How often do you monitor your connection?

Back when i had ADSL via a Talk Talk reseller, i was able to manually set the target SNR with my ISP, therefore the DLM was effectively disabled and my connection would always try and sync as close to the target SNR as possible.

Since getting FTTC this isnt possible and the DLM does the work and tweaks the line if it sees issues etc. So ive found myself wanting to check my connection every few days to make sure everything is in order - no random resyncs, speeds ok, errors etc. Basically if there is an issue i want to spot it before the DLM potentially slows my connection down by increasing the target SNR.

Anyone else find themselves doing this, or just dont bother and let the DLM do its job if it sees an issue?

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Anyone else find themselves doing this, or just dont bother and let the DLM do its job if it sees an issue?

I sort of do this, but not in any great detail- I just use the BQM to keep an eye on the general "health" of the connection and only investigate further if something seems to be misbehaving or deteriorating.

It has the advantage over occasional manual spot checks in that it shows the last 24 hours in a single graph, and you can view graphs for up to a few weeks ago to see if something is a one-off or may have some sort of pattern to it. It's great for spotting re-syncs that happened while you were fast asleep

It doesn't pick up everything of course, but it's an exceedingly useful tool and I'd hate to be without it!

DLM on FTTC unfortunately is a thing, and in the middle of the night, if something happens theres nothing you can do.

When I was on FTTC, I didnt even bother monitoring the connection unless there was something glaringly obvious that wasnt running properly.

I find that, lots of people "into" networking/broadband, do far more monitoring than is needed.

The question to ask is: Can I do what I need/want to do with my connection? If Answer == Yes, Then, leave it alone

The old adage of "if it aint broke, dont fix it"

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Back when i had ADSL via a Talk Talk reseller, i was able to manually set the target SNR with my ISP, therefore the DLM was effectively disabled and my connection would always try and sync as close to the target SNR as possible.

Since getting FTTC this isnt possible and the DLM does the work and tweaks the line if it sees issues etc. So ive found myself wanting to check my connection every few days to make sure everything is in order - no random resyncs, speeds ok, errors etc. Basically if there is an issue i want to spot it before the DLM potentially slows my connection down by increasing the target SNR.

Anyone else find themselves doing this, or just dont bother and let the DLM do its job if it sees an issue?

I run a speed test a couple of times a week just to keep an eye on it but it's not changed in years.

In reply to a post by haydnwalker:

I find that, lots of people "into" networking/broadband, do far more monitoring than is needed.

To say I "monitor" it is a bit OTT... I keep a browser tab open on them (one v4, one v6) and during my morning start-up routine (ie whilst restoring my caffeine level ) I refresh the tab, if looks the same as it usually does I just continue to the next tab

If it doesn't then what I do next depends on what it looks like- usually I decide it's nothing that matters and, again, go to the next tab.

Edited by billford (Mon 16-Oct-23 15:54:46)

I find ongoing monitoring of a home connection is over rated If I notice real time a specific issue I do the necessary checks be they speed, packet loss or whatever is needed.

Agreed - but good to collect the data so you know what "normal" looks like.

Nothing to monitor since I got FTTP, so now I monitor the stats for my energy usage as a substitute 😀

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Back when i had ADSL via a Talk Talk reseller, i was able to manually set the target SNR with my ISP, therefore the DLM was effectively disabled and my connection would always try and sync as close to the target SNR as possible.

Since getting FTTC this isnt possible and the DLM does the work and tweaks the line if it sees issues etc. So ive found myself wanting to check my connection every few days to make sure everything is in order - no random resyncs, speeds ok, errors etc. Basically if there is an issue i want to spot it before the DLM potentially slows my connection down by increasing the target SNR.

Anyone else find themselves doing this, or just dont bother and let the DLM do its job if it sees an issue?

I don't, even on FTTC, if I felt things getting slower than I may do a speed check just to see what is going on, but that is it. DLM on FTTC is far better than it was on ADSL.

Just use it unless there is a problem.

In reply to a post by troublegum:

Nothing to monitor since I got FTTP, so now I monitor the stats for my energy usage as a substitute 😀

i hear of people doing that, you use what you use at the end of the day.

I have Uptime Kuma set to ping my connections every 20s for the primary and every 60s for the backup.
It's more for an alert, so I know one of them's gone down (particularly if I'm out or not using the connection at the time)

Last time I checked was last Christmas, the connection is rock solid.

I use to do that on dslstats almost twice or third times every days. But, not anymore.

On VDSL my connection never changed over many years but I had a Docker container getting the Stats from the modem if required. Now on fibre I only check it as I use the BQM link to access the forums.

Yep, like you when I was with ADSL Exchange Only Line I used to have an obsession to check router settings almost every single day throughout the day.

My internet connection was very flaky. Noise margin had to be manually capped to 9dB for it to be stable. Unfortunately, I only realized this a few years later. It would've saved me a lot of time and headache. The difference was that on ADSL with 6dB or 3dB I could get 16Mbps but connection would constantly drop usually on mornings only. No engineer could solve this problem neither would a different ISP help.

The max connection uptime would be something like 4 days. But usually it would drop every day.

I remember when capping the SNR by calling my ISP under 9dB my connection became stable at the expense of 11-12Mbps. Then I managed to get to 60 day connection uptime at one point which seemed like a dream come true.

I still maintained this obsession because sometimes in the mornings the internet SNR would drop from 9dB to 2dB or less and this will kill the internet connection speed. I would get like 2-3Mbps due to line noise. Connection would hold before recovering back to 9dB but that is where I diagnosed where the issue was. Connection would usually drop under ADSL between 8-11am.

As soon as FTTC became available in October 2019 and I then joined TalkTalk FTTC in February 2020 my problem was immediately resolved. My connection no longer dropped out any longer due to noise margin. TalkTalk sure for me wasn't as reliable of a service as it is now with BT. However, none of the drop outs or downtime were related to SNR. My connection would remain stable for months on end and would reset only when a new firmware update came or if it was down from their end.

Nowadays, I no longer obsess and check router settings the way I did before when I was on ADSL. I have noticed that after 1 year or so due to crosstalk my SNR dropped to 3dB but it is no longer posing any problems. SNR is stable and doesn't drop below 3dB ever last 3+ years since being on FTTC.

In general this service has been so much more reliable that I didn't feel the urge to switch to Community Fibre (FTTP) yet despite its availability here for the last several months. But certainly, if I was on the old FTTC service I would've urgently switched over Community Fibre.

Usually an obsession occurs when the problems are prevalent. If it is a very rare occurrence eventually this obsession stops and naturally you wouldn't be checking router settings so frequently.