Advice On ADSL Fault Please.

Hi,

I'm looking for advice/opinions on my current ADSL fault. I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but fear it may become a wall of text.

Summary - I've gone from having a perfect line that never dropped and had zero errors, to a line that is now disconnecting anywhere between 2-8 times a day with a couple thousand CRC, FEC and HEC errors over the same period. Every time the line gets reset, the SNR target, like clockwork, increases each day until it gets to 15db. My ISP (Plusnet) say

After a more advanced test we can see the line is initialising a lot more often than it shows on the radius logs.

History of the fault(s) - My exchange was upgraded to 21CN in December, everything looked good, no disconnections, very few errors and it held sync at 3db SNR. A few weeks later I started to notice packet loss (up to 25% at times.) At this point I reported a fault to Plusnet.

An engineer arrived and concluded the line within my home was perfect. After complaining some more it became apparent other customers were experiencing the same and so a common fault was raised against the exchange. After investigation they concluded that there was nothing obvious at the exchange that could be causing my issues, but the packet loss magically disappeared!

However, it was at this point I started to see more errors, disconnections and some odd SNR readings on my router (and two other routers I tried.) By odd I mean 0db and on one of them SNR showed as -51db (minus.)

Every engineer that has visited has said the line inside my home is perfect. One found an issue on overhead cabling when conducting a hawk test. He fixed that. Same issues in the days after he left.
The most recent engineer to visit checked every overhead connection up to the point that the cables go underground to the exchange (I'm on an exchange only line.) He found that the cable was 'badly corroded,' he fixed that. Same issues in the days after he left.

This is incredibly frustrating, as I said, this has been going on since January. Plusnet ticket response isn't nearly as fast as it has been previously, in fact I haven't heard from them since Monday when I told them what happened with the last engineer visit.

This leads me to my questions - I've seen AAISP's 'guarantee' of getting faults fixed. Are they really better than other ISPs at chasing up Openreach and getting results? Would ordering a broadband only line from them bypass the issues I'm having with the current line, or would I likely have the same problem, but be £125 worse off?

So, in short, should I keep waiting to see if Plusnet can get this fixed or should I look to switch ISPs? If you think switching is worthwhile, with or without a new line?

I look forward to your thoughts, thanks for reading,

Wo0x.

now disconnecting anywhere between 2-8 times a day with a couple thousand CRC, FEC and HEC errors over the same period. Every time the line gets reset, the SNR target, like clockwork, increases each day until it gets to 15db.

Have any of the engineers, or in fact Plusnet, mentioned REIN ? If you have a good line, the exchange has been looked at then this may be a cause. Any chance of seeing some line stats please ?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Have any of the engineers, or in fact Plusnet, mentioned REIN ?

The most recent engineer did mention REIN, but wasn't convinced it was the issue as there was no pattern to the disconnects. The only pattern is a 3db SNR increase each day after an SNR reset.

Any chance of seeing some line stats please ?

ADSL Uptime 0 days 7 hours 22 minutes 45 seconds

Modulation : ADSL2+
Annex Mode : Annex A/L
Line State : up
Lan Tx : 5882578
Lan Rx : 3046070
ADSL Tx : 69154
ADSL Rx : 79749
CRC Down : 0
CRC Up : 84
FEC Down : 0
FEC Up : 124
HEC Down : 60
HEC Up : 0
SNR Up : 6.3
SNR Down : 14.5
Line Attenuation Up : 13.8
Line Attenuation Down : 21.0
Data Rate Up : 1127
Data Rate Down : 11925

Slow! Should be getting nearly 20 Meg. Speed probably being damped by that 14.5 dB NM. but ...

In reply to a post by Wo0x:

ADSL Uptime 0 days 7 hours 22 minutes 45 seconds

What was the Target NM 7 hours 22 minutes 45 seconds ago? That's what matters; the NM at sync-time.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

What was the Target NM 7 hours 22 minutes 45 seconds ago? That's what matters; the NM at sync-time.

15db, it works its way back to that after every reset over the course of three days.

Highest sync I've seen is 19, shortly after the exchange was upgraded. This was with SNR at 3db.

That doesn't look like an excessive amount of errors for the uptime, that said, they seem mainly to be on the upstream. I tend to think that if it's mainly upstream errors you see the fault lies with the DSLAM port. Have you had a lift and shift done ? As in a new port allocated to your circuit ?

They performed a lift and shift when I first complained of packet loss, the disconnections and SNR increase followed that. Do you think it's likely in trying to fix one issue they gave me another?

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14004...

Edited by deleted (Sun 18-May-14 18:28:10)

Possibly ?

If it's any help at all:

I had a similar issue a couple of years ago. Huge chunks of time where the line was useless, CRC errors, SNR drops, desyncs, the works. Finally got an Openreach engineer out who did some tests and proclaimed it fixed.

Nuh-huh.

Managed to get a second engineer out who found the fault almost immediately. The line had a high-resistance fault. He said the first engineer shouldn't have missed that under any circumstances. Engineer performed an E-side shift and the line has been solid since.

Was with AAISP at the time who were great about getting it sorted. If you've got an issue, they *will* get it fixed.

Edited by NeoLojik (Mon 19-May-14 00:41:30)

Thanks, other threads on 'high-resistance faults' sound familiar, ie funny SNR readings.

Was with AAISP at the time who were great about getting it sorted. If you've got an issue, they *will* get it fixed.

I'm very tempted to switch, as I've said, I'm really frustrated that this has been going on since January and Plusnet ticket response isn't what it used to be.

Suggest you try your modem in adsl mode (8m) and adsl2 mode (16m) and then finally back to adsl2+ (24m)

Could be your physical line can not run in the fast mode and you are getting a lesser service due to noise etc.

In reply to a post by iand:

adsl2 mode (16m)

12 Meg!

But line is good for 20 Meg on ADSL2+ going from OP's attn.

In reply to a post by iand:

Suggest you try your modem in adsl mode (8m) and adsl2 mode (16m) and then finally back to adsl2+ (24m)

Could be your physical line can not run in the fast mode and you are getting a lesser service due to noise etc.

It worked fine for a few weeks after the upgrade at 3db SNR and 19 sync. The disconnects occur on all three modes. The last engineer to visit told me to leave it set to ADSL2+.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

line is good for 20 Meg on ADSL2+ going from OP's attn.

Is it normal that the attenuation increases after an exchange upgrade? It was 19, but increased to 21.

Yes, going from ADSL or ADSL2 to ADSL2+ increases attn. by about 3dB.

Thanks. I was told that Plusnet would be speaking to 'their suppliers' today and that the ticket will be updated when they know anything.

Just a comment: Does this mean you have to have good telephone engineering knowledge to tackle these problems.?

Surely it is time someone brought out a gizmo that you plug into your line which gives the customer[mug] the power to get a definitive test that can be shown to the relevant [Open Reach?] company?

see my tribulations>>

Edited by deleted (Tue 20-May-14 11:10:14)

There is remote test kit and can be used to test without us the consumer plugging anything in and it is used a fair amount of the time, when retailers bother to give access to call centre/support staff

With a good telecommunications engineering knowledge and experience it is possible to identify faults from symptoms and some simple equipment.

There is equipment that can be plugged in - but it is not cheap and for it to provide a definitive statement about the line and potential faults it would need testing on a regular basis and calibration every year.

there is already enough diagnostic equipment at the exchange for automated testing and if required a technician can do a set of manual tests from the exchange too. There is potentially a cost for testing which needs to be met from somewhere.

They 'pinned' the SNR to 6db, which left me with a line that disconnected more frequently, but it went back up to 15db again anyway.