There is an ISP willing to take on lines with a fault, but they cost more than most.

It would mean another 12 month contract also, and I don`t like being stuck with a company for so long.

I assume you mean AAISP?

As far as I know, apart from the resold Be LLU, and FTTC, they are monthly contract.

Peask time rates are horrendous, off-peak quite good, night period effectively unlimited.

That`s the one!

Would it even be worth going with them to rid myself of this fault once and for all, or are they as bad as others when it comes to these things?

We do have FTTC around here, but my estimate is only 7.2 down and 1.1 up, which means BT won`t provide it at the minute. There is no LLU available here, so the best I can get right now is ADSL max.

Question about my noise margin; Is it normal for it to vary from around 13 during the day to around 7 at night (sometimes less)? I noticed mine does that before, and did mean to mention it earlier, but forgot with all the error chat.

I mentioned it to VM, but he didn`t seem bothered. As far as i`m aware that shouldn`t be happening?

It`s now:

SNR Margin (dB): 9.5 20.0

A variation of that much in noise margin isn't normal, but looks to be fairly common.

If you remember, the default sync-time setting on BT Wholesale is 6dB, but on unstable lines (ie more than 6dB variation) it can get hiked to 9, 12 or even 15dB.

That has two simultaneous effects. First it obviously allows more variation, second it lowers the connection speed so fewer errors occur.

As long as you don't lose connection, the variation of the noise margin doesn't really matter in itself. However it is an indicator of possible noise problems.

Have you done the usual such as disconnecting ring wires, making sure everything is filtered and no filters have failed, and so on?

So far as I know, AAISP live up to their claims. If you hunt around their website they show samples of their diagnostics, some of which they run all the time on every customer's line anyway - a bit like the tbb BQM.

You could ask in the AAISP forum? Or give them a ring tomorrow?

Thankyou.

It doesn`t seem to be a case of losing the connection due to noise on the line, but due to the error build up.

I`m wondering if I should take VM up on the good offer, and put up with things as they are for now? As you can see my sync isn`t bad at all, and to be honest the worst IP profile i`ve seen is 3000 due to disconnects. I do see speeds that aren`t great at all, even during the day, but they are not there all the time.

I did at one stage, go through a period of several daily disconnects, and that puts me off doing the above a little. Although as said, my IP profile didn`t suffer much considering.

I changed to another (just out of the wrapper) filter this afternoon before starting my connection again (I got two with my new modem/router). I only have one phone line into the house, so don`t need anymore than the one filter. I`ll have to check out the ringwire tomorrow, but i`m pretty sure that isn`t connected, but may be wrong.

Would a BT iplate help at all? Even though I don`t use extensions?

The iPlate just filters the ring wire. Easier and cheaper just to gently disconnect it if present.

While you have the master open, just not down what colour wires are connected to which terminals.

In fact - before you bother disconnecting anything, just open the master and plug your filter into the Test Socket on the wall at the back. See how things go from there.

It`s already in the test socket, but there are no visable wires at all. They are tucked up out of site, as the engineer who tested my broadband connection a while ago had to take another part off to get to them.

Hope you know what I mean?

Edited by deleted (Tue 15-Feb-11 19:06:28)

Ummmm.

Although you shouldn't remove the cover over the incoming cable connection, I would be tempted to make sure no wires are tucked in there in such a way that they could make an electrical contact!

Even fish the loose ones out to make sure.

You could very well be right!

I`ve just been looking at images for the test socket, and you can see where the wiring is going to from them, and I can`t with mine. Some seem to have wiring on the faceplate, but I don`t with mine, it just slots into the test socket.

As long as there are no wired extensions in the house, you would not expect any connections to the faceplate terminals.

Equally, if there are extensions present, even if you don't use them, then they should be wired to the faceplate not to the back.

What I'm thinking of is just unused wires making an electrical contact when they shouldn't.

I`ll get a good look tomorrow when i`ll have a chance of holding my sync, rather than upset things again tonight.

Hopefully there is something simple going on with it, and I can get it fixed. Not too fused on doing it though, as I don`t like the thought of doing anything wrong.