reply to a post by mikejp:

I could have sworn I have seen some criticism of PN's customer service here - I could be wrong.

They seem to be improving. There's still the issue of new customer installs going a bit awry but last I checked things didn't seem quite so bad.