Who is responsible for sorting out REIN issues ?

Hi all, my line has been suffering from random sustained interference for months, I see sadly I cannot post snr plots here but a typical incident drops the snr by 5dB initially quite slowly, recovers 1dB after a few minutes then remains low for a further 10-30 minutes. My ISP is Plusnet and until I managed to get someone to disable the DLM this was causing total havoc.
The interference is clear on the radio, loud buzzing noise from 540-720Khz. All frequencies in my router above 730Khz have been knocked out. I am on a long rural line about 4.5Kms.
Often this happens around lunchtimes but not everyday.
Plusnets response to any report is "you have more than 1Mbps, don't complain"!!
Personally I have long suspected part of my problem is an old bell wire style drop cable that runs alongside the power cables for some distance, I also suffer a 1dB drop everytime it rains.
Quiet line test has only fairly faint mains hum.
Here is a link to an example snr plot from today

Router is Tplink W8960n, all comments welcome

Edited by fourtytwo (Sun 21-Aug-16 20:52:04)

In reply to a post by fourtytwo:

Personally I have long suspected part of my problem is an old bell wire style drop cable that runs alongside the power cables for some distance,

That's not good. From where to where?

The drop cable starts across the road at the pole and comes high on my gable (to avoid tractors) power cable comes from pole my side of the road to same gable. Both sets of cables then run together along the joint of soffet and facia boards down the gable and along the guttering for about 3 meters before the old phone wire goes into the attic to a joint box where it becomes CW1308 I believe, there's a lot of excess old bellwire coiled up in the attic, I believe it used to continue along the gutter and down to the front door/hall but it's been moved at some point as there is still white paint all over it.

My neighbors were lucky enough to get there dropwires replaced a few years back when they changed a power pole that also supported there drop wires but I am still on the old stuff.

You need those two cables separated for sure.
The mains cable should not be anywhere near the data cable otherwise the EMI from the mains will mess up any signals that pick it up.
I don`t know who to contact , but if your neighbors have had the dropwires replaced they might be able to give you a few pointers.?
Short of shielding the cables in lead the interference will not go away, but if they were using different routes and not near each other the interference would be a lot less imho.
That old bell wire style drop cable is not good , that also needs replacing with a better up to date cable.
Just looked at the graph and that SNR drop is mains hum as the shape is the same as that given by a meter to test AC or DC mains interference.

Edited by deleted (Sun 21-Aug-16 21:30:01)

Interesting then (from your closing remark) that it occurs regularly at around the same time. That should be traceable. Who in the vicinity turns what on, where?

In reply to a post by ironman12345:

You need those two cables separated for sure.
The mains cable should not be anywhere near the data cable otherwise the EMI from the mains will mess up any signals that pick it up.
I don`t know who to contact , but if your neighbors have had the dropwires replaced they might be able to give you a few pointers.?
Short of shielding the cables in lead the interference will not go away, but if they were using different routes and not near each other the interference would be a lot less imho.
That old bell wire style drop cable is not good , that also needs replacing with a better up to date cable.
Just looked at the graph and that SNR drop is mains hum as the shape is the same as that given by a meter to test AC or DC mains interference.

And who pays for the extra poles to be installed?


I monitor and manage connections for a friend and they have shared poles with three phase power and numerous 'phone line running for around about 1 mile. Is there a problem? NO.


And why would EMI from a mains cable at 50 Hz, and even allowing for 101st harmonics cause problems with VDSL? They are in totally different frequency ranges.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I monitor and manage connections for a friend and they have shared poles with three phase power and numerous 'phone line running for around about 1 mile. Is there a problem? NO.


And why would EMI from a mains cable at 50 Hz, and even allowing for 101st harmonics cause problems with VDSL? They are in totally different frequency ranges.

It has nothing to do with harmonics of 50Hz. Mains picks up all sorts of noise sources including for instance motors with poor suppression and badly filtered switch mode power supplies, spikes from switching appliances. The mains supply is intrinsically noisy. However it would be useful to trace the source of the noise as it may be easier to cure it at source rather than just reducing its coupling to the phone line. BT/Openreach have people who handle REIN cases but trying to contact them is the main problem.

To clarify, are the QLTs during those periods of poor performance?

Is it any/every day of the week; or is it clearly not happening on, say, Saturday and/or Sunday?

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Aug-16 07:36:40)

In reply to a post by ironman12345:

You need those two cables separated for sure.
The mains cable should not be anywhere near the data cable otherwise the EMI from the mains will mess up any signals that pick it up.
I don`t know who to contact , but if your neighbors have had the dropwires replaced they might be able to give you a few pointers.?

There drop wires were replaced several years ago during work by the power company, they were in part supported by a power pole that was replaced. Sadly my drop wire comes directly from the OR pole to my house

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Interesting then (from your closing remark) that it occurs regularly at around the same time. That should be traceable. Who in the vicinity turns what on, where?

YUP most days including yesterday evening (Sunday) but some days there is none or I fail to catch it. As for traceing I have tried to null it with a mains AM receiver but that's limited to inside the house so I am now set up with a battery portable to race outside and try a better trace.