FTTC - BT IP Profile Set Low

Hi everyone,

I've noticed that the BT IP profile for FTTC connections is being set too low. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing the problem and is there a possibility of someone investigating this? I wish I could but I've no idea where to start.

Thanks,

William

What percentage of your sync rate is the IP profile set at?

Is G.INP active?

Are you on the variable SNR trial?

Sorry, I forgot to tell you those things.

94.42%.

Yes.

Yes.

And how stable is your connection? Does the sync rate change over time? If so it could be the sync rate has increased but that the profile is lagging behind a little.

Very stable, but not as stable as previously due to being the trial, the only resyncs have been due to DLM changing the downstream SNR margin.

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-Feb-17 11:34:58)

So what has the lowest sync rate in the last week to 2 weeks been? How does that compare with the IP profile?

In the last 2 weeks, the lowest downstream rate has been 36400 kbps. However, in the last week, the lowest downstream rate has been 43742 kbps.

Somebody posted a while ago with a low IP Profile, and I replied I have had this happening through several re-sync's.

I have the advantage that my ISP control panel gives the system log for my connection, as opposed to purely my line as shown in the router log.

BT Wholesale are reporting to AAISP a figure a consistent percentage below the sync. The IP Profile was 0.9669 x that BT Wholesale figure.

Here and now I can't find the relevant log It may be the Radius log, and I haven't re-sync'ed for several weeks and it only gives a few days.

Perhaps poster needs to move to an ISP such as AAISP to get more access to more data on the line, so they can manage the line

I'm on AAISP and have the same problem. But complicated by the fact my line has been banded for months. I'm wondering if there is a connection between banding and false reporting. By either BT Wholesale or even the Openreach info passed to the user modems and displayed by them. (This has been happening on five different ones).

The sync shown is the capped figure as per the line profile that AAISP have. At the moment, as just posted to the OP, I can't find the log that gives the long bps supplied by BTW. (bps, not Kbps or Mbps). That's the figure the IP Profile is based on.

I would've done if they provided the 55/10 service.

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:41:18)

I'm just surprised that something like this could be missed. Maybe someone who works for Openreach could shed some light here?

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:39:53)

It could just be the IP Profile has not caught up with the line speed changes. IP Profile doesn't necessarily change immediately that sync speed does (at least if the speed increases). So, it could be the profile mirrors the line speed of some point in the last few days/week. You haven't actually said what the IP Profile is set to.

william, what was your original sync speed when you signed up?

also, can you put either your telephone number, or address in here and let me see what it says the max for your line is, i think the address checker is the best.

www.dslchecker.bt.com

for your sync to drop there are a few variables, 1 is that your line could be faulty, 2 there could be interference from either an internal or external source which causes drop outs and 3 crosstalk.

crosstalk means that due to new customers signing up in your area, it drops your max sync as more bandwidth is taken up.

generally if its crosstalk, you will not see a latency increase, if its either of the other two, you certainly will.

can you also please open up cmd and ping bbc.co.uk and share the results, this way i can tell if youre interleaved or not, thanks.

Edited by arronlowley (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:48:25)

IP Profiles are nothing to do with Openreach. Purely a BT Wholesale thing.

In time I will get to the bottom of it, but as it doesn't materially affect the way I use the internet it isn't high on my priority list. I intend to get the banding sorted first, then see what happens.

Is there any chance your line is banded? One of my thoughts is that it could be to do with that. What is your sync?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

IP Profiles are nothing to do with Openreach. Purely a BT Wholesale thing.

In time I will get to the bottom of it, but as it doesn't materially affect the way I use the internet it isn't high on my priority list. I intend to get the banding sorted first, then see what happens.

Is there any chance your line is banded? One of my thoughts is that it could be to do with that. What is your sync?

reberto, your sync is really good for 600m, im 300m away and i only get an extra 10Mbps more than you do, i used to achieve the full 80/20 but crosstalk happened, rip me.

i have an unlocked h612 modem, this shows me every single stat i need to see to determine whats the issue with my connection, it shows interleave depth the lot, best piece of kit to have.

