Regular drops in ppp sessions

Hiya! Been with Post Office Broadband for six months now. Very cheap ( ADSL2+ for £21 inc. line rental). But disappointing. Poor service. Not stable connection.

DSL sync is fine and solid. DSL Uptime on this line very stable. Currently DSL Uptime at 21 days: 16 hours: 57 minutes. Last loss of sync due to thunderstorm. No fault of Post Office.

However PPP sessions keep closing every few hours. Several times a day. Very annoying. Disruptive to browsing, streaming, downloading and general internet use.

Establishing new PPP session takes several minutes, meaning total downtime, failed downloads, broken media streams, etc.

Do others find this problem? Is is issue with PPPD server at Post Office, which uses TalkTalk plant apparently. Normally TalkTalk very reliable from past experience.

Or is it maybe supplied Zyxel CPE router is [censored]? It is Zyxel AMG1302-T11C. With [censored] MediaTek SoC (identifying as Ralink 7505 with MIPS32 core).

Though client-side issues with pppd are Linux userspace, and Linux pppd daemon on MIPS is reliable mature code by now.

Seems more likely Post Office has [censored] issues with its central office kit. Downtimes very frustrating for end-user.

Who to contact at Post Office to elevate problem? First-line customer services not knowledgeable nor helpful.

What do other Post Office subscribers think please? Are others suffering this or we suffer alone?

Thank you for your kind attention.

I don't know much about Post Office, but have you tried using a different CPE? Do you know of any other customers using Post Office on the same exchange as you, having similar issues?

Edited by WilliamGrimsley (Tue 02-Oct-18 15:54:02)

Only time creating the PPP should be slow is if there is a big rush at the provider as lots of modems re-connect after a dropped session, so key here is whether other Post Office users are noticing similar.

On the router, no opinion other than usually avoid MediaTek chipsets but that's more a VDSL2 thing

The Post Office let me leave FOC because the backhaul speed was so poor. The AMG1302-T10B I had was fine. The Plusnet service I moved to was much better. I now have Vodafone FTTC using a different Zyxel router.

Thanks Mr Saffron. Today is another bad day of ppp outages with post office.

Unfortunately Post Office has no customer forum of is own. Probably by design. Best way to keep complaints under wraps - deny complainants a voice!

No dedicated forum also makes hard to gauge scale of this ppp problem. Is it isolated or widespread? We will never know unless people come forward and report on places like here.

Post Office customer service quite clueless. No idea what ppp is. Just the usual worn-out script of "power-off the router, etc etc"

Another ppp outage while posting earlier message!

Screenshot of router status page

https://imgur.com/a/qHUEDUO

It shows DSL layer staying up. Only ppp layer broken.

Post Office support team don't understand difference.

Getting the same with Zyxel at the moment and not a first. Would try another router.

I am suffering the same problem, moved from plusnet to PO at the start of December and initially thought this was just the line settling down. after a month I phoned the helpline and got the usual (unplug all other devices, change the filter, take the front off the master socket and plug router in there), when this did not work phoned again, adviser wanted to know what was connected to my router, both ethernet and wireless, and tried to tell me that I might be overloading the system, when I said that the connected devices were not all used at once and was he saying that the service provided by the PO was not as good as plusnet he started to backpedal. suffice to say if I can get out of the contract I will, and if not I will definitely be changing when it expires.

I too have drop outs,
On the current 'status' page it shows:-

DSL Up Time: 27 days: 22 hours: 05 minutes
System Up Time: 27 days: 22 hours: 6 minutes
Current Time: Sat Feb 8 11:55:05 UTC 2020
PPPoE Up Time: 0 day:13 hour: 1 minutes:11 seconds


Never thought to look on the 2nd status page before but I will keep an eye on it from now on.

Edited by Acegio (Sat 08-Feb-20 12:02:25)

Yes! I had the exact same issue with Post Office Broadband. They kept telling me on the phone that the 'connection is very stable' but I was losing connection every day at random times. Eventually found the second router status page with the PPPoE Uptime.

After two engineers coming out and finding no problems I managed to argue enough on the phone that sending a third engineer was a pointless exercise (as well as a Covid risk) and eventually they said they'd send a new router. That didn't fix it either so they're finally letting me leave without paying the rest of the contract. Now I can switch ISP and hopefully enjoy a nice stable connection (fingers crossed).

tl/dr
Sorry I don't have a fix, but if you have this problem, make your case clearly and repeatedly enough with PO technical support and eventually you might get out of the contract!

Posted this on another thread
https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/f/4643873-...
but this solved my problem:

Swapped the ZyXEL router VMG3925-B10A for the old PLUSNET Hub Manager - no more cutting out! Just reset the Plusnet Router first by pressing a ballpoint pen tip in the reset hole on the back of the router for thirty seconds while powered on.
Enter the old password for the Plusnet router (supplied with the Plusnet router) on your device and it works fine!

My God, what a nightmare! I'm not a newbie with tech but today's World is becoming a technocrat-dependant slave prison - I pity those innocent victims caught in this dystopian World!

Edited by Kryptos (Tue 09-Jun-20 12:25:52)