BTW Performance Test. - Stage 2 using phone number.

I am with Sky Fibre but I still have an Openreach FTTC Line.

When I first joined Sky Fibre, (on an 40/20), profile over 3 months ago the broadband connection was really fast and snappy: I was getting a rock solid connection of almost 38mbps and the speed profile in the Sky Q router was 40/10.

At the present time the Sky Q router shows that the speed profile is capped at around 34mbps down and 8 mbps up. - (I have left it alone, it has been that way for over 6 weeks and the most that I get is just over 32mbps with a far less snappy connection than it was when I first joined Sky).

When I first joined Sky Fibre the BTW Performance Test did work fully and the second stage, (ie. the phone number stage), of the BTW Performance Test indicated that the Openreach IP profile for my line was 56mbps.

In between times I had quite a few issues with the TV side of Sky Q and I needed to reset the Sky Q router a few times, (especially when I contacted Sky online support as the line speed kept dropping and it automatically reset the router), which may have messed up my connection. - That said, when I contact Sky Technical Support and I ask them to carry out an IP profile reset of my line as if I was a new customer they said that it is not possible as it is controlled by BT/Openreach.

However, when I try the second stage, (ie. the phone number stage), of the BTW Performance Test find that I am blocked from finding out the IP Profile of my line is and I receive the message:

"The Performance Tester is currently unable to run a speed test for your broadband connection. Please try again shortly, however if this problem persists, raise the issue with your service provider."

Sky tell me that they do not have any equipment for my Fibre Line: the say that it is all down to Openreach, Sky say that they are not capping my connection; that it is all down to Openreach and they are unwilling to ask Openreach to carry out an IP Reset as if I was a new customer which seems to leave me stuck as I am until I leave them.

Previously when I phoned 17070 I had an Openreach Option of numbers to press and now when I phone 17070 I get a Sky American type voice and not the Openreach voice option that were previously there. - If Sky have nothing to do with it why is that the case. (It is a Sky phone and broadband service).

Sky say that they do not cap the speeds and that they have nothing to do with the operation of my line but the BTW Performance Test indicates that the information is being limited by my ISP.

What's going on ?

Fido

PS. One a partially separate issue; Openreach are rubbish and the broadband system in the UK is a joke. (Other countries in Europe get FTTP while the cretins in Westminster, (we are leaving Europe when we should have closed Westminster instead), still allow Openreach to control most of the broadband in the UK and will not allow other ISP's direct access to what should be a Nationalised Phone/Cable Network.

The only way to get a DLM reset is to have an Openreach engineer visit.

BT Wholesale is NOT Openreach, so explains the issue with the numbers

The way 17070 is behaving confirms your voice service is terminating on Sky hardware now

There is no IP Profile on a Sky line. Only BT Wholesale lines have an IP Profile.

There are a couple of ways an ISP can do it...

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

There are a couple of ways an ISP can do it...

Do what?

Make a change which will reset DLM.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

The only way to get a DLM reset is to have an Openreach engineer visit.

Sky refuse to arrange an Openreach engineer visit because they say the connection speed is usual above the minimum that they say is 31mbps.

From the Sky Router the information regarding connection speed, line attenuation and noise margin is;

Broadband Link

Downstream
Upstream
Connection Speed
34999 kbps (down)
8554 kbps (up)

Line Attenuation
24.4 dB (down)
0.0 dB (up)

Noise Margin
9.6 dB (down)
6.6 dB (up)

I have given it six weeks in the hope that the DLM would reset back to a 40/10 profile but it seems to be stuck.

What can be done ?

Fido

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Make a change which will reset DLM.

Change of product /speed is one,( 40/10>80/20>40/10 or GEA to Wholesale and the reverse ) not sure if changing the DLM stability profile would also trigger a full DLM reset or not,

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Make a change which will reset DLM.

How can I make a change that will initiate a DLM reset ?

Today, I have just obtained a new Sky Q Router and I have tried that in the hope that a different MAC address would reset the DLM.

However, although it did at first seem to get faster a minute while the new router bedded in then it was as if the Sky system automatically put the brakes onto the new router as it ended up with the same stats as the old one.

How can I initiate a DLM reset ?

Fido

Different MAC won't do anything, and people have reported mixed results in terms of connection speed from SkyQ modem

There is nothing you can do.

Openreach are aware that some lines do get stuck on sub-optimal profiles, despite line improvements (that court case that BT lost led to changes to the way DLM moves profiles up/down). They are implementing a number of changes to address this, some of which should go live next month.

It does look like ISPs will 'soon' be able to force DLM to reset, but I cannot give you a date. Changes to the DLM algo next month should hopefully make things better for you if you're line is performing well.