Edited by arronlowley (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:52:00)

In reply to a post by ian72:

IP Profile doesn't necessarily change immediately that sync speed does (at least if the speed increases).

On WBC, which he must be on to have an IP Profile, it should update immediately. Failure to do so indicates something has gone badly wrong.

Don't confuse it with the Plusnet Current line speed which Plusnet set from the IP Profile, and the update process is known to have a problem.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:50:22)

I know it is good, but I used to have more and there is no good reason in my line stats for banding. There may have been in the past.

It appears from other lines that WWWombat is aware of that these days Openreach have stopped completely removing banding, and only reduce how severe it is.

I'm also running on an SNRM of ~9.8dB with less than 0.3dB variance.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 13-Feb-17 12:54:50)

Hadn't realised that the IP Profile changes immediately now - assumed that there could still be a delay...

It is meant to be immediate on WBC platform and has been for some years, there is the odd person who does pop-up where it looks out of sync for a short 10 to 30 minutes

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I know it is good, but I used to have more and there is no good reason in my line stats for banding. There may have been in the past.

It appears from other lines that WWWombat is aware of that these days Openreach have stopped completely removing banding, and only reduce how severe it is.

I'm also running on an SNRM of ~9.8dB with less than 0.3dB variance.

can you not see what your max attainable is compared to your current sync?

i know that sometimes dlm can get stuck and requires an engineer to undo it, but im a lucky son of a gun, i kept resetting my router the other day to find i was then banded and my latency went up 16ms. however it only took one day for it to be removed.

with an snr of 9.8 there is clearly more speed to be had out of your line, how long has it been banded for,

Edited by arronlowley (Mon 13-Feb-17 13:02:00)

They provide 76/19 as an option so would mean no drop in speed

also, the bt speed checker stats say i should be able to get 73Mbps, but let me tell you something ive found, when youre banded, because your snr is higher, your max attainable is also higher. when youre unbanded, you find that it drops.

when i was connected with sky, it showed a max attainable of 67Mbps, when dlm kicked in, it said my max attainable was 70Mbps, now that dlm is gone, im getting 65Mbps, with a max attainable of 65Mbps.

do you see what i mean.

Edited by arronlowley (Mon 13-Feb-17 13:05:09)

I have a wildcard to throw into the mix...

Remember that William's line is
a) In the 5-4-3dB trial
b) Currently showing very high levels of retransmissions

One parameter that the modem gives us, once retransmission is activated, is the "minEFTR" parameter - the "minimum Effective Throughput Rate". This normally matches the sync speed, but it reduces when retransmission levels get high.

Luckily, it is one of those graphed on MDWS. For William's line, the retransmissions are high enough that "minEFTR" shows reductions ... regularly reaching reductions of 500kbps, sometimes 800kbps with occasional spikes of larger reductions.

Is it plausible that BT's "IP Profile" value could be made more dynamic as part of this trial? And that it sets the value based on observed "minEFTR" values?

Or, is it plausible that BT sets static, but slightly reduced, IP Profiles in the trial, to offset a reasonable amount of retransmissions?

I doubt we'll know, unless people in the trial start to keep a regular log of IP Profile values - whether there has been a resync or not.

One of the reasons I asked if he was still on the trial.

I suspect, that like G.INP changes the IP profile calculation, Wholesale may also be trialling some differences with the lower SNR trial.

In reply to a post by arronlowley:

when i was connected with sky, it showed a max attainable of 67Mbps, when dlm kicked in, it said my max attainable was 70Mbps, now that dlm is gone, im getting 65Mbps, with a max attainable of 65Mbps.

That a long-known side-effect of DLM activating old-style protection (just FEC and interleaving). The modem notices the coding gain added by FEC, so calculates a higher attainable. Turn the FEC coding gain off again, and the attainable falls back to normal.

It isn't "DLM kicking in", though. It doesn't happen when DLM activates retransmission-based protection instead.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by arronlowley:

when i was connected with sky, it showed a max attainable of 67Mbps, when dlm kicked in, it said my max attainable was 70Mbps, now that dlm is gone, im getting 65Mbps, with a max attainable of 65Mbps.

