BT OR visit 2 tomorrow: what should I be asking to be done?

Please see threads http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/otherisp/t/4311878-... and http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4313706-re-... for background.

The issue is that the speed dropped overnight literally.

I can't really afford to keep taking time off for OR engineers to come here, scratch their heads, do something at the exchange and then proclaim it has been fixed when it hasn't, they have apparently also done some further work at the exchange in between times but this hasn't really done much.

I do work in an IT role so understand the principles of networking but I'll hold my hands up and say I don't understand a great deal about ADSL, so any advice is greatly appreciated.

ISP have been at all times fantastic but the problem seems to be in openreach's domain.

Edited by techguy (Sun 16-Mar-14 17:14:12)

Is your router connected to the phone socket directly and not through anything like a surge protector?

Yes, its been that way since I started trying to get the fault fixed.

Filter was replaced with a brand new one on Thursday and I've made sure that the MTU is set to 1432 which is the size Xilo mention in their e-mail

connection swings between 1.45 and 2.10 (TTB x1 test shows 0.40) so something has definitely changed somewhere.

Tried NowTV which used to stream absolutely smoothly and that just buffers.

Do your line stats give any clues?

Here are the stats I've just pulled off the router

DMT Status No Defect
Operational Mode ADSL2
Upstream 682
Downstream 4195
SNR Margin(Upstream) 8.5
SNR Margin(Downstream) 5.9
Line Attenuation(Upstream) 32.7
Line Attenuation(Downstream) 58.5

I see you're on ADSL2 rather than ADSL2+. Is that deliberate?

At times its said its on G.DMT.

All the support options in the router are ticked so this is a decision that the kit at the exchange or someone at TT has made, nothing I have changed.

Presumably the extra frequencies are of no use to you. This could be down to line length, line quality or noise. You may have non-copper cables or maybe an RF filter due to external noise, or a line fault. It could even be a poor router.

Are you anywhere near the estimate for your line?

Tried three routers, including a brand new one, no difference.

I'm told I'm over the estimate for a 3 km line but that still doesn't explain the sudden drop, does it?

Edited by techguy (Sun 16-Mar-14 18:29:26)

I think you need to ask them to fix the fault

Also, you need Zarjaz answering here.

Zarjaz was kind enough to answer my other thread but has not come back to me regarding what I need to ask them to do.

I've booked a morning appointment so will be asking the guy that comes to thoroughly check things as I can't keep doing this.

They keep telling Xilo they have done a remote test and can't find a fault.

This is the kind of situation where the end user ought to be able to deal direct with Openreach as its now out of the ISP's control and its me the end user that has to make myself available for whole mornings or afternoons to wait for their staff.

Edited by techguy (Sun 16-Mar-14 18:42:07)

This gets better and better.

Guy turns up this morning, runs tests, finds sync is fine and line is clear and announces "you should be getting 3.5 Meg"

I reply "well, that's why the fault has been raised, it literally dropped overnight"

Goes to telephone enclosure on side of the house and looks at cabling, disconnects other phone line and house alarm starts beeping as It thinks the line has gone down.

Puts line back and says he has removed a bracket that was crushing the wires and reterminated it.

I offer to start up the PC and run the tests I have been doing (here and speedtest.net), he observes the problem.

Plugs his own machine into my router (I noticed it was Win 8), he runs same tests and gets same result, he looks puzzled.

I ring Xilo and go through to tech support and ask him to talk to them, he agrees and I hand the phone over, he asks them about the throughput which I gather they tell him they cannot see but have told him its talktalk business.

He rings TT who refer him back to their wholesale provider.

He says to me that he thinks its an issue at the communications provider and cannot find a line fault but he heads off to the exchange to look at the pairs as he reckons I'm on a slow line.

Comes back one hour later saying he's switched the pairs so I should get better sync and indeed I do but throughput still lousy.

I ring Xilo to ask for a Mac as I've been going round in circles for three weeks now and am hoping that a line move might get rid of the issue or at least might cut the length of the chain of parties involved in order to try to get somewhere.

They tell me they .need to wait for the report which has just come back to them and apparently the engineer notes

eclipse test ok. pq test not working. jdsu in sync. rate 3963 kbps. snr 6 db . line attenuation 57.4 db. significant errors seen on d/s. network enhanced. e side changed. rein and shine detected. customer experiencing throughput problems. the customer has a sync speed of 3963 kbps and a throughput of only 0- 1 meg.

At no point did the engineer mention REIN or SHINE to me.

Xilo have offered to push the issue back to BT for investigation but am going to try to move back to Zen to see if anything changes.

Any advice welcome on the best way forward if this doesn't work out as I'm getting the feeling OR don't seem to be keen to tackle this one and are quite happy to give several parties the run around but the difference with me being the end user is I have to take days off to deal with this stuff, its what OR and ISP do as their business.

Edited by techguy (Mon 17-Mar-14 17:54:14)

Zarjaz was kind enough to answer my other thread but has not come back to me regarding what I need to ask them to do.

