Are fibre wires from a pole intrinsically unreliable?

Many apologies for the length of this.

I've a 500 gps (I think what it's called) connection via plusnet. Sporadically it drops, often showing up as red lines in BQM. Often, it is the wee small hours, but frequently it is when my wife is connected via VPN to her employers.

I usually then log into the router, and ask it to disconnect. Then I wait 10 seconds and then, ask to reconnect to reconnect. (If I don't, nothing happens for about 30 minutes, then it sometimes seems to reconnect pontaneously).
I usuaully look at downdetectot for plusnet, which usually shows a spike of complaints around the UK around the time it happens. Beinfg mean-spirited, I usually curse Plusnet, or whoever owns the, I guess BT, and say so to my wife, who pays for the Plusnet connection.

In less mean-spirited moods, I wonder whether it might be that my fibre connection is overhead cables, maybe 50 metres long. Sometimes they wave around in the wind. But just now, at midnight, the connection dropped, with absolutely no wind.

What I *suspect* is that Plusnet, or BT, or someone are screwing around with some servers somewhere, to address some unannounced problems they have somewhere. (I'm in Edinburgh.) Downdetector's map doesn't show many local complaints, except in the usual suspects: London, Manchester etc. But DD's complaints-maps aren't very confidence-inspiring.

I've not complained to Plusnet, but feel pretty confident they will say, reboot your router, etc, and if I persiste, say they'll send an engineer. It *might* be noise on the fibre cable that occasionally swings around in the wind. How likely is that? The last drop was in windless conditions about 30 minutes ago. As usual, my router logs just say, essentially "the WAN's gone". mtr, traceroute and such tools give me the strong impression that Plusnet/BT routers are being guddled around with.

I think Zen make an attempt to inform you when BT are screwing around with servers or addressing physical problems somewhere. (I occasionally look at their relevant web-pages, but see no obvious coincidences with my issues.) Anyway, it would be great if Plusnet did something similar, and stopped pretending that sending engineers out was the professional thing to do, instead of 'fessing up to mucking around with remote routers.

Many apologies for the length of this, if anyone has actually read it.

theres 3 things here that could be causing the issue you have mentioned

1. your network has issues that you don't know about. For instance we do not know how your connecting (to i assume) fttc. We don't know your internal wiring to the master socket for instance.

2. adsl and ftcc are subject to line conditions, from cross talk to line quality, and external interference.

3. plusnet having issues.


Given the amount of disconnects you are suggesting are happening its unlikely to be PN. So maybe instead of moaning maybe explain objectively as to what is going on.

What is your set up?

In reply to a post by pi12ca:

my router logs just say, essentially "the WAN's gone". mtr, traceroute and such tools give me the strong impression that Plusnet/BT routers are being guddled around with.

I am really confused about this comment.

The wind has either broken the fibre or it hasn't. It won't be intermittent.

In reply to a post by pi12ca:

Are fibre wires from a pole intrinsically unreliable?

No. As mentioned previously, describe your setup and the fault and go from there.

In reply to a post by pi12ca:

I've a 500 gps (I think what it's called) connection via plusnet. Sporadically it drops, often showing up as red lines in BQM. Often, it is the wee small hours, but frequently it is when my wife is connected via VPN to her employers.

You could use the option to share the BQM, That way others could see your problems.

You could also call Plusnet Support and ask them if they can see and difficulties with you connection.

If you have another router or modem you could try that.

Is the router connected to the master socket using a filtered face plate?

My Plusnet FTTC connection works fine.

There is a Plusnet Community forum

In reply to a post by DFScale:

The wind has either broken the fibre or it hasn't. It won't be intermittent.

He may have confused fttc with fttp. I really don't know tbh - conflation is an issue when you are frustrated and do not understand how to resolve the issue yourself. The post is understandable from a frustration point but its also not helpful to resolve his issues with his internet connection.

My guess from the first post is that it is FTTP and that "500 gps" is 500Mbps.

I have ftp from plusnet, 500 Mbps. The router is an asus rt-ac86u, running Merllin firmware. When I had fttc, the router was fed from a Zyxel modem, but now it is fed from an Openreach (or BT?) ONT. For several months, it ran fine. Now, the Wan intermittently disconnects. The router's log simply says (for example):

Sep 2 04:59:10 router WAN_Connection: WAN was exceptionally disconnected.

I can see nothing just before or after in the log that isn't routine. Eventually, there is the log entry:

Sep 2 08:04:40 router WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.

Thie restoration was nothing to do with me. I was still in bed.

Actually, now I look at the log, between these two entries, the log is full (as usual) with what I think are iptables entries, dropping attempted connections from " Psychz Networks ". It seems to be normal to get 1000's of these every day (among other nefarious sources). This puzzles me. If I can't access the internet, how come it can even try to access me, getting as far as my router?

I'm afraid I don't currently have an log that shows what transpires when I voluntarily turn the WAN off and on. That's how I get things working again when my wife yells that her VPN to work has gone down again. It usually restores things in at most a minute.

My efforts to understand these phenomena are far from "expert". Before logging into the router, I try to ping 1.1.1.1. This fails. Then I try to use mtr to see if I can see anything beyond my external ip address. sometimes, I try to mtr to somewhere nefarious, like 198.144.159.105. Sometimes I *seem* to see the routes breaking down somewhere between Plusnet (Sheffield?) and BT Martelsham Heath. As someone presciently said above, in these situations one is often in a panic, and not thinking very rigorously, or forensically.

It occurred to me that there *might* be an intermittent or developing fault in my physical connection, in the air, over a couple of gardens. I doubt it, being as how things can work fine for a fortnight at a time, regardless of how much the wind is blowing. Anyway, that may explain the title of my original post.

I do have a plusnet router, that I've never used, because, looking into it, it would be an enormous hassle for various reasons, involving static IP's, password formats. I can however swap it in experimentally, to see if my rather aged router is going downhill. Maybe it's worth a few hours out of my life. However, if things go fine for a fortnight, well they sometimes go fine with the Asus.

I would suggest you try switching to the Plusnet router for a month or two and eliminating your own router as that would be the fairest thing to do before getting Plusnet or Openreach involved as you clearly have your own concerns about it.