Buffering (Surfwise LLU) and other line issues

Anyone else on Surfwise variety experiencing buffering on You tube and "slow loading" on some other sites?

I did email support about the performance before xmas with a load of traceroutes and noting that I my line sees a lot of resyncs (the subject of a previous ticket) Commenting that timesouts were occurring around hop 8 I had hoped for a more positive response than "your line speed is appropriate to to your sync or is there something else you are trying to tell us."

I decided to leave it till after xmas... but now Im going to be on the case aagin. My line resyncs several times a week, since Openjoke changed the pair between the cab and exchange my maximum morning sync has dropped from the low 10k to high 8 k and the line seems just as unpredictable as it was before, dropping at random times and periods.

Ive not used the voice line for months as I have unplugged everything except the router, I got a Fritzbox 7390 which behaves exactly the same as my previous modems, this line dropping issue has been present from when I first had broadband - I think after 10 years I am due a fix. its only a 3 km line! Ive done everything except move house! There is no wiring connected beyond the master socket, most of the neighbours close to me have changed over the years I have been here (much of this street is owned by by to let operators) I have chnaged most of the electrical gizmos in the flat over the last 10 years...

Today youtube is back to buffering, watching an old information film.. every 3rd or 4th word has a pause after it while the clip buffers.

Line stats...
Max. DSLAM throughput kbit/s 24576 1024
Min. DSLAM throughput kbit/s 288 64
Attainable throughput kbit/s 7872 1058
Current throughput kbit/s 7583 1020

Latency 8 ms 6 ms
Bitswap on off
Seamless Rate Adaptation off off
Impulse Noise Protection (INP) 0.6 1.1
Energy-saving mode L2 NA - -

Signal-to-noise ratio dB 9 9
Line attenuation dB 42 23
Power Reduction dB 0 0
Carrier record A43 A43

Any ideas?

I take it you've tried a filter swap?

I know this is often what you'd hear from an ISP tech support department but have had similar slowdowns fixed by swapping the filter albeit I have a much longer line than yourself.

Ive had several filters over the years, including one that was duff that dropped the connection when the phone rang. taken out everything internally - all I have is the NTE5 with nothing but the router in it, the router is 2 months old (ish) and is performing the same as the several 2 wire HGV2700's I have had in line and the Thomson 585v6. the same problem existed on 512k with Pipex when I was running a Speedstream PCI card modem when I first got broadband.

Openjoke have looked at the line a few times - Ive had around 3 total outages in the 10 or so years I have been on broadband, This time last year Enta spotted that the line was below FTL and something was alleged to have been done - and billed (!!) but it seems that this problem is something that openjoke either cant fix or CBA to fix... my money is on the latter - the attitude of local engineers seems to be "It works most of the time so why are you bitching?" - thats how it feels when they turn up here. We already know that BT don't want to invest here. maybe they feel that the "voice line tax" I have to pay to have broadband doesn't qualify me to have a line that works properly.

Send them a ticket, if u have not already.

i have just had my same issue fixed.

I already have an on-going ticket - my line has always dropped at unpredictable intervals - right back to my earliest days on Broadband - before that I had to have the gain tweaked on Dial up. It seems my 3km line doesn't like the Internet! But whatever the reason I am sick of the issue and as BT insist on me paying a voice tax to have the line (I always use the call bundle on my mobile for calls) I expect that line to be up to supporting an always on service, especially as I am not at the extremes of "technical availability" of ADSL.

The guy I talked to at Vivaciti said he was going to bounce the job back to the engineers maybe for a tie pair change in the exchange(?), this morning between 09.30 and 09.45 my line dropped 3 times and has synced at an even lower level than before.

So the change of pair between the cab and exchange took my max sync from 10,xxx kbit/s (which would usually stabilize around the mid 8xxx kbit/s for a few days before dropping a few times over the course of a few days,) down th the low to mid 8xxx kbit/s, Then I saw it drop to the point where an average mid 7xxx kbit/s was the norm before again the line dropped at random kicking the sync level all over the place. Now today we arrive at 6432 kbit/s with my noise margin all the way up at 14db!

Now on LLU I am am almost back to where I was on Enta 8meg - but often seeing it taking over a minute to open some sites - BBC News being just one such site - I am certain that there is an issue in routing as traceroutes (I did a bunch to some pretty much mainstream sites in the UK) show a delay after hop8.