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Feb-17 16:13:30)

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

It does look like ISPs will 'soon' be able to force DLM to reset, but I cannot give you a date. Changes to the DLM algo next month should hopefully make things better for you if you're line is performing well.

These are good to know, as I'm sure my upload is artificially limited.

In reply to a post by Fido:

However, although it did at first seem to get faster a minute while the new router bedded in then it was as if the Sky system automatically put the brakes onto the new router as it ended up with the same stats as the old one.

The Sky router connects over VDSL to the green cabinet in the street. That is all run by Openreach. At the green cabinet your data goes over a fibre connection to the handover exchange (may not be your local exchange). Only at the handover exchange is there a connection to any Sky owned hardware.

So all the DLM and management of your VDSL circuit is by Openreach owned hardware and processes. No ISP has any means to do anything on here except call out an engineer to your location - and the engineers can request a DLM reset. These visits cost the ISP lots of money so they don't call them out unless there is a problem the ISP knows needs a human to fix. (e.g. wire faults).

Basically this is why its sold as an "up to" service.

Quite true from my experience, the Q hub doesn't perform as well as some other routers which I why use a separate modem (Billion 8800NL in bridge mode) and connect the hub to that.

An example, I had Openreach out on Monday because my sync speed dropped from 30 Mbps to just above 15 Mbps. There wasn't a fault, just being on a new estate my line had incorrectly connected to a temporary cable that has since been removed. The temporary cable was 400-500m shorter than the cable I'm now connected to, hence the drop.

Anyways, the Q hub only synced at around 13 Mbps compared to the 16.7 Mbps the modem syncs at.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

It does look like ISPs will 'soon' be able to force DLM to reset, but I cannot give you a date. Changes to the DLM algo next month should hopefully make things better for you if you're line is performing well.

AndyHCZ,

Thank you for this information which sounds quite helpful.

When this change does come in and the ISP can force a DLM reset it should really help as it will reset good lines and will highlight lines with issues that the DLM reset does not repair for the longer term and it should help empower ISP's to force Openreach to investigate and repair.

I cannot see anything else for me while I remain with Sky and I cannot see any benefit in moving away from Sky for more costly deals until when/if there are some alternatives to Openreach in my area and Openreach, (which should be nationalised), has no incentive to quickly improve.

Fido

In reply to a post by tommy45:

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Make a change which will reset DLM.

Change of product /speed is one,( 40/10>80/20>40/10 or GEA to Wholesale and the reverse ) not sure if changing the DLM stability profile would also trigger a full DLM reset or not,

Changing the package or changing ISP should result in a DLM reset but in the longer term I suspect that I would be back to square one because I would still be with the virtually uncontrollable and virtually unaccountable Openreach, therefore, in a few months time I would probably be back to where I am now.

Furthermore, (as is usual with Openreach), the target speed for my line has now been lowered so a change in ISP would result in lower targets;

(1). With BT Infinity it is between 30mbps and 40mbps with a minimum of 27mbps.
(2). With Zen it is also between 30mbps and 40mbps but their minimum is 18mbps

I quite like Sky as an ISP and my only real issue with them is that they do not deal with Openreach.

The new system that AndyHCZ was good enough to advise us of where ISP's will be able to force a DLM reset may provide a solution.

Fido

The new algo (assuming you're migrated over to it) will force a DLM reset.

Just to make you aware, that we're talking a tiny tiny percentage of people with 'stuck profiles' (estimates in the region of 1-2% I believe).

Resetting DLM isn't something an ISP should do as a first course of action. In fact, it can be very negative for a line if DLM is not actually restricting it in the first place.

Lines are rate adaptive and a lot of people seem to think that DLM restricts them when in fact it's the target snr margin.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Lines are rate adaptive and a lot of people seem to think that DLM restricts them when in fact it's the target snr margin.

At previously posted: my Sky Q router stats indicate that the present down Noise Margin is for my line is 9.6

I had presumed that a DLM reset would start afresh, (ie. that it would remove all interleaving and would reset the noise target noise margin to 6).

I know that I can theorectically use my own router, (by fooling the Sky MER system to authenticate my own router after obtaining the Sky MER data from the Sky Q router via Wireshark).

Using my own router would allow me to reset the noise margins, (at least it would have been possible with my Asus DSL-AC68U router that I sold after joining Sky); are there other ways to reset the noise margin ?

Is Sky able to reset the target noise margin or is that down to Openreach ?

Fido

In your case, it's clear the downstream is limited by DLM.

I have no idea whether Sky will do this or not, but if you can get them to run a line check it will show your line performance and send you the results. There is a wealth of information there and it will give you a good idea of what's wrong.

The main issue with DLM is that you used to be able to jump profiles, but that looks like it was removed after the court case.