Sorry about that, I do sometimes go out and have a life

eclipse test ok. pq test not working. jdsu in sync. rate 3963 kbps. snr 6 db . line attenuation 57.4 db. significant errors seen on d/s. network enhanced. e side changed. rein and shine detected. customer experiencing throughput problems. the customer has a sync speed of 3963 kbps and a throughput of only 0- 1 meg.

So why no REIN case reference if that's what he thought the issue was ?? Have your ISP been provided with a reference ? When he was running his tests was there a high amount of FEC errors to be seen on the result ? Does your router show a high error count ?

I'm getting the feeling OR don't seem to be keen to tackle this one and are quite happy to give several parties the run around

Openreach can only do stuff if the CP requests it, it ain't ideal, but that's how it works.

1. You mean there's a life outside computers and networking , your assistance is very much appreciated mate.

2. Nope no reference and he didn't show me the tester, all he said there was a few but I am assured that the ISP passed it to me from the report his submitted verbatim but they have offered to push it back to OR

3. Its not showing any errors on the outer at all and never has.

Here are the stats now


DMT Status No Defect
Operational Mode ADSL2
Upstream 693
Downstream 5089
SNR Margin(Upstream) 8.5
SNR Margin(Downstream) 4.9
Line Attenuation(Upstream) 34.3
Line Attenuation(Downstream) 57.5

Sync has jumped up by a meg.

As I say I'm hoping if I move to an ISP with direct control of the kit it might shed a little more light on what's going on because at the mo I'm stuck between Xilo and Openreach and we seem to be getting nowhere fast.

If it's a REIN issue, then switching to a 21cn BT resold product the DLM will hammer your sync and add lots of interleave ,in a bid to mask it

I think i would sit tight for now, and let xilo push it back to OR , will xilo not switch you to a BT 21cn product to rule out the TT Wholesale llu kit and their backhaul , and see if this restores throughput or not, because if you went to zen that's presumably the type of service you would be on with them, although they may be able to offer their own backhaul

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 17-Mar-14 19:56:37)

i'm presuming you've tried removing the bell wire - sometimes this helps if REIN is experienced? Alternatively, a SSFP (special face plate) does the same job.

Zen have their own kit now I gather which is why I'm looking at them.

I have one of the Openreach branded NTE5 sockets which have the bellwire choke built in.

Zen have their own kit now I gather which is why I'm looking at them.

I thought they were, mostly, using Btw stuff ?

I guess if you change ISP's now, you might well be going back to the start of the whole faulting process again ?

I did enquire some time ago as I was concerned the move to TTW might go pear shaped and was informed they now did.

Thing is I'm also weighing up the FTTP in the event the REIN source can't narrowed down and eliminated as I mentioned in the other thread,

Trying to work out if there's any major roadworks between me and the exchange that could be doing it but none come to mind at the mo.

I would be very surprised if road works were the cause. You, more often as not, looking for something mains powered. For instance, found a V box at the weekend knocking 2.5 meg off a punters sync rate, and the very high error rate (30,000 or so in 5 minutes) was making the throughput very flaky. The box was a good 150m away from the punters house.

Noise picked up at around 612mw on a portable radio can give some indication, though isn't wholly reliable.

Any on roadworks.org?

Matt

In reply to a post by techguy:

I did enquire some time ago as I was concerned the move to TTW might go pear shaped and was informed they now did.

At your exchange? The last I heard they only had their own kit in a couple of hundred or so.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I would be very surprised if road works were the cause.

I agree it's unlikely to be roadworks - but they can cause problems.
A few years back the installation of these large cables between me and my exchange by EDF (put in using a mole) caused havoc with my connection

No Virgin Media here but it is dish city

I have two dishes myself connected to freesat boxes but have ruled these out by completely powering them down.

Am surrounded by houses but don't know that many of the people to ask so wouldn't know where to start to be honest.

Placed the order for the move to Zen and forced the router into ADSL2+ but that hasn't made any difference.

Will see what happens once I'm moved, might have to bite the bullet and get FTTP if I can't get this resolved.

Down to using a battery powered AM radio to see if anything looks a likely source of massive noise

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/videos/broadband-inter...

Alas don't have a portable one Andrew.

Do you guys know of any individuals/companies I could contact to get this independently investigated?

In reply to a post by techguy:

No Virgin Media here but it is dish city

Those cables in the photos are power cables (EDF) not media...!

I moved to Zen yesterday and as part of the process OR managed to completely disconnect the line and marked the migration complete.

Rang Zen who reported the fault.

One of my folks stayed at home in case they called about the issue, about 11.30 an OR Engineer appeared unannounced with their Manager to check everything was ok.

Apparently fault was (via a non techy family member) 'half leg disk then went t full leg disk'

Speed is back to normal (3.46 Meg)

Fault description means

One of the two wires providing telephone service broke or got disconnected, (xDSL will work but slower, and phone should not) and subsequent to this the second wire broke, which means no service at all.

Thanks for the explanation Mr S.

Phone was working fine until yesterday so unless it broke during the move from TT to Zen's kit (line has been under WLR with Zen since 2011 so perhaps they move the actual line to make it full LLU now)

Anyway, so far, so good, as its been a somewhat frustrating experience, I can now resume my gaming, film watching and occasional working from home.