PCP Change

For what seems like months, various BTOR guys have been working in the vicinity of the PCP and BB cabinets that serve my property. A much larger PCP has been installed and the guys appear to be moving the telephone connections across to it. This morning my BB went off at about 10.30. The VDSL carrier re-appeared at a much reduced downstream SNR with a speed drop from 80Mbps to 65, but I was unable to get a connection to my ISP.

I trundled down to the cabinet and had a nice chat with the guy who was wiring the new PCP cabinet. 'Nothing to do with me, Guv' was the initial response but he agreed to take a look in the old cabinet. I got a call back about 20 minutes later to say that he had reversed a jumper so everything should be OK now.

Yep - my VDSL has come back but at a much reduced speed. I cannot believe that this is a sensible way to manage a cabinet change. If all the VDSL connections in the old cabinet have similar issues to mine, BTOR is going to be quite busy and local users are going to be very grumpy.

If all the connections in the cab have similar problem they are not doing it correctly.
Any intervention in the live network has the potential to cause issues. A deload-reload is a time consuming and methodical process but with several hundred wires to terminate there is ways the possibility of a error occurring.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

If all the connections in the cab have similar problem they are not doing it correctly.
Any intervention in the live network has the potential to cause issues. A deload-reload is a time consuming and methodical process but with several hundred wires to terminate there is ways the possibility of a error occurring.

Well I can't think what could have been done incorrectly. All they do is make some new joints in a jointbox near both cabinets with cables feeding into the new cabinet and divert the D-sides and E-sides to it. It's not rocket science and generally the worst that can go wrong are a few crossed lines or a few dis one leg faults.

If they are moving to a new cabinet, speeds will slow whilst the cables are teed up to both cabinets.

If there is a polarity reversal on a jumper at either cabinet it will cause a loop fault whilst both cabinets are teed and jumpered

I would guess they pulled the jumper at the old cabinet to cure your fault.

A 12 vert cabinet reload could have around 19 thousand terminations on the job. They will get a few wrong.

Edited by deleted (Sat 25-Feb-17 12:31:06)

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by witchunt:

If all the connections in the cab have similar problem they are not doing it correctly.
Any intervention in the live network has the potential to cause issues. A deload-reload is a time consuming and methodical process but with several hundred wires to terminate there is ways the possibility of a error occurring.

Well I can't think what could have been done incorrectly. All they do is make some new joints in a jointbox near both cabinets with cables feeding into the new cabinet and divert the D-sides and E-sides to it. It's not rocket science and generally the worst that can go wrong are a few crossed lines or a few dis one leg faults.

He told me that the wiring in the 'old' PCP was complete mess and that he had reversed a jumper. He went to say that is not what BTOR advises but it is one of the things that they learn on the job. Apart from a 20% loss of downstream speed, my connection has been stable over the past 24 hours.

In reply to a post by lexden16:

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by witchunt:

If all the connections in the cab have similar problem they are not doing it correctly.
Any intervention in the live network has the potential to cause issues. A deload-reload is a time consuming and methodical process but with several hundred wires to terminate there is ways the possibility of a error occurring.

Well I can't think what could have been done incorrectly. All they do is make some new joints in a jointbox near both cabinets with cables feeding into the new cabinet and divert the D-sides and E-sides to it. It's not rocket science and generally the worst that can go wrong are a few crossed lines or a few dis one leg faults.

He told me that the wiring in the 'old' PCP was complete mess and that he had reversed a jumper. He went to say that is not what BTOR advises but it is one of the things that they learn on the job. Apart from a 20% loss of downstream speed, my connection has been stable over the past 24 hours.

I accept all that but after 8 days my connection is still stubbornly stuck at 67 -68Mbps - a drop of 20% on the stable max attainable speed that I have had for the past 3 years with Zen. SNR is 6 which shows that a change in profile is unlikely. I have had 3 re-sysnchs when the downstream speed has fallen below the profile downstream speed. It has usually recovered the following morning. My max attainable speeds used to 84/23: they are now 67/18. Zen Support were polite when I called them but could offer no hope that the situation would resolve itself given time.

Is not the new cable t-in ? untill the t-off is removed BB will take a hit .

In reply to a post by MC31:

Is not the new cable t-in ? untill the t-off is removed BB will take a hit .

Yes that's why you see the grease filled blocks inside the clip joints once it's all done. They usually do them in blocks of 100 (and that's the standard cable sizes coming out of the cabinets) though so the customers shouldn't have extended periods of slowness. Once it's all done and changed over the broadband speed shouldn't be any different, unless the new cabinet is relocated over the street or something. Which does happen.

Edited by deleted (Sun 05-Mar-17 16:27:30)

I have just noticed on Zen's portal that my FTTC profile fell by 13Mbps at 00.25 the same morning as the PCP work was taking place. It is possible that PCP change has absolutely nothing to do with the profile fall. The new PCP is across the road from the old PCP cabinet adjacent to the FTTC cabinet.