PPP Please explain!!

I know loads of you probably get bombarded by people like me that struggle to make head or tail of any broadband service but this is how I see it.
I pay my money I use the internet. That's it, end of. I don�t really want to know the inns
& out�s. But it would seem that under the Broadband hat you have to look else where to get answers.

Can anyone answer these following questions as I have now had 6 openreach engineers onsite and it�s not progressed any further?
I�m told that my loop loss is 55db downstream with a snr of 16db on a fixed rate 512 service measured on the Engineers ABPTS machine.
Everything was working ok but suddenly stopped around 4weeks ago the bt hub is in sync but the engineers test revels PPP session down and ATM error code 720 then they leave and nothing moves forward.

Can anyone explain what PPP & ATM is within a broadband line without making it sound like rocket science as I would love to give the next Openreach engineer a few pointers? Thanks in advance.

PPP stands for P**s Poor Performance

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I�m told that my loop loss is 55db downstream with a snr of 16db on a fixed rate 512 service measured on the Engineers ABPTS machine.

Okay so you're probably on a moderately long line. Like a house on the outskirts of a town or city. Alternatively you might have a poor quality cable. Either way you shouldn't expect anything more than around 3Mb, 4Mb if you're lucky.

Everything was working ok but suddenly stopped around 4weeks ago the bt hub is in sync but the engineers test revels PPP session down and ATM error code 720 then they leave and nothing moves forward.

Can anyone explain what PPP & ATM is within a broadband line without making it sound like rocket science as I would love to give the next Openreach engineer a few pointers?

'Hub is in sync' means that your modem is connected and talking to the telephone exchange.
'PPP is down' means that your modem hasn't established a link across the network back to your ISP.
'ATM error code 720' is going to need a specialist to answer. I know what ATM is (it's the underlying transport for the telephone network) but specific error codes are beyond me.

I can see why the engineer wouldn't have hung around at your house. The fault is either at the exchange or more likely deeper in the network. I would expect them to be taking their investigations there.

You could think of 'syncing' as building a road between your house and the exchange.
ATM is the bus.
PPP is a bus service.

At a guess the analogy puts you in the position of someone waiting for a bus but the manufacturer is having difficulty supplying them to the bus company. Sorta.

Will be interesting to see what others say

Edited by Andrue (Thu 01-Oct-09 08:05:43)

When the Openreach engineer attended, did he use his own modem and laptop, or did he rely on yours ? It could be an ADSL modem or router issue.

Also, Googling reveals that some people who have complained about this issue are Mc Affee users. Are you one ?

try putting bt_test@startup_domain in as your username on the hub as per http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/bttest.htm

if that works it's a problem with authentication of your user details on that circuit.