Upstream Bandwidth Issues

Hi,

I have had BT Broadband for about a year and was getting speeds of 4-5Mb/s down and anything from 300-500Kb/s up. Then a couple of months ago, I was experiencing intermittent connection problems. This would happen several times an hour sometimes. BT said that because I was using a third-party router, it must be a fault with the router because there was no fault on the line.

So I changed back to my BT Home Hub. Now I don't get the connection problems but my connection speeds are much slower. I now get about 1.8Mb/s down stream which isn't great but I can live with that. The big problem though is with up stream. This has dropped to 64Kbps!!

BT still will not admit that there is a problem on the line. They have performed line tests which come back negative. They also have said that because the down stream speed is above 1.5Mb/s they do not consider this to be a problem. I have said that the down stream b/width is not my issue - it is up stream. The last thing I was told to do today was plug my Home Hub into the master test socket and see if the bandwidth increases. So far it hasn't.

I have unplugged all other devices from the phone line and plugged the router directly into the test socket and have not seen any difference. I have also changed the micro filter (4 times) which hasn't changed anything either.

Coincidently (or not...), when BT ran a line test, both upstream and downstream speeds increased to the levels I had previously experienced. Then after about 8 hours, it dropped back down to the present speed.

This is the ADSL Line Status from the router:
Uptime: 0 days, 1:52:04
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 64 / 1,856
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 2.82 / 9.39
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 10.5 / 17.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 28.5 / 55.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 2.0 / 15.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 157
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 6
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 6
Line Profile: Interleaved

I don't pretend that I fully understand what most of this stuff means but I'm pretty sure the SN Margin for up stream should be more than 2.0...

Can anybody help?

the implication is that there is a lot of noise on the line in the upstream frequency range. This could be at your end eg a dodgy TV or power supply on something, or it could be somewhere along the line or it may be a line fault or a faulty DSLAM card.

The upstream attenuation looks OK, you'll have to have them send a broadband engineer to investigate.

Your other router probably couldn't even manage the 64k upstream hence the dropouts.

Mmm - upstream speeds seem to becoming a common thing, is there something going on...

I was thinking the same thing. Lot of it about, isn't there?

Oh, and if anyone has some Top Tips on mine, feel free to chip in! My thought is that the noises when syncing and hiss once synced point to a line fault.

Edited by deleted (Wed 21-May-08 15:16:31)

Do you mean that there are more reports:

asking for an increase in upstream speeds?

or

noting interference in the upstream frequencies?

The later

In reply to:

---

My thought is that the noises when syncing and hiss once synced point to a line fault.

---

Or a filtering problem or a hardware problem (both could be at either end). ADSL itself is inaudible.

ADSL? Inaudible?

Not on my line.

ADSL starts above 25KHz which is inaudible to me.

ADSL is inaudible. You may be hearing audio frequencies produced by something in response to the ADSL, but you aren't hearing the ADSL.

**Update**

Spent all day yesterday with Router plugged into test socket with no change. Stayed at 64Kbps up and somewhere around 1.8Mb/s down. Been out all day today so don't know what speed I was connected to but here is something interesting.

Just got around to performing a quiet line test (couldn't do it before because being in the 21st Century and all, I didn't have a wired analogue phone!)

No noise at all to start with. Then all of a sudden I started to hear noise on the line which ended up getting quite loud with lots of crackles. Then it stopped. Have just plugged my router back in and performed the quiet line test again. Line is quiet and I am getting 2,112 down and 448 up!!!

Will continue to monitor but looks like an intermittent fault on the line which will be enough for me to contact Line Faults and get them to take a look.

Current Stats are:

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:12:15
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,112
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [KB/MB]: 868.00 / 3.95
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 17.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 27.5 / 54.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 15.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 7 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 16 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 200
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
Line Profile: Interleaved

Just have to see how it goes now.

C