traceroute to bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 fritz.box (192.168.178.1) 1.080 ms 0.759 ms 0.680 ms
2 hg03-gw.tn3.o-bit.net.128.107.77.in-addr.arpa (77.107.128.119) 32.477 ms 33.209 ms 34.062 ms
3 abr01v9.tn3.o-bit.net (77.107.129.49) 32.700 ms 34.032 ms 37.649 ms
4 77.107.128.252 (77.107.128.252) 33.507 ms 33.260 ms 33.686 ms
5 cr02x.tn3.o-bit.net (77.107.128.122) 34.046 ms 33.264 ms 33.349 ms
6 gi5-2.ar04.tn5.bb.gxn.net (212.241.241.161) 45.386 ms 64.566 ms 47.840 ms
7 62.72.137.126 (62.72.137.126) 34.638 ms 34.211 ms 33.096 ms
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk (132.185.254.46) 34.805 ms 33.583 ms 33.558 ms
11 132.185.255.60 (132.185.255.60) 34.384 ms 36.660 ms 35.988 ms
12 212.58.241.131 (212.58.241.131) 34.670 ms 35.074 ms 34.482 ms

Sadly passing that information to Vivaciti support (along with a reference to the already open ticket about stability) led to me getting the reply that told me my speed was in the zone (which didn't tally with a previous conversation where a tech told me that mid 8megs was a reasonable average but a good line would return more) so they didn't see an issue "unless you are trying to tell us something else." *screams* The issue was that along with bbc was (IIRC) Royal Mail, BT and Amazon.co.uk - ALL slow to load and ALL showing this timeout at hop 8... how can I put it any plainer???????

I am starting to think I was better off on Enta, pretty much the same speed as today - but without the drag opening pages. The guy I talked to a couple of nights back (Gareth) seemed to know his stuff and wasn't dismissive - maybe he can push this on and get both issues dealt with.

*Generally Very Disappointed*

Couldn't Vivaciti swap you onto an SPMF LLU connection if the price isnt much different. I've had no problems on the Variety package for over a year, no slow downs or page loading problems 24/7. I see they also have a premium package for the same price with low latency and unlimited which might cure your page loading problem.

As for the resync problem thats down to BT Openreach to sort out via Vivaciti.

Edit: Just seen your OP and realised from your trace your already on Surfwise. Have you suggested a username change which fixed a similar problem for another user.

Edited by Banger (Mon 07-Jan-13 19:55:28)

Tried a resync earlier this evening hoping to get back to above 7 megs - usually attainable on my line for an evening sync, and that dropped me below 6 megs which prompted another call to Vivaciti where the support guy read all the notes on my ticket and said that we had a profile change applied this morning. I told him it had made matters worse and he said it was time that Openjoke stopped tinkering with this and tried more drastic measures, that it is clear from the notes that Playing around with settings etc isnt going to help.

So at least Vivaciti support can see why I am getting completely fed up with it. Its just a little worrying that every time Openjoke look at my line the speed drops further - by Thursday week I could be back at 14.4k!

Had a call from Vivaciti this morning. Open joke suits a certain division of BT so well.

They are claiming the issue is a line fault "Caused by CP Equipment" so apparently my issues which date from the old 512k fixed speed days when this exchange first had broadband are caused by my current LLU providers equipment?

Just goes to show that BT group want the money for the line but don't want to spend a single penny on actually fixing anything in this 10k line area - which kinda fits with the lack of WBC here and my view that I will never see fibre here unless government pay for it.

Apparently overnight drops don't count as that can be caused by maintenance - so much maintenance and yet my line never improves. My line stats are apparently causing some head-scratching. Gareth at Vivaciti has noticed that the attenuation and length data don't add up, I'm not sure how but it seems that the line may be either 3.1k or 2.6 k - the plot thickens!

In reply to a post by warweezil:

"Caused by CP Equipment"

This has always been a standard OR/OJ phrase meaning "we have no idea what's going on and we refuse to look".

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Jan-13 14:17:16)

Heh! thats what I figured. I forgot to mention that apparently my line isnt dropping "enough" to be considered at fault by them, they have to be joking - the last time it freaked out I ended up with a 15db margin and a sync of 5.6 Megs!

Currently on a 9db margin (ISP had reset this morning) I have 8.9 megs which I feel is respectable - But I know it wont last - and usefully my upload has gone back up to 1 meg from the 830 kbit/s it fell to - Id best get on and upload those photos to my site while this thing is running at a decent level.

Thats part of the problem with this stupid separation between the end user and the "copper provider". A few years ago with Pipex and "the mysterious daily 3.30 pm speed drop that wasn't throttling and had to be my equipment"....was able to beat them over the head with a threat of action for them "failing to use reasonable skill and care in the provision of service". Here I cannot because of the stupid situation where I pay for a line but the people who provide the line have no relationship with me (apart from screwing up my connection with their lack of maintenance - or is that skill) If a repairman failed to fix a defect I would have recourse - except in the ludicrous world of UK broadband where we are forced to pay for full voice lines we neither want nor need... and are then told that Broadband isn't a guaranteed service and to be grateful for whatever kbit/s that manage to stagger past BT's towering incompetence and neglect.

Yes I'm angry and ranting.. after more than 10 years of stonewalling from BT I think I am entitled to be. But I think this time I wont give up... I've done all I can to eliminate problems - It has to be in BTs Copper circuit back to the exchange.