BT Broadband

Hi can anyone tell me how I can find out if BT are using there mainline or there backhaul at my telephone exchange the exchange is openreach and is the lark lane exchange.
Is there a way to find out for future reference, my contract just finished trying to get a mainline route to server's !!!?.

There is no such thing as "there [sic] mainline", so the question doesn't make any sense.

BT (retail) use BT (wholesale)'s backhaul network to get traffic from Openreach handover exchanges to their network.

Some other ISPs use BTW's backhaul network too; and some have their own backhaul networks (e.g. Talktalk) and/or wholesale their backhaul network to other ISPs.

That's it. Traffic *must* traverse somebody's backhaul network to get from the exchange to the ISP network.

Handover exchanges are the ones where the fibres from FTTC cabinets and from FTTP properties terminate. There are many fewer of those than there are local telephone exchanges. In other words, most local exchanges *don't* carry FTTC/FTTP at all (although they may have leased line fibres, that's a completely separate network). When the copper network is eventually retired, most local exchanges will close.

Hey Kieth77 - is that you…

@Buggs8
@Username26
@Darkage7
@visionbus
@23Prince
@PC8S

?

I'm trying to get a better gaming connection, after thorough tests from zen tech team engineers and openreach I have been told they cannot find why there's a delay in multiplayer games.
All high end PC etc ethernet connection zen have admitted a delay but ping times are normal fttp 900 great bqm monitoring.
There tech team have said in certain circumstances a change from Off net there backhaul to On net has improved other customers connections.
They are piggybacking from BT at my exchange.

You need to find out all the ISP's who you can order FTTP from at your local exchange area, then ask each one how they connect to that exchange. Alternatively go to a UK gaming site and ask who gives the best pings on FTTP at your exchange. Zen do have connection issues they cannot resolve so you will have to leave and find a better ISP.

Thank you Yea I've tried that most Isp's from my exchange say they are running BT's piggybacking A&A said they do 5ms on average but from Merseyside I'm doubting that to London with them also on BT.
The Exchange is due for stop sell next year so hopefully I can get better coverage then thanks for the responding 👍.

What !!?.

Stop sell won't help.
It will be the same providers just with less choice on the access network (Openreach's small part of the link).

The connection from exchange to your ISP (almost always London) is called the backhaul.
There are very few backhaul options compared to providers as most providers rent someone else's backhaul.
The main backhauls used on Openreach are BT Wholesale and Talktalk business. Most providers rent 1 (or both) of these backhauls.
Zen, Sky & Vodafone have their own backhauls, though Zen also use BT and Talktalk backhaul as they don't have full coverage or enough capacity to do it all on their own.

Zen are currently using BT Wholesale for your line. That's without a doubt the most direct backhaul with the lowest latency for the vast majority of the country. Though the different is usually 1-2ms between backhaul providers.

I strongly advise you don't let Zen move you to "on-net". That's their own backhaul called their Plexus network.
They have considerable, unresolved throughput issues on Ultrafast speeds on their own backhaul, just take a look at the Zen section of the forum (GEA migration thread).
You likely won't be given that option at some point as they migrate customers "on-net" without warning.
The 1st a customer notices is when throughput drops and a message appears on the Zen control panel saying GEA migration has taken place.

A&A use a mix of BT Wholesale and Talktalk business and will let you pick between the 2.

Really you need to work out where the issue with increased latency lies.
Is it actually on the backhaul? Is it after your connection hits Zen, between them and the gaming servers?

Zen are also unique in that not all connections route to London (like practically every single other provider).
Zen also have an LNS in Manchester. They have no way to force your line takes a direct route to London.
Some Zen users see their connection travel in the wrong direction to Manchester, then on to London, adding 8-10ms depending where in the country you are.
A traceroute will tell you where your connection with Zen terminates.
It will either show .lon or .man on the initial hops.

A traceroute will tell you where your connection with Zen terminates.
It will either show .lon or .man on the initial hops.

Isn’t this also a useful tool to spot which part of the network is causing the reported issue ?

I'm not really sure why Zen have the Manchester gateways, other than it being physically close to their offices and maybe wanting to support their local IXP. Networks have been peering in London more or less forever, England is physically quite small so the added latency of users in e.g. Newcastle going to London and back up to connect to their work VPN isn't enough to cause problems for real-time applications, and at least at the consumer ISP level there's not a huge amount of traffic going between subscribers on the same provider.

If Zen are going to run these gateways then they should at least be sending subscribers to gateways based on their physical location, it makes no sense that someone in Brighton could establish a PPPoE session and find themselves terminated on a Manchester gateway.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A traceroute will tell you where your connection with Zen terminates.
It will either show .lon or .man on the initial hops.

Isn’t this also a useful tool to spot which part of the network is causing the reported issue ?

