In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I have a feeling TalkTalk have some sort of arrangement with Openreach whereby they can send "their own" engineers to many problem reports, similar to Openreach themselves using Kelly's and Quinn's for FTTC domestic installation in the recent past.

Only if the TT engineer finds there is a genuine line problem do they call Openreach.

( I could be entirely wrong about this, but there have definitely been reports on here that look as if that gas happened).

Assuming I'm right then the first thing a TT person will do is regularise that wiring. Free.

It possible and makes sense to me.

Paul

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There's something wrong with those power figures. Either they are very low or the router is misreporting them.

Mine are typical values:-
SNR (dB): 5.9 6.0
Attn(dB): 19.9 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 13.5 7.4

Ignore the 10 days. That is a BT Wholesale thing, quite apart from being untrue. Get onto TalkTalk, because if you have three extensions running off a junction box before the master (one of them will be an old style master) you have bridge taps, which are bad news on ADSLx and frequently disaster on FTTC.

Make sure you tell them about the wiring. Not just the poor speed. Also query the power figures perhaps, in case the router is faulty.

I did think the power figures were low.

I ran the attenuation through a speed calculator at: http://www.speedguide.net/dsl_speed_calc.php

29DB attenuation claims to give 16301kbps on VDSL2, which is the upper end of what the dsl checker predicted the speed should be

In reply to a post by connormill:

I ran the attenuation through a speed calculator at: http://www.speedguide.net/dsl_speed_calc.php

When I put my attenuation figure in there I get well under half of the speed I actually get (<30 vs 64.5), so I'm not sure how reliable that is.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by connormill:

I ran the attenuation through a speed calculator at: http://www.speedguide.net/dsl_speed_calc.php

When I put my attenuation figure in there I get well under half of the speed I actually get (<30 vs 64.5), so I'm not sure how reliable that is.

Wrong for me too.

That page requires you to know the attenuation measured at 300kHz, as it varies when measured at other frequencies. I'm not sure our modems report attenuation measured that way

It also needs adjusting for 0.5mm copper - the loss rate used as a default is appropriate for AWG26 (equivalent to 0.4mm copper) ... but still converts my "8.7dB" into a length of over 600m. With actual speeds of 80/20, and attainable of over 100/30, I'm pretty confident my line isn't 600m.

As mentioned TT will want to send their own "Bright Sparks" engineer. This is usually something TT try to make the user pay £50 for. This engineer arrives and all he does is basically checks a filter is being used on everything and often changes the router to see if it makes any difference.

If he diagnoses nothing obviously wrong with equipment then he gets TT to issue a BT engineer.

This is done because customers were complaining to TT about £100+ bills as the faults were often due to the home owner having a terrible setup at home e.g. not using filters etc. By charging £50 upfront, the customer expects the charge, it is cheaper than BT charge to do the same job and there is no disagreement. Of course, it stinks that often customers pay £50 for nothing, and then get an engineer.

So they wouldn't be authorised to put in an NTE5 and sort the wiring from it?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

So they wouldn't be authorised to put in an NTE5 and sort the wiring from it?

No way, they are not BT engineers, they work for TalkTalk and have very little knowledge.

Their job is to look at the basics, is the router connected with a filter? Is a sky box unfiltered? Does connecting a new router fix the issue? Are there any obvious glaring issues which BT would notice and charge £100+?

Would connecting a homeplug fix the issue of "I have no internet" when the wireless is not reaching the desktop in reality?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 16-Aug-16 14:13:45)

Another issue with the Bright Sparks engineers. They are looking for blatant faults to pass onto BT, such as no connection, or connection dropping when the customer picks up the landline.

Things such as slow speeds, if the connection works, can be a challenge to get a Bright Sparks engineer to forward onto BT.

The Bright Sparks engineer may very well visit the consumer premises, deem the connection is online with an uptime of 3 days (for example), at a speed of 2Mbps. A router change is likely to be attempted. TT receive back that the connection works fine, with a decent uptime, no need to send an engineer. The speed in itself may not be enough to warrant a BT engineer, especially if that speed falls in the estimates provided at sign up.

In the OPs case, I think TT may send out a BT engineer immediately, as the fault is clearly with BT cabling and the speeds fall outside of the acceptable estimates. If you persuade CS there is a definite issue with BTs wiring, they skip out the Bright Sparks engineer. E.G if you ring and say "I cut through BTs cable outside." In that instance you only see openreach.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by connormill:

I ran the attenuation through a speed calculator at: http://www.speedguide.net/dsl_speed_calc.php

When I put my attenuation figure in there I get well under half of the speed I actually get (<30 vs 64.5), so I'm not sure how reliable that is.

Wrong for me too.

That site said my ADSL2+ speed should be 6.8Mbps and their actual speed test gave me a download speed of 8Mbps, which isn't possible due to I am only syncing up as 6Mbps (i.e. ~5.2Mbps download speed) as shown here: TBB Speedtest

According to my FRITZ!Box the last time I tried it back in January this year and it said the following:

Attainable throughput: 6.240 Mbps (receive), 1.085 Mbps (send)
   Current throughput: 6.154 Mbps (receive), 1.085 Mbps (send)
...
Signal-to-noise ratio: 5dB (receive), 26dB (send)
     Line attenuation: 41dB (receive), 20dB (send)
      Power reduction: 0dB (receive), 0dB (send)

Now the HH4 right now says the following very limited stats:

DSL noise margin: 5.90 dB upstream, 6.00 dB downstream
DSL line rate: 1083 Kbps upstream, 6156 Kbps downstream

And both of these stats haven't changed much since January, mind you I wouldn't mine the 8Mbps which I wait for the 26th to arrive

The new broadband connection that pulls extra speeds that you though was impossible out the void

Paul

While the OP's friend still has three phone connections out of a junction box. Independent of how many have anything connected, there are bridge taps and that needs sorting out. No question about it.