Erratic/zero throughput during spring/summer

Hi folks, I am having a really tough time with my non-LLU ADSL Max connection

I've had this issue ever since the line was installed about 4 years ago, and it only seems to happen during the spring/summer months. I have been with various ISP's during this time, including o2, Vivaciti, ADSL24 and Zen.

The problem can be seen by this graph.

Before and after the drop out is pretty much what my connection is like; it is a little slower than expected, but that will be a separate issue as I had this same problem with other ISP's, but you can clearly see the problem I have. This is a frequent occurrence, at least twice a day, random times, and for random intervals.

The thing to keep in mind is that the router is still convinced it is connected to the net, and at no time does it go down. Rebooting when this happens has no effect. This is a wired connection, and as it affects other devices connected too, it cannot be a problem with those either (I have tested extensively with single devices - PC, laptop, PS3, all connected separately or together - believe me when I say I have tested pretty much everything I can think of).

My current router stats at the time of this particular outage:

DSL Status: Up
DSL Modulation Mode: GDMT
DSL Path Mode: FAST
Downstream Rate: 8128 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 448 Kbps
Downstream Margin: 9db
Upstream Margin: 22db
Downstream Line Attenuation: 30
Upstream Line Attenuation: 16
Downstream Transmit Power: 19
Upstream Transmit Power: 11

Of course I have used various other routers such as an o2 box II, bt home hub v2 and my current Buffalo n-draft.

I have no extensions on my phoneline, and I have used various filters, and also used the test socket.

I already have asked my ISP, but as I have asked others to no effect, I was hoping you guys may be able to shed some light on it.

For the record, I live in the middle of a farmland area, so not inner city or anything like that. My net speed is usually pretty good, 800+KB/s, although currently Vivacity is letting me down a little on that front right now.

Thank you

Kaltern

Next time it happens is there any chance you could plug a (preferably corded) phone into the test socket and do a Quiet Line Test? 17070 Option 2. It should be silent apart from the instructions and the auto-voice at intervals.

Can you get any error stats out of the router?

I might be barking up the wrong tree but Spring and Summer are obviously warmer seasons, so could this be temperature related............

I imagine you might have considered this but just in case:

Where's the modem-router located? It's not in a window or direct sunlight is it, they can get hot and overheat.

Do you have fans, air-con kicking in automatically when it's warm, possibly causing impulsive noise?

If no to the above, what about the cable route?

You say you live on open farmland so I will assume overhead telecom cables, pole fed, quite possibly multiple spans of aerial cables and/or dropwire. When it's hot weather the quaternary strength strands (steel wires that give tension to aerial cables and dropwires) do expand causing the cable to sag, sometimes enough to open up HR (high resistance) faults in the span length.

This is very, very rare, but not unknown in aluminium aerial cables as aluminium is less ductile (stretchy) than copper and therefore can crack under mechanical stress. When the cable cools down in contracts and closes up the HR to restore continuity. I think this could be fairly unlikely though as you would likely lose telephony and broadband for a substantial time, but this may be why Roberto is asking you to run a quiet line.

Hope this helps more than it confuses!

And at least if it doesn't help it's an interesting bit of telecom trivia

Yeah I already did the quiet line test, it's perfectly fine, I have done that on a number of occasions just in case I could hear something.

The router doesn't appear to report any errors, which is most irritating.

In reply to a post by polemonkey:

You say you live on open farmland so I will assume overhead telecom cables, pole fed, quite possibly multiple spans of aerial cables and/or dropwire.

Possibly growing through trees, which have leaves in the spring and summer... a walk along the line might be worth the effort.

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by polemonkey:

You say you live on open farmland so I will assume overhead telecom cables, pole fed, quite possibly multiple spans of aerial cables and/or dropwire.

Possibly growing through trees, which have leaves in the spring and summer... a walk along the line might be worth the effort.

I will do, but I believe that there is a connection running up a dirt track to a house about 800 meters away, on the ground in a plastic sleeve, just.. draped through the trees. It isn't pretty.

Surely that sort of issue would affect voice as well as data?