It can be yes, but many of the routers (the hops shown in a tracert) don't prioritize pings. Some don't respond at all while others can have a delay their response.
It can give false indications of problems/increases in latency that don't actually exist.

Not as useful as it once was imo but can still help.

All came back as 1ms.
There is definitely something wrong weather that's a ping - geological location being Wales not liverpool or backhauls whatever.

And how this connects to hdmi signals FTTP throughput coming back as delays onscreen and ping results not showing the true response time in digital onscreen result even from 1m ping traceroutes.

Zen told me to do this traceroutes The tests done from zen on my pc is ping 192.168.178.1 -t"
"ping 1.1.1.1 -t"
All come back as 1ms results could you tell me what traceroutes to run the bqm is excellent aswell and need to hit the zen tech team with something substantial. !!?.

If you "ping 192.168..." the target will be on your local network (in your home) so you would expect less than 1ms regardless. "ping 1.1.1.1" [Cloudflare] or "ping 8.8.8.8" [Google] should give you a rough indication of the best ping times available to hosts outside your home. We generally get 5-6ms (Reading, Giganet FTTP over CityFibre) and always route via London.

Even if you're on Zen's Manchester gateway and Cloudflare have a DNS resolver hosted locally I doubt you'd get a 1ms response. It sounds like the test isn't accurate.

I'm on London gateway It's kicked me off Manchester gateway 5 times.
They said they had done it so it can't go back to London but it did reverted back to london.

Do you mean if I was to have just an leased line this would be better for gaming Connection, I thought ethernet leased lines were not as good as an fttp connections. What is the perfect scenario for a gaming connection via online gaming. Is there a handover to openreach from my connection and can this be a delay were ping does not show ie the exchange ares is not fully updated to fttp!.

What is the actual problem you are having?

So on a normal connection that's about 2/10 multiplayer connections a (god sic) connection, say on warzone the play is always delayed by milliseconds so your aim movement and all round play is always giving a feeling as though your a second behind this makes the majority unplayable.
On an fttp connection it either works or you still have a delay so on multiplayer your dead with any delays.
My connection works perfect from my friends house different area but he's on hyperoptic.
Pc is very high spec but it's giving a delay on all consoles so aim assist, movement, getting shot around corners etc is always happening with a delay even a slight one. I don't know of its my ping too high, geological location, or being on an older exchange not fully fttp yet ?.
The geological location has me in Wales zen brynhoffnant [censored], I've been told by zen to update my geological location on here.
https://help.apnic.net/s/article/Geolocation
The warzone location from one of these locations is using ip2location wich is Wales. Also checking the ip location for every other website not one has me in Liverpool.
Zen told me location should not cause a delay but at first my warzone location was in Hull and the delay was worse than now in Wales.
Some tech guys on zen agree some disagree [censored].
To give you an idea watch swagg on youtube, that's how it's should be great movement no delay etc. Then go watch Dr disrespect the delay only slight has you going insane. Also I can't for [censored] know how zen can't pinpoint these issues down or any other isp for that matter a slight delay is not a (gaming) connection they advertise I understand a delay on Copper or virgin docsis cables but fttp should be normal I don't believe ping under 100ms has any effect and if it does your average ping must 8ms or less I'm on 11m with 18ms - 70ms on warzone.
Does anyone know if a handover from the backhaul to on net can be a digital delay even with low ping.

Edited by Kieth77 (Sun 20-Nov-22 09:27:32)

Not as useful as it once was imo but can still help.

That makes sense, we used to use it as a tool, sometimes, back in the managed router says of DSL

Your OP was confusing as you mentioned BT Broadband as your thread title but in a later post reverted to it being a Zen connection...

So if your have a Zen FTTP service have you checked whether you have been migrated (or originated) on a Zen GEA backhaul for your connection?

Plenty of background bedtime reading here....

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/f/4718211-re-s...

and earlier mega-thread here:
https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/f/4709246-slow...

By the way I'm being a total pedant, but when referring to location the term is 'geographic' rather than 'geological' The latter refers to the study of rocks, minerals, soils and stuff like that 😎

Edited by Pheasant (Sun 20-Nov-22 12:06:05)

In reply to a post by Kieth77:

What !!?.

Wild stab by me based on your location / BT exchange location and choice of alphanumeric username - being somewhat reminiscent / associated with an infamous trolling idiot on these and other fora.

Carry on. ✌️

Sorry mate I'm struggling to follow what you're saying, I'm not going to watch YouTube videos of people playing games either, not really my thing. Will leave this for someone else to pick up.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Wild stab

I still think your first instinct is not normally wrong.

The older that I get, the more deeply I trust my instincts. Except when I'm wrong 🙈🤣

I'm not trolling anyone I'm asking questions about a broadband connection. were have I trolled anyone on the post. Grow up idiot.

Well, well, well. Hello again. That didn’t take long to revert to type.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Except when I'm wrong 🙈🤣

Clearly not this time, tasty poultry guy 🤣