Vectoring

It appears that vectoring has just been enabled on my FTTC broadband (Talk Talk) I am on the faster fibre (not 76meg) option.
Prior to being enabled I typically synced down at between 34 and 37meg with a noise margin of around 6dB.
Now my modem shows sync of exactly 35,000kb and a noise margin of around 12 so looks like they are managing the sync speed rather than giving me the up to 38meg I was on. I am no worse off than I was but it would have been nice to get the benefit of the vectoring to take me to the max speed I am paying for.
Anyone have any experience of this and know how it works?

May I ask how you know vectoring is enabled?

Modem now reports mode as VDSL2-Vectoring

Are you in Wales or Cumbria by chance?

Wales

Ok, thanks.

It looks like your downstream rate is banded, that would need to be unbanded in order for the line to benefit from vectoring.

You may well be right but it's only been banded since vectoring was enabled, prior to that sync speed was always to a level where noise margin was around 6dB

Interesting. Do you have access to line stats?

Several hundred cabs were recently upgraded in Wales and a few in Cumbria to support vectoring

Interesting, I thought the vectoring roll-out was dead in the water thanks to G.fast.

Same here, though I still don't see the logic in rolling out to selected places. Surely the thought of rolling it out nationally has crossed Openreach's mind.

Interesting you mention that. Do you know if there is a vectoring trial in Cumbria? I noticed my sync speed and max attainable shoot up a week or two ago.

Your signature says "20CN ADSL Max", I think this only applies to VDSL2.

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Mar-17 13:17:12)

My signature was incorrect, I have had FTTC since November. Updated now.

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Mar-17 13:19:43)

Thanks. What modem do you have? Do you have access to line stats that shows the vectoring state? 1 is enabled, 5 is disabled.

Unfortunately just the Home Hub 6/Smart Hub.

This is the information I can find on the Technical Log

DSL uptime: 5 Days, 10 Hours 34 Minutes 13 Seconds

Data rate: 7.52 kbps / 40.75 kbps

Maximum data rate: 7517 / 39989

Noise margin: 5.7 / 3.2

Line attenuation: 27.6

Signal attenuation:

VPI / VCI: 0/38

Modulation: G_993_2_ANNEX_B

Latency type: Fast Path

A small number of cabinets in Cumbria have been upgraded

I would suggest that is more likely to be to do with this looking at the downstream SNR.

Think itshe more aimed at Long Reach VDSL than boosting those with superfast speeds already

Yes, that increase is due to the new downstream SNR margin rollout, not vectoring. An output of the vectoring state would be required to determine if vectoring was enabled on your line.

Ah I see. I guess it's highly unlikely to have vectoring enabled but I'll have to try and get hold of a better router to double check...

I would recommend doing that anyway, ISP provided routers are known as being an "it'll do" device.

In reply to a post by kasg:

Interesting, I thought the vectoring roll-out was dead in the water thanks to G.fast.

Think this was mentioned ages ago by a few people including me: vectoring is being used to reach >24Mb coverage targets in publicly subsidised projects.

G.fast is for completely different purposes, vectoring has never been considered as anything but a range enhancer.

Not aware of any cabs on your exchange being upgraded

Several years ago, I'm sure it was considered to be deployed nationwide so you could push FTTC to 100Mbps downstream. But with the quick growth and demand for faster speeds, it made little economic sense to do this when you can offer 100-350Mbps speeds to 60-70% of those presently on FTTC with G.fast.

Vectoring with FTTC will be used to meet contractual targets, but that's about it.

In reply to a post by kasg:

Interesting, I thought the vectoring roll-out was dead in the water thanks to G.fast.

The widespread rollout of Vectoring was indeed dropped in favour of G.Fast.

However, at the same time, BT said they would use vectoring in select cases - where it would help them meet BDUK coverage targets - through an increased range for superfast speeds.

At the time, there had been no mention of BT's LR-VDSL solution. However, we now know that vectoring is a mandatory component for LR-VDSL cabinets, and gets applied to all lines on cabinets where this is used.

I don't know, but strongly suspect, that BT deploys vectoring independently from LR-VDSL too.

Can get stats from modem. It has resynced again now and gone to max speed 39,999kb though so my original query has been answered. Max attainable speed is now a good 10meg more than it was.
I suspect that the poster who says BT are using vectoring selectively in publicly funded areas may be right. FTTC was publicly funded in this area - Llandudno.
Downstream Noise margin is still 11.5 though so definitely not down to a reduction in this.

Well, to say that the downstream rate and SNR margin on your line has increased, would suggest vectoring is enabled.

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Mar-17 15:37:19)

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The widespread rollout of Vectoring was indeed dropped in favour of G.Fast.

A shame, as vectoring is free to the end user but G.fast comes at extra cost. I guess BT/Openreach is not a charity.

Vectoring isn't free for Openreach also.