One line fine - other slow?

Hi there,

I've had a few problems with my phone lines and to cut a long story short, after many engineer visits, a BT Openreach engineer changed the pair at the pole of one of my lines, and then, when I thought that 1.5Mbps on a line which had a 37dbs downstream attenuation was fine, my sync speeds boosted to over 7Mbps.

So now is the issue for the other phone line - I have another phone line RIGHT beside the other one (being fed from the same exchange and pole) and it gets 1.5Mbps.

I've only bothered to come around to this now as I'm using this line more and it's very slow compared to the other line.

I've had a few engineers around and they are saying that they can't do anything (even though when I mention the line right beside the slow one can get 7Mbps), they say that it may be taking a different route.

I emailed Ian Livingston today and got a call back from one of his nice staff members.

He asked me if I was with a different ISP than BT, I said yes (ADSL24). He said that because it is a broadband fault, I'd need to go to adsl24.

I know rightly that if I go to adsl24, the same will happen and the engineer will come and say (oh, you'd need to book a telephone engineer for that, not a broadband one).

He's saying that under the service level agreement, if there's a problem with the telephone line, BT will deal with it... but seeing as it is not, they won't. He said he would do investigating but I get the feeling that is only going to be a line test which will come out negative for problems.

The last engineer said I was on the last pair for the pole so they'd need to get an underground team out if there was any more pair exchanges.

BT say that because it's a 'broadband fault', I need to deal with that specific broadband provider, however, with the last circumstance, I've ruled out all internal wiring issues & I definitely believe that if they change the pair at the pole, I'd get a good sync as noted with the last case.

Suggestions anyone?

Thanks for reading.

Jack

They're all correct. Slow speed is a broadband fault and you will have to get your ISP to deal with it, even if it turns that it is a line issue, because both your ISP and your phone provider, BT Retail, share the same copper line which is the responsibility of BT Openreach, who must be commissioned by the provider with the fault. Unless you can prove a voice fault with the BB completely disconnected and hearing any noise on BT's Quiet Line Test: Dial 17070 Option 2.

Post your Router Stats for both lines.

Good line:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7328 kbps 832 kbps
Line Attenuation 38.0 db 20.5 db
Noise Margin 8.9 db 9.0 db

Bad:

DSL Path Mode: FAST
Downstream Rate: 1952 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 608 Kbps
Downstream Margin: 6 db
Upstream Margin: 6 db
Downstream Attenuation: 36 db
Upstream Attenuation: 21 db

Thanks
Jack

Yes, you should be getting 10 - 11 Meg on both. Both lines are about the same length; the diff. in attn. could well be down to diff. routers.

I presume you are on ADSL2+ on both. Do you know?

Nope - both on ADSL max premium.

Is there any chance you can post the Output Power and Error figures on both lines?

Edited by chris6273 (Sat 30-Jul-11 01:40:25)

Output Power is 0 and 0 on the bad line and can't get the settings for it on this net gear.

Jack

Output Power values sound like they are invalid. I suspect the DLM has (For some reason) reduced your Output Power on your bad line. You may need to ring your ISP to get it reset/get the training period reset.

Which Netgear? Try this?

DG834G v4

Thanks!


Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 0
Channel: FAST, Upstream rate = 832 Kbps, Downstream rate = 7328 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: G.DMT
Channel: Fast
Trellis: ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 8.9 9.0
Attn(dB): 38.0 20.5
Pwr(dBm): 19.8 12.5
Max(Kbps): 7360 1048
Rate (Kbps): 7328 832
G.dmt framing
K: 230(0) 27
R: 0 0
S: 1 1
D: 1 1
ADSL2 framing
MSGc: 1 1
B: 230 27
M: 1 1
T: 1 1
R: 0 0
S: 1.0000 1.0000
L: 1848 224
D: 1 1
Counters
SF: 127431916 127432784
SFErr: 13806 49600
RS: 0 0
RSCorr: 0 0
RSUnCorr: 0 0

HEC: 9047 12063
OCD: 115 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 3081167262 0
Data Cells: 616517295 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 10238 0
SES: 33 0
UAS: 14 0
AS: 2166358

INP: 0.00 0.00
PER: 1.75 1.75
delay: 0.25 0.25
OR: 32.00 32.00

Bitswap: 0 0

Total time = 1 days 1 hours 46 min 22 sec
SF = 127431916
CRC = 13806
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 10238
Latest 1 day time = 1 hours 46 min 22 sec
SF = 375417
CRC = 26
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 26
Latest 15 minutes time = 1 min 22 sec
SF = 4897
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52864
CRC = 2
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 2
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
SF = 5082378
CRC = 527
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 520
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52982
CRC = 3
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 3
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52923
CRC = 9
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 9
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52923
CRC = 4
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 4
Showtime Drop Reason: 0
Last Retrain Reason: 0
#

How about swapping routers? To see if bad line still bad and to also get error stats on it?

Since when did DLM systems start to control power?

A reading of 0dB for power is a common GUI issue

Output Power values sound like they are invalid. I suspect the DLM has (For some reason) reduced your Output Power on your bad line.

That, as Mr.Saffron has already pointed out, is utter tosh.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Since when did DLM systems start to control power?

A reading of 0dB for power is a common GUI issue

I did state that they could be invalid, however I was not aware of such an issue.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Output Power values sound like they are invalid. I suspect the DLM has (For some reason) reduced your Output Power on your bad line.

That, as Mr.Saffron has already pointed out, is utter tosh.

As for "Since when did DLM systems start to control power?" I guess the answer is, since it was created:

"DLM can make adjustments to the DSLAM output power, suggested target signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) margin and sync rate and can choose to apply a technique known as interleaving which aids error correction."

(Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL_Max#Rate_adaptatio... )

Just going by what Wikipedia says on that subject

Edited by chris6273 (Mon 01-Aug-11 00:43:31)

Wiki is not always right. Even ISP support have frequently been wrong with regards to DLM on IPStream and WBC

Output power can go up and down, and a modem or DSLAM will vary it as needed to try and hold a target noise margin.

In short DLM systems do not set it, they generally only set the target noise margin. The 21CN WBC system can set a range of sync speeds that are a valid range for the line.

Also can control interleaving settings.

Meanwhile, back at the question... does anyone have any experience of this situation and know what is likely to happen? Clearly one line is dud and there is no spare. So do BT;
a. say "tough" and walk away
b. fix the line somehow
c. put new capacity in
d. do something else that I've not thought of

?

I'm in a similar situation, problem last seen with "Underground engineer" and I'm wondering what's going to happen.

a) is always an option open to them. c) might happen if enough people affected especially if voice services disrupted.

I live in a rural area so it's kind of only me and two other houses running off the same pole. A house up the road with a different pole doesn't have any issues.

I emailed Ian Livingstone's office and a nice man got back to me. Basically he said to begin with broadband fault = ISP issue, phone fault = their issue.

I told him that I had ran through everything with my ISP and that there was no internal wiring issues and that explained to him that the last time, the engineer got up the pole and changed pairs.

He said he'd do a few tests but any tests that BT done on the other line which was faulty (now working due to pair change) came back fine.

I'm not even sure BT would want to look at my case as it'd cost a bit of money putting a new cable back to the nearest distribution point only for one line.

Edited by deleted (Wed 03-Aug-11 04:13:54)