In reply to a post by adebov:

if it ever goes beyond beta - which would be gamma; no?

Well, gamma rays are a lot more penetrating than beta, but they can also do a lot more damage

Step 8:-Ensure the 10 day stabilisation period has completed before reporting any suspected fault-this is how long it can take for your Broadband to train to its optimal speed.

[weep]

How wrong can they be? They are wrong about the 10-day period if on ADSLx, and completely up the spout if it is FTTx. Then we have

Step 9:-For fibre customers please run the Beta test first (right-hand column below),ensuring you use the correct test for your line speed.

For a quick and easy test of your broadband speed(takes about 30 secs) please click on the relevant Beta test button below.For a further diagnostic check (takes upto 3 mins),please click on the relevant 'Diagnostic' test.

They have just laid the page out appallingly. There should be a third note holding both beta tests. The current layout is self-contradictory as it effectively applies Note 1 to the up to 24Mbps and Note 2 to the over 24Mbps.

The mods on the bt forum are adamant about the 10 day training period now aswell, they claim to have double checked it's existance and that most faults aren't accepted within the first 10 days:-

http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/Bt-Infinity-u...
http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/Speed-dropped...

I think this "10 day stabilisation period" claim is being used to allow time for any congestion to be alleviated. I've seen a few instances of people reporting slow speeds on the bt forums which have sorted themselves out by the end of the 10 days.

Well it doesn't exist in either SIN 498 which is Openreach's description of it, in particular Section 2.2.5

Dynamic Line Management (DLM) is employed in GEA-FTTC. DLM constantly manages lines to maintain a target stability. It does this for as long as the product exists.
At provision, the line is put on wide open profiles, allowing downstream line speeds of up to 40Mbit/s, and upstream line speeds of up to 2Mbit/s, or 10Mbit/s. depending on the upstream product option selected.
On the first day of operation, DLM will intervene if severe instability is detected. Otherwise, DLM will wait until the day after provision before intervening, provided that the line has been trained up for at least 15 minutes during the preceding day.
If DLM intervenes it will set a capped profile with a maximum rate and a minimum rate, where the minimum rate is set at approximately half of the maximum rate.

nor in SIN 495 which is BT Wholesale's description of their part of it.

That refers to SIN 498 and also to SIN 472, the standard WBC document, with this note

This SIN (472) provides the interface information between BTW�s WBC product and the SP. All sections are relevant with the exception of Section 3 End User Access.

As this has not been revised since Issue 1 in November 2009, I suggest it should also exclude the section about WBC DLM, or at least the 10-day period for line stabilisation. The line stabilisation is under the control of the OR DLM in the cabinet, as above.

It even says

The main difference between the WBC FTTC service and the WBC ADSL1 and 2+ Service is that the DSLAM (�Digital Subscriber Line Access Module�) for the WBC ADSL1 and 2+ Service is situated in an exchange building but for WBC FTTC the DSLAM is situated in a street cabinet (the �Street DSLAM�).

Joined up thinking was not present in 2009, when I don't think the system was only in its infancy. Or was it only in development?

Whichever, the stabilisation by the OR DLM supercedes and replaces any possible stabilisation by the BTW one. The only possible relevance of the BTW DLM logically has to be to forward the pre-existing ISP-requested stability settings to the OR one, i.e. the Standard, Stable and Super Stable options, and possibly to set the IP Profile, thus saving completely re-engineering those parts of the system.

Note - I haven't yet found any SIN that has been updated for 80/20.
Edit - it has been brought to my attention that the link to SIN 472 went to SIN 495. Now corrected.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 27-Apr-12 13:20:20)

FWIW, my ISP told me that yes, the 2 day DLM "training" period is indeed valid, but up to 10 days have to be allowed for the connection's MSR (Maximum Stable Rate) to be determined before "faults" can be reported.

In reply to a post by Bald_Eagle1:

up to 10 days have to be allowed for the connection's MSR (Maximum Stable Rate) to be determined before "faults" can be reported.

Then they should say so-

"Note that we require a 10-day period to determine the normal range of speeds on your line before we can accept a low speed as a fault"

is purely administrative matter and totally unrelated to:

"... this is how long it can take for your Broadband to train to its optimal speed."

which is plain simple wrong. The line has "trained" to its optimal speed as soon as the modem and DSLAM finish their negotiations and, as Bob said, this continues for as long as the line is active.

eta- Under the rule as stated, if I were a new user then the sub-5Mbps tests I've been getting for a month or more on the 80/20 line would not be accepted as a fault (even though the fault is clearly with the tester itself, not the line).

Edited by billford (Fri 27-Apr-12 09:24:55)

I've given up with them.

Potentially making people wait for 10 days, could be seen as way to circumvent Distance Selling Regulations, i.e. so that people cannot get out of service early if it performs well under the speeds.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I've given up with them.

I can understand that.

Use the words "talking to", "BT", "banging", "head" and "brick wall" in a apposite phrase or sentence

My day rate to re-write the page for them is fairly cheap these days

I'm guessing it's just a regular java based speedtest (but one which bypasses BT throttling) and they haven't yet bothered to link it to the number database to give the profile figure (hoping they'll add it if it ever goes beyond beta - which would be gamma; no?).


Nope in software development terms the gamma build is the first in house one where the code is put together and sees if it even works.

The next step after beta is the alpha or release version.