ADSL, long lines and Talktalk nightmare...

Hi guys, please forgive what is about to follow, it may be a bit jumbled...

Starting in 2006 our exchange was ADSLMax enabled. We have never moved and have always got around 1Mbps. then almost a year ago it started getting worse and worse, most noteable symptom was poor sync. We always used to get instant sync, but now could go hours without anything. Talktalks solution was to send us a new router (D-Link 2680?) and sign us up to a new contract. This didnt really solve the problem, but we coped since we were too busy to really try.

Then starting in November I decided to have a really good go at them. after phoning them almost daily for weeks I eventually got past the "delete your user name and password and re-type it" phase, and they sent out a Cube engineer, who even had a Talktalk branded van! I couldnt believe it, I expected a BT engineer, and all I got was this guy who said himself he didnt know why he was here because its a fully BT only area!

Anyway, I'm going to gloss over the nightmare I had getting BT engineers to come out, in the end I had 2 Cube engineers, 2 BT line engineers, and 1 BT Broadband Boost engineer. Nothing really improved much until after the last BT Broadband guy. Purely by chance he had his tester box plugged in on an open line when we got a ringing, a crossed line. So he went away and changed us onto a spare pair from the exchange to us. When he left the speed was starting to creep back up, so I thought I would just speed the process up a bit, I got the SNR reset.

After 12hrs of no sync with the D-Link I decided to put our old Netgear DM111P back on, and after a wee while it synced at 1760kbps at 6db Margin. Unfortunately this modem is being so unreliable and crashing all the time, couldnt get more than 12hrs straight. Soo, I looked to the internet who seemed to say that the king of long lines is the Billion 7800n, which turned up yesterday.

So I go to set it all up, the DM111P was sitting at 1280kbps, 11db SNR after 8hrs connected. Plug in the Billion and nothing... eventually syncs up at 352kbps at 16db SNR, hopeless. But I persevere, I try the PhyR settings etc, no better, this morning I go back to the rubbish DM111P and it gets 576kbps! noise down to 14db...

Anyway, I'm away to plug the billion in, call for another SNR reset then leave it for a few days, but I'm not convinced, it seems the fabled broadcom isnt as much use as the netgears Infineon...

Actual line length is around 7.5km. talktalk say its attenuation is 79db, BT engineer says around 70db, netgear router says 69.5-70db (never changes more than that).
Router is plugged directly into the master socket (brand new), no extensions, one wired phone, and one cordless phone after 2 filters. electric fence clicking on the line, and a buzz, but it was like that when I got sync at 1760!

Before the router crashed it was fine at 1760, and at 1440, and at 1280. But I think the exchange took the crashes to be disconnections and shut the line down... But the billion even has a hell of a job syncing at 352kbps!

I really am at the end of my tether, all I want is a stable 1mbps.

Thanks, JF.

Can you post a clear set of the current statistics, attenuation, noise margin and connection for both downstream and upstream.

They may be in the post but scattered around, so hard to see what is the actual current state of play.

The interference you hear may be constant, but the ADSL signal is well beyond human hearing so may well have altered.

Hi, sorry I did think it would be a bit tough going...

[img]http://tractorsearch.co.uk/images/images/16012013ne.jpg[/img]

I know it only says 2 mins there, but its on 2hrs now, and Down margin is on 14db now.

BT Wholesale speedtester tells me I've got 0.09Mbps Down and 0.34Mbps Up, IP profile is on the lowest setting at 135.

Thanks, JF.

?
What's that link supposed to show? Looks like a search engine with 5 lines of results for searches done today.

Clicking on any of the query links, e.g. 526, gives a Netgear statistics image.

oh, really sorry, it works fine on this pc, but I just checked it on another and see what you mean, just thought it would be easier than trying to type it out...

Down:
Line Rate - 544kbps
Attainable Line Rate - 704kbps
Noise Margin - 12.8dB
Line Attenuation - 69.6dB
Output Power - 15.8dB
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) - 18
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) - 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) - 3.600
D (interleave depth) - 8

Up:
Line Rate - 448kbps
Attainable Line Rate - 788kbps
Noise Margin - 13.0dB
Line Attenuation - 31.5dB
Output Power - 12.4dB
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) - 15
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) - 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) - 3.750
D (interleave depth) - 8

if you need any more just let me know.

Thanks, JF.

Lots of noise margin so in theory could go faster, but the error counts show probably that there is a fair bit of intermittent noise and was probably still evident when it resynced.

18 errored seconds in just 161 seconds of uptime is not good.

Alas the line is very long, and with no requirement to provide broadband the long line length means openreach would probably not do much for you.

