It sounds very like a line noise problem I had about 1990.

Although it was agreed that there was noise on the line (Dial-up of course), the BT lad could not immediately find the cause in the "obvious places".

The cabinet is directly across the road, its exchange cable going past the side of my house.

But it transpired that the line from the cabinet to my house takes a very different route, proceeding about 50 yards eastwards, crossing the road somewhere on its travels, to a small junction box at the far side of another house, with more joints, before returning westwards to my house.

Thus taking about 125 yards or more, to cover 25 yards.

This junction box is very small, about 1 foot high by about 2 inches wide and 2 inches front-to-back, "PO Telephones" or similar cast in to its front face.

Re-making the joints in that cleared the problem.

There is a very similar box outside a pub in town; but it is the electricity supply to the pub, as it has SSEB cast on the front face.

======================

Please keep us posted of any continuation of the problem, as it is a particularly interesting one.

Morning Milamber

A friend has drawn my attention to this series of postings, particularly #15 (presently second from end)-

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/showthre...

Incidentally, subject to the intermittency and degree of "your" fault, I would have expected it to show up separately on a TDR test, given the significant distance from your house.

Can anyone supplement with a description of present-day test gear used by BTO in such circumstances; or is it back to the days of the Wheatstone Bridge?

Just another update.

BT engineer came back out on Saturday as promised and connected the wires properly with the right connector. He also managed to swap our line back to the exchange. Even connected properly he said the resistance was quite high on the line and that made our actual 3.5km from the exchange more like 4.5km.

Came back and tested the line - completely quiet and we now had a sync speed of 4.5mbps with the exchange, up from 1.1mbps before the fault was fixed.

No broadband speed increase yesterday, but this morning we are all over the place a bit, but testing at around 4.5mbps! Did get 14mbps briefly, but guess that was an aberration......

Really pleased with the result as 0.8mbps has been just about the best we have had and we have gone several weeks at a time at no better than dial up, but a bit annoyed that it has taken 3 years and hours and hours on the phone and with engineers all failing to find anything wrong to get to this point.

Thanks again for the help and advice. Not sure we would have this result without it.

Certainly quite an improvement.

I suggest you now try the BE BRAS Test and post the results, particularly the distance and whether you can reasonably relate that to both the point-to-point (crow's path) and the likely actual duct/wire (road) distance.

http://windows.mouselike.org/be/?DoAction=BrasChecker

My own results-


Enter landline number:

The current Downstream BRAS rate is: 16.78 Mbps
The current Upstream BRAS rate is: 0.83 Mbps

Data For: xxxxxxxxxx
Exchange: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
BT Recorded Line Length to Exchange (m): 1286
BE LLU: Activated
Real Error: Migration code required for this number

==========================================

Incidentally, we had a major power failure in town on Saturday.

When the supply returned about 40 minutes later, there was a significant increase in my BB connections.

The Signal to Noise Ratio improved to about 3.6 dB compared to around 6.8 to 7.5 previously;

and the Download Speed improved to around 15,5 to 16.5 Mbps, compared to 14.2 to 15.2 previously.

The Upload speed also showed a marginal improvement.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Incidentally, we had a major power failure in town on Saturday.

When the supply returned about 40 minutes later, there was a significant increase in my BB connections.

The Signal to Noise Ratio improved to about 3.6 dB compared to around 6.8 to 7.5 previously;

and the Download Speed improved to around 15,5 to 16.5 Mbps, compared to 14.2 to 15.2 previously.

The Upload speed also showed a marginal improvement.

That sounds like you are on the gaming profile. A simple reconnection at any time would have done the same, as that has a 3.5dB sync-time setting. The 6.8dB area would be because of a re-sync for some reason at a noisy time.

Very glad to hear you are getting somewhere at last, thanks to the folks on this great site -- the best place I know to find help

Evening RobertoS

Thanks for the information about the Gaming level; but the welcome improvement has never occurred previously, since receiving the Bright Box in 22nd June 2012, with several reboots in the intervening period, probably averaging about once per month.

