'Hot' exchange?

Recent 'investigations by Plusnet on sudden dramatic drops in download speeds (only) on my line (they have responded well, incidentally!) have informed me that my connection is 'hot'/'red' and 'BT are trying to cool it' . I could get little other sense out of the 'agent' I was speaking to.

I assume this is ISP-speak for an overloaded system? Is that correct?

Can someone explain in simple words, please:

Does it mean that
a) The exchange has insufficient backhaul
b) My cabinet is inadequately provided with either cards or tie-lines or
c) There are too many 'customers' on my local loop or

ALL THE ABOVE?

What are the prospects for the man with the bucket of water and sponges to sort this out?

In the past I have heard similar described as a 'hot VP' (virtual path) Basically too much traffic going down a particular route on the back haul from the exchange.

Yeah spot on, basically too much traffic going through a certain route. They will either add more capacity, or move users around to spread the high bandwidth circuits across the various VP's to lighten the load.

Thanks - to clarify - where is this backhaul 'heat'? At the exchange or at the cabinet?

Usually between the exchange and the various nodes or routers throught the backhaul network that takes the connection to the peering link which gives connectivity to the internet.

Fibre links back to the exchange have many gpbs capacity. I've not came across a slow speed issue yet that was down the problems in capacity between the cab and layer 2 switch in the exchange.

I did ask in post 1 for
"Can someone explain in simple words, please:"

So can I have that last one in English please?

Take a read through this http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/equip.htm

The information is old but essentially still how it works.

The only real different with FTTC is that the DSLAM is in the street cabinet and there's a fibre link that connects it to the layer 2 switch (which connects to the various supplier backhals) in the exchange.

For example Sky have their own backhaul network, seperate to that of BT Wholesale.

Edited by deleted (Sat 02-Apr-16 15:34:11)

Well, I have tried! Cannot find "peering link" OR "layer 2 switch in the exchange" there.

Anyone else w\nt to try in my mother tongue?. I THINK I understand the answer was a)?

Google such phrases, you'll find them with a much better explanation than I can be bothered to type out

Pretty much the answer is a.