That a long-known side-effect of DLM activating old-style protection (just FEC and interleaving). The modem notices the coding gain added by FEC, so calculates a higher attainable. Turn the FEC coding gain off again, and the attainable falls back to normal.

It isn't "DLM kicking in", though. It doesn't happen when DLM activates retransmission-based protection instead.

i see i see, there must have been a few new customers in my area because when i was with bt, i got 80/20 with a max attainable of 85/22.

then it dropped to 71/20 and i was peed, an engineer came and told me "you never got 80/20", i proved him wrong. anyhow with sky its dropped another 6Mbps, but its better than being with virgin media, who by the way suck as you have already seen me say.

Woah, lots of replies!

In reply to a post by arronlowley:

also, can you put either your telephone number, or address in here and let me see what it says the max for your line is, i think the address checker is the best.

https://i.gyazo.com/653a2fa0146764a5d2d446123186b3b2...

In reply to a post by arronlowley:

can you also please open up cmd and ping bbc.co.uk and share the results, this way i can tell if youre interleaved or not, thanks.

http://i.imgur.com/gWIQb9R.png

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Is there any chance your line is banded? One of my thoughts is that it could be to do with that. What is your sync?

No, my line is on the trial.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Is it plausible that BT's "IP Profile" value could be made more dynamic as part of this trial? And that it sets the value based on observed "minEFTR" values?

Or, is it plausible that BT sets static, but slightly reduced, IP Profiles in the trial, to offset a reasonable amount of retransmissions?

That would make sense, seen as the last thing BT Wholesale want is more reports of line faults due to their own trial.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

They provide 76/19 as an option so would mean no drop in speed

Fair enough, but I'm not sure the price would be deemed acceptable to my parents and we're in contract with BT.

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-Feb-17 13:21:33)

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

I have a wildcard to throw into the mix...
...
One parameter that the modem gives us, once retransmission is activated, is the "minEFTR" parameter - the "minimum Effective Throughput Rate". This normally matches the sync speed, but it reduces when retransmission levels get high.

That is interesting. I wondered what that new line was and what it was.

For information, but I don't need to discuss my line here as it is WG's thread with a different problem altogether from my 55Mbps banding, my sync is 54999Kbps and the minEFTR is 55003.

Yet AA are being told a lower sync and the IP Profile tallies with that lower sync. Bah!

It may be worthing emailing AAISP to ask for a DLM reset, I got one and wasn't charged. But, then I was very lucky.

Out of interest, do you use your own modem?

Currently a Billion 8800NL R2.

Prior to that, several years of HG612. Then two or three weeks of other trialling before ending up as I am now.

The original banding started way back in 2016 on an HG612, for no known reason, having chugged along below the banded speed for years.

But nothing to do with the IP Profile problem that WG has and I incidentally also have.

roberto, did you unlock your hg612, because, back in 2015 when g.inp was released, it required the hg612 to be updated with the sp08 firmware, however i didnt notice this and was banded for a good few months until i updated the firmware, it could be that your router/modem doesnt support g.inp.

Thanks, but I unlocked both my HG612s very early on, and upgraded to the unlocked 30SP08 firmware when that came along. G.INP has been active on the line for a very long time as well, effectively removing the interleaving it had.

I do reasonably well know what I'm doing . Though none of us can know 100% and I am a long way below WWWombat's level. The solution to my banding, lies in:

- waiting even longer, or
- seeing if AAISP can get a DLM reset done, which is unlikely seeing as their own and the GEA test they have run show no fault. Which is not surprising as there is no fault and never has been as far as I know. Just something happened way back, perhaps a violent couple of thunderstorms or the like, or
- seeing if they can trigger it by an Openreach product downgrade and then upgrade, as other sources tell me that resets DLM if associated with a migration away from WBC. I don't know if it does if staying on WBC which with AAISP I probably would. Or
- pass off this mortal coil and not have to be irritated by it any more. That's possibly what Openreach and BTW prefer users to do.

But as I said earlier - this isn't my thread and every time someone posts to me I have to reply. Which continues the unintended hijack. I shall get it sorted, or not. But none of the standard suggestions will help.