In reply to a post by Fido:

Using my own router would allow me to reset the noise margins, (at least it would have been possible with my Asus DSL-AC68U router that I sold after joining Sky); are there other ways to reset the noise margin ?

Forcing the SNR Margin on VDSL in the way that people did often on ADSL generally makes things worse on VDSL. The DLM notices this is happening and either forces the DSLAM to ignore or starts throttling the line. VDSL is not ADSL and you don't necessarily have a 6db SNR margin downlink in the way ADSL did.

The point is the openreach DLM is independent of the ISP and the DSLAM in the cabinet is trying to keep ALL the lines it is handling at the best they can do, within the problems of crosstalk. Crosstalk is a real issue on VDSL and quite different to ADSL - this is why people were hoping for Openreach to roll out vectoring as a method to counteract crosstalk.

However Openreach have abandoned the 'active NTE' for all users (the white box modem) and gone to please the public with one box solutions, which means we won't have DSLAM and modems that are managed by the infrastructure provider - so vectoring will probably never happen. Missed opportunity.

Roll on G.FAST.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

vectoring will probably never happen. Missed opportunity.

Roll on G.FAST.

It seems that Openreach have decided the costs of upgrading the VDSL2 DSLAMs for vectoring are not generally justified. They have installed vectoring in some DSLAMs to help them meet BDUK coverage targets and there might be other circumstances where have or will install vectoring (especially if we finish up with a 10 Mbit/s USO), but it seems there will be no widespread roll-out of vectoring.

Rather than spending money on VDSL2 vectoring, Openreach seem determined to focus investment on other technologies, including G.FAST. As I understand it, vectoring is a mandatory part of G.FAST.

In reply to a post by David_W:

It seems that Openreach have decided the costs of upgrading the VDSL2 DSLAMs for vectoring are not generally justified. They have installed vectoring in some DSLAMs to help them meet BDUK coverage targets and there might be other circumstances where have or will install vectoring (especially if we finish up with a 10 Mbit/s USO), but it seems there will be no widespread roll-out of vectoring.

It probably doesn't help that one of their two vendors doesn't support vectoring without a hardware swap (ECI I think). However its a disappointing position.

Rather than spending money on VDSL2 vectoring, Openreach seem determined to focus investment on other technologies, including G.FAST. As I understand it, vectoring is a mandatory part of G.FAST.

I also read that it was part of the G.FAST spec so couldn't be left out of hardware implementation. I'm hoping (being about 550m from my VDSL cabinet) that G.FAST may arrive in my area. Eventually !

In reply to a post by jchamier:

It probably doesn't help that one of their two vendors doesn't support vectoring without a hardware swap (ECI I think). However its a disappointing position.

I haven't been following the discussion on exactly what is needed to support vectoring. From what I recall, some ECI VDSL2 DSLAMs would have to be replaced to support vectoring. I believe Huawei VDSL2 DSLAMs require certain boards to be certain versions as well as the vectoring hardware to be installed, implying that many otherwise serviceable boards cannot be used in a vectoring configuration. It has been suggested online that a fully loaded Huawei VDSL2 DSLAM in the 384HD configuration cannot support vectoring, possibly because the higher density line cards used do not support vectoring, possibly because the vectoring engine and/or backplane bandwidth are insufficient to support vectoring across so many ports.

Even if it is merely a case of slotting in the vectoring engine board and making any necessary configuration changes, this does not come for free. There is almost no payback if Openreach to install VDSL2 vectoring unless vectoring helps them meet a coverage target. A small number of people might upgrade to higher speed products if vectoring makes the upgrade worthwhile, but this will bring a negligible amount of extra income. Indeed, if installing VDSL2 vectoring gave people higher speeds, that would reduce the incentive to upgrade to G.FAST when that technology became available.

My view is that whilst it is disappointing that Openreach will not be making a widespread VDSL2 vectoring roll-out, getting G.INP working on ECI DSLAMs and allowing stable lines to adopt a <6dB signal to noise ratio margin - both of which are coming over the next few months - will get the best out of the fielded VDSL2 hardware. At this point, I'd rather see investment targeted on coverage and on next generation technologies like G.FAST than on the essentially mature VDSL2 products.

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Mar-17 23:18:07)

interesting.

do you mean jumping between stability, standard and speed or do you meaning jumping between different banded profiles?

I cannot disagree, the G.INP on my line made it incredibly stable, and removed the summer/winter variation. I'd like more upload (9173kbps uplink sync today) for my distance from cabinet (downstream attenuation 21.1), but I can't really complain for the price!

Prior to the legal court case, DLM was able to move several profiles (rate cap and error protection levels) in a single step. This was removed due to the legal action and and a single step up/step down method was implemented in its place.