I note the Bright Box parameters in a spreadsheet, at irregular intervals, now having 52 sets of records (Excel column M to Column CL inclusive, CL being after Saturday's enforced reboot).

Excluding that last set, the following summarises the 14 months records in that area-

Best Average Worst Median
5.1 6.2 9.3 6.1 Down Noise margin (dB) :
24.0 24.3 25.0 24.0 Down Attenuation (dB) :
5.6 7.2 10.8 7.2 Up Noise margin (dB) :
11.3 11.5 11.9 11.5 Up Attenuation (dB) :

Including that improvement-

Best Average Worst Median
3.8 6.2 9.3 6.1 Down Noise margin (dB) :
24.0 24.3 25.0 24.0 Down Attenuation (dB) :
5.6 7.2 10.8 7.2 Up Noise margin (dB) :
11.3 11.5 11.9 11.5 Up Attenuation (dB) :

It may be as you suggest, a "gaming profile"; but none of our PCs are used for gaming or other intensive activities such as film or TV downloading; nor have I ever requested such facilities.

It may be that I was lucky that the reboot occurred quickly after the power returned, before there was much competition from others, cross-talk etc.

I am continuing to monitor the improvement, using BTW and TBB frequently; and checking the Bright Box stats about twice per day, without recording them.

Presently they are-

Noise Margin 5.8 dB 3.7 dB
Line Attenuation 11.8 dB 25.0 dB

Long may it last!

I got confused because of you using the BE BRAS checker. I assumed you were on Be LLU.

So my post was junk .

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

The Upload speed also showed a marginal improvement.

From what to what?

Possible you've been moved from Interleaved to Fast Path. Does your spreadsheet track those?

EDIT: On 25dB attn. I would expect at least 18 and probably 20 Meg sync which I get on 26.5 dB attn @ 3dB NM.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Mon 26-Aug-13 22:44:29)

Morning XraySpeX

I have been on FASTPATH from definitely 22 August 2012 at 7:45 pm, (on an unknown date after 11th August 2012 at 3:45 pm).

The marginal improvement on Saturday in the Upstream was from 1,215 from 1,191 Kbps.

The reboot on Saturday had completed about 36 minutes earlier, before I looked at the Bright Box stats., as it seemed slightly faster.

================

The ADSL Status just copied from the Bright Box-

Status
Configured Current
Line Status --- SHOWTIME
Link Type --- Fast Path
Operation Mode Automatic G992.5(ADSL2+)

Data Rate Information
Stream Type Actual Data Rate
Upstream 1215 (Kbps.)
Downstream 19015 (Kbps.)

Defect/Failure Indication
Operation Data Upstream Downstream
Noise Margin 6.5 dB 3.9 dB
Line Attenuation 11.8 dB 25.0 dB

Indicator Name Near End Indicator Far End Indicator
Output Power 12.4 dBm 0.0 dBm
Fast Path FEC Correction 0 0
Interleaved Path FEC Correction NA NA
Fast Path CRC Error 2424 399
Interleaved Path CRC Error NA NA
Loss of Signal Defect 0 0
Fast Path HEC Error STR 20694 262
Interleaved Path HEC Error NA NA
Error Seconds 1996 327

Statistics
Received Cells 40626011
Transmitted Cells 8920977

==================================

There are very few others using TBB Tests around me; and the majority of those are on SKY, the majority if those showing about 9 Mbps, with only one at about 12 Mbps.

The very few others tend to be even slower, the majority being generally at greater distances from the exchange.

No FTTx in the area.

=================================

I note you state "3 db NM", where-as my NM as seen above has worsened from 3.8 to 3.9 dB.

This difference to yours may explain the Downstream Speed difference, the proportionate difference of 3.0 to 3.9 db, being significantly greater (worsening) than the Downstream Attenuation difference in "my favour" of your 26.5 dB to my 25.0 dB.

Interesting.