If on a responsive ISP it might be worth asking for a fixed speed profile, at 0.5 Meg or 1 Meg. As I suspect you are suffering badly from the old IP Profile system too.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Clicking on any of the query links, e.g. 526, gives a Netgear statistics image.

LOL thanks.

As the original link had the IMG tags round it, the link itself ended in jpg, and the URL contains "images", I assumed it was a screenshot so didn't click anything.
_{Edit - typo.}

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 16-Jan-13 15:00:08)

UP time 3hrs 28mins 47secs

Statistics Downstream:
Line Rate - 544 kbps
Attainable Line Rate - 704 kbps
Noise Margin - 13.3 dB
Line Attenuation - 69.6 dB
Output Power - 15.8 dB
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) - 18
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) - 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) - 3.6000
D (interleave depth) - 8
Super Frame Errors - 1164
RS Correctable Errors - 12123
RS Uncorrectable Errors - 1
HEC Errors - 23
LCD Errors - 0
Total Cells - 13194876
Data Cells - 0
Total ES - 18
Total SES - 14
Total UAS - 67

Statistics Upstream:
Line Rate - 448 kbps
Attainable Line Rate - 788 kbps
Noise Margin - 13.0 dB
Line Attenuation - 31.5 dB
Output Power - 12.4 dB
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) - 15
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) - 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) - 3.7500
D (interleave depth) - 8
Super Frame Errors - 1164
RS Correctable Errors - 30144
RS Uncorrectable Errors - 0
HEC Errors - 816
LCD Errors - 0
Total Cells - 16042338
Data Cells - 598541
Total ES - 43
Total SES - 20
Total UAS - 202

I tried resetting it but the errors just seem to stick...
IP profiling system works fine, if the router stuck with the 1760 ish sync speed and not crashed I would have ended up with a 1.5Mbps profile. as it was I had a 1Meg profile at 1280kbps when I put the billion router on, things kinda fell apart after that.

Can't understand how DM111P V2 gets better sync speeds than the Billion 7800N, shame its so stupidly unstable (thr router).

Thanks, JF.

Different downstream line rate than before so line has had a drop.

You are it seems in the area of trading speed for stability

Rather than spend all that money on the Billion 7800N router, you should have bought the very reasonably priced BT Business Hub 2Wire 2700HGV router, renowned for hanging onto long lines.

BT Business Hub 2Wire 2700HGV http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BT-2700HGV-54-Mbps-4-Port-...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p...

Billion 7800N http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Search/SearchRe...

The Billion will be useful when you get FTTH (Fibre To The Home).

Might be worth trying to connect a corded phone into the master socket or better still the TEST socket within the master socket if it's that type, see this link.

Once connected dial 17070 and take option 2 for the quiet line test, listen and if you here any noise you should report it to your phone/calls provider as a "noise" fault ....... do not mention Broadband or your problems with Bb as that will just confuse the issue.

Well, thought I'd give a little update...

There is only one socket in the house, the master socket (brand new), one router, one cordless phone and one corded phone all plugged in there (properly filtered of course).

So I did try this morning to get them to test the line, they said I had to phone back from my mobile since I was calling from the landline, which I did. I was then told that it tested perfectly fine and then he started going on about master sockets, test sockets, filters etc...

Then this afternoon I got fed up and phoned them again, and this time purely by chance I heard the sound of someone elses ringing (again!). Sooo, I told the next guy this, and he said he would test the line, which he then did, with me on hold on the landline he was supposedly testing (???). He comes back and tells me right enough theres a fault on the line, and he is "escalating" this issue to... whoever is next up the ladder.

Also I've had an idea re the electric fence, as there is one where the cable switches from underground to overhead at the bottom of our road. (I think its roughly Exchange - 5.5km underground - 2km overhead - house).

So I've kinda forgiven the Billion for being so useless, but its still going back. Instead I'm going to hunt for a reasonably priced router with an Infinion chipset (seeing as the DM111P V2 is Infineon and managed to sync at almost twice the speed of the Billion under identical circumstances). D Link is back on, syncing similar to the Billion.

At least I'm hoping a partially crossed line would affect the broadband... but it is pretty disapointing that I have this problem less than a week since the BT engineer supposedly sorted it!

Thanks, JF.

Interested to know if you ever got all this sorted out ?

I have a long saga ongoing and you are more than welcome to check the TalkTalk members forum under my user name for background.

Shaun.

Hi similar to our problem on a long line with BT. Router rebooting and the BT IP profiling system forever dropping our speed to 133kbps..

After going on 15 engineer visits I pulled the plug and moved on to BE. Instant improvement of 3 mbps.

Probably going to have problems again with the impending Sky takeover and a decision of to whom my business should go to as I understand Sky have IP profiling like BT!

!

Sky LLU does not have IP Profiling of the BT kind, only Sky Connect does.