suspect line fault. Report to ISP inc fact that neighbour also having trouble

I've been back on to IDNET and they've been as helpful as ever! It always seems as though they don't believe you whenever I've raised an issue, despite their diagnostics stating there is a fault.
I asked them whether the engineer would have access to the previous engineer's notes and it's a no apparently. The previous chap was like a dog with a bone trying to find the issue and I believe it was only that and a bit of luck that he did. As there's no guarantee he'll visit this time, I'm extremely dubious about giving IDNET the go ahead to raise a visit, especially as they're still stating the issue their testing is picking up is a "non-Openreach related one". I get the feeling OR will visit, say they can't find the issue and send me the bill. So I'll be worse off than I am now.
This really boils my bacon as I'm paying good money for this service and I'm made to feel like I should be thankful for the service I'm actually receiving.
There's a couple of things I can still do, which I really shouldn't, but it would give me a bit more confidence for an engineer visit.

Paul

I get the feeling OR will visit, say they can't find the issue and send me the bill.

...just a correction, Openreach don't bill you, that would be your ISP, who Openreach may or may not have passed charges to.

This really boils my bacon

...make sure you soak it overnight first, this will reduce the saltiness prior to boiling

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

...just a correction, Openreach don't bill you, that would be your ISP, who Openreach may or may not have passed charges to.

I wonder if copious amounts of tea and biscuits may sway the engineers decision?!

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

...make sure you soak it overnight first, this will reduce the saltiness prior to boiling

Reduce the saltiness? Pah, that's like drinking 'no added sugar' drinks!

Paul

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

I've performed quiet line test (through the SSFP, with a cheap analogue phone) and there did seem to be intermittent, quiet 'pops' for want of a better word...

Is this still happening? It may well be worth logging a voice call and getting the noise sorted. If there's audible noise there's probably noise further up the frequency range affecting VDSL.

I had problems last year with my FTTC and noise on the line. They were sorted with visits from voice engineers.

In reply to a post by bsdnazz:

Is this still happening?

Will check tonight, but am pretty certain it will be as the only difference would be the SSFP which was in situ last time I checked, but wouldn't be now.

In reply to a post by bsdnazz:

I had problems last year with my FTTC and noise on the line. They were sorted with visits from voice engineers.

This seems to be the way IDNet work. The last time they banged on and on about the phone, testing this and that, despite me raising it as a broadband issue and stating repeatedly that the phone isn't usually connected. The engineer that visited was a 'voice' specialist, with no expertise in BB also. This time, the last question they asked was whether I was getting dial tone, despite it being reported as a BB issue again. So I suspect if I did have an engineer visit, it would be a 'voice' specialist again.

Paul

... that�s the thing though, it�s the ISP, so you need to be plying them with your tea and hideously salty sarnies.

Engineer visit is booked in for next week now, following a random re-sync and drop in upstream rate to 1.7Mb/s this morning, from 9Mb/s and 9.5Mb/s before these issues started.

I've been closely monitoring the line these last few days and bar the spikes in upstream rate, it's more stable than ever, between line drops. The upstream SNRM used to start to slowly degrade as soon as the modem synced and was stable. Since I've been monitoring the line, it's actually been holding at circa 6dB but also increasing everso slightly during the day.

I've just taken this snapshot of the SNRM before and after a line drop and it looks fine (guess when it dropped...). Which suggests whatever is triggering the line drop must be sudden and quick, does it not?

ETA: My BQM chart looks very quiet before the line drop too.

ETA: The QLN chart looks a little spiky too.

Paul

Edited by deleted (Thu 26-Apr-18 16:20:46)

I didn't read the OP properly, sorry.

Edited by deleted (Sat 28-Apr-18 00:50:34)

A slight development over the weekend...

I was faffing around with the cabling on Thursday night and thought I'd check my modem cable. Sure enough, it was incorrectly wired and had pin 3 going to pin 3 and pin 4 going to pin 4. What clown could have done that?!

So I snipped off the plug and wired it up correctly with a new RJ11 plug. Plugged it all back in and switched the gateway back on. Now initially, there wasn't much of a change, if any. So I just left it to. Friday morning however, I checked the router stats and it had re-synced at about 1h30m after I had finished faffing and the upstream sync was now at 9550 kb/s, or about where it was before the issues started. It's been up like that since, without any drops and with the upstream SNRM fluctuating between 5dB and 5.5dB. I'm going to leave it alone now but if it's still stable by tomorrow evening, I'm going to cancel the engineer visit.

I checked the other cable I replaced with this incorrectly wired one and it was the same, so I've been using bum modem cables for a couple of years, since I've been in this house. What an idiot!

Interestingly, I was chatting to my neighbour yesterday who initially stated his BB was still up and down, but then stated certain things were working better than ever... And he mentioned that he saw an OR engineer, shoulders deep in our cabinet last week... He didn't state when specifically, only that it was in the pouring rain, so I think that would have been Thursday or Friday. Coincidence?

Paul