In reply to a post by broadband66:

Just answered your own problem. Seems like a voice issue and should be fixed before querying broadband issues.

The voice line was, initially, OK. However over the past 2 weeks there has been intermittent noise heard during voice calls and today the phone line has dropped 4 times.

The VIPER call took place on Monday and the BTO chap switched the E side pair. All was well for about 9 hours and then the d/s went back to it's usual "status-erraticus" of dropping the link. This has continued all day and, as stated above, has the added bonus of dropping the phone line as well.

Sky Level 3 support who, giving credit where it is due, have been exemplary, can see noise 'storms' occurring on my line which coincide with the d/s dropouts and the voice line drops. The thoughts are that it is either an intermittent copper fault or REIN. There are 8 crimps between my master socket and the local 100pair trunk, and an additional 3 to the local wiring cabinet - what's the odds that something somewhere has either degraded or else is intermittently shorting out.

BTO Engineer No 6 is booked for tomorrow morning and if this fails to produce a permanent fix then a joint Sky / BTO visit is being mooted.

I am fairly sure that going to VM will sort the problem (no BT copper) but even though my road is VM ready, I'm only paying Sky £12.50 for phone line, anytime calls, (intermittent) broadband and the full Sky TV package (exc movies & sport) and to get just the same voice and BB from VM will be over £39 (once the initial 6 month promo expires) - so that's not going to happen!

It's been a while since my last update, but not a lot has happened until today.

The last BTO engineer changed further crimp pairs but that didn't make too much of a difference so a joint BTO / Sky visit was arranged for today.

After some 6 hours on site, I now *appear* to have a stable connection, albeit with a slightly slower sync speed (6.7M as opposed to 8.0M before). BTO changed the E side (again) but performed a lot of tests on the pair to make sure that it was of good enough quality for ADSL2+ and he also fitted an internal RF choke/filter to the VDSL socket. Sky Level 3 can see that there is nowhere near as much RF noise on the line as there was before and I will take the hit on speed for increased stability.

The plan is to monitur the line over the weekend and then, if it is still stable, turn on DLM on Monday to see if there can be any speed increase possible - if not, then Sky will fix the noise level at 7dB and I will, hopefully, have a stable line.

Of course if it continues to fall over then the same BTO engineer who came out today has offered to come back as he is REIN trained (he did do some REIN tests today) and wander up and down the roads between here and the exchange.

Fingers crossed for stability, I can then start talking to Sky about the compensation they have offered.....

Looks like I spoke too soon as less than an hour after my last post I had a disconnection for about 90s - Oh <Expletive deleted>!!!

I've been thinking (dangerous I know!). If I still have a REIN issue, which is a distinct possibility, and this is affecting the Sky hub and causing it to drop out, would switching to a different router make a positive difference?

I still have my old O2 Wireless Box IV (which is currently working very well as an AP and switch) as well as an O2 Wireless Box 2 (not being used). All routers have different tolerances to line noise etc and as my connection was stable with O2, would I benefit from using the O2 box as the Router/Modem and then have the Sky hub piggybacking off of it?

I have seen posts where other people have attempted this but I can't see that anyone has actually got it to work. Your thoughts / comments etc would be most welcome - especially if anyone here has actually done what I am thinking of and has got it working.

Alternatively, if I can get a free upgrade to Fibre, does the fibre modem tolerate REIN any better than the SR102 Sky hub?

In reply to a post by davidjfirman:

I still have my old O2 Wireless Box IV (which is currently working very well as an AP and switch) as well as an O2 Wireless Box 2 (not being used). All routers have different tolerances to line noise etc and as my connection was stable with O2, would I benefit from using the O2 box as the Router/Modem and then have the Sky hub piggybacking off of it?

No harm in trying. Also, the O2 router will have more detailed ADSL error statistics than the Sky Hub does.

Since the work on Friday, I have evidence of nine occasions where the downstream has "frozen" for more than 15s (max duration about 2m 30s), plus another 32 instances where the noise margin has dropped to 0dB. But with no change in IP address it means that the circuit has remained up. To my mind this is a REIN issue which, to be honest, without Sky chucking a lot of money at it (via BTO), is probably going to remain elusive. Don't get me wrong, the connection stability (and hence traffic throughput) has improved - albeit with a drop in speed - but the problem is far from solved.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

No harm in trying. Also, the O2 router will have more detailed ADSL error statistics than the Sky Hub does.

That's what I was thinking and if the issue goes away then it *suggests* a noise issue which the O2 box handles better. If not, then hopefully there will be more stats available for Sky to use (hopefully not ignore!).

Can anyone point me in the right direction re setting up the O2 Box please?

In reply to a post by davidjfirman:

Can anyone point me in the right direction re setting up the O2 Box please?

Factory reset, then plug it into the phone line. It should just work.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Factory reset, then plug it into the phone line. It should just work.

Thank you - based on what Sky say tonight when they call me back I might just be doing this.

Update time.....

I replaced the SR102 with my old O2 wireless box IV which worked straight away and just needed some parameters tweaking (IP address range) to fit in with my existing LAN. The noticeable difference was a loss of D/S speed of just under a meg but vastly improved line stability. I have heard unconfirmed* reports that the SR102 has a known bug whereby the BB connection will appear to freeze for about 20-40s (seems familiar!!) when a line is under constant usage (I was using the quality test and RouterStats Lite's ping tester which pings the google DNS servers every 15s). Sky are sending me a SR101 as they "handle constant traffic better then the SR102" as a temp fix until the SR102's firmware is updated.

So, all appeared well, I had a stable (but slower) line and a router that did not lock up.

Then, on Thursday I had a call from level 3 at Sky (A planned call to see if the change of router had a positive effect). During the course of the phone call the forward errors started to increase, peaking at about 10,000 per second (according to RouterStats) and then the line dropped completely, including voice. This all took place whilst it was pouring with rain and hailing. So, Sky ordered another BTO Engineer (the 8th or 9th visit, I lose count!) for this morning as "it has to be a copper problem" (Level 3's words).

Engineer visited this morning, found no problems (just for a change ), remade all the crimp joints he could get access to (some were under the pavement and he's not allowed to go there as he is not "cavity trained" and therefore can't go into manholes, which is understandable) between my place and the local cabinet and then left.

We shall see what happens......

[* from someone in Sky but Sky won't admit to it as it could (will!) cause a landslide in calls]

Just to add my two pennies.

Ive had exactly the same problems as everyone. Was with O2. Moved to SKY after the takeover. O2 was rock solid.

Sky Hub (SR102 black one) constant disconnects. Prob 10 times a day. SKY sent me a new hub. Same problem.

I had an old Linksys router lying about. I plugged that in (I was able to extract the SKY username and password from the SKY Hub using Wireshark) and the conenction has been stable for days now!

So in my view its a router problem.

Good to see your getting somewhere

i had a REIN issue for 7 months and BTO/Sky couldnt figure it out

but it just went away on its own and everythings been good for the last year or so.