Banded - What can I do?

Hi all

My FTTC connection has been banded 3 months ago. I'm currently with IDNet. I bought a replacement for the BTOR modem and had some issues with it's configuration leading to excessive number of re-trains. I am confident the line is fault free and stable. I have asked IDNet for help and despite some initial promise, have generally failed to grasp what it is I want them to do, therefore I am resolved to leaving them as soon as is practical.

Does banding ever get removed on it's own? The information I have read so far is conflicting.

Is there anything I can do to get the banding looked at and ultimately removed?

Will banding be removed if I migrate to another FTTC supplier?

Many thanks in advance for all replies

Can you post the line stats from your router?

My understanding is:

Yes, DLM can withdraw banding without it being externally reset, but most people have some form of limitation on their line, which results in it staying in place. Other people's opinions may conflict here!!

OR will only remove banding at the same time as fixing a line fault. No line fault, no banding reset. IDNet will have performed a line test on your line, so I have to assume there is no line fault. IDNet or any other ISP cannot request banding to be removed as a standalone exercise

I don't believe changing to another FTTC supplier will make any difference. If you want two credible suppliers to speak to try AAISP and Uno.

In terms of IDNet, Brain Kirby is the man to speak to regarding technical issues. It is worth speaking to him directly, if you haven't already.

I would also suggest you pick up the phone and talk to AAISP & Uno; they will give you their position and you will then be able to judge whether it aligns with IDNet's. If they are promising to do more than IDNet, then it may be worthwhile migrating.

We need to see stats on this one. What is your noise margin?

In reply to a post by jaydub:

My understanding is:

I don't believe changing to another FTTC supplier will make any difference. If you want two credible suppliers to speak to try AAISP and Uno.

Don't mean to throw any spanners in the works here, but when I've changed ISP on FTTC my line was reset...

This was moving from Plusnet to Zen (llu) line went from G.INP (unbanded) to Fast Path (unbanded)

Personally I would ask AAISP questions regarding switching and whether the line would be reset!

Hi, sorry for the delay

System Up Time 07:16:35:15



DSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 60.00 Mbps 16.99 Mbps
Line Attenuation 11.30 dB 9.70 dB
Noise Margin 9.50 dB 8.60 dB

It used to be capable of being almost flat out 80/20 at one stage

Looking at downstreeam, attenuation of 11dB should be pointing to around 100Mbps achievable on a typical line. However, a 9.5dB margin is 3dB above normal and typically those 3dB would be worth around 10Mbps which would only push you up to around 70Mbps.

To me those figures suggest you have a noisy line - one picking up a lot local noise from one or more sources and that the source could be peaking at times and you have been banded to try and mitigate the effect of it.

What can you do? Start monitoring th line performance using DSL ststa and see how noise levels vary. If banding is removed, it is likely you will see drop outs and instability

Hi ClareMatt,

I'm sorry you feel the support you have received was lacking.

I can confirm, it is not possible to carry out a profile reset on an FTTC connection. Further, it is not possible to raise an SFI engineer to carry out a profile reset. You can only raise an SFI engineer to investigate a fault condition. If the no fault condition is detected there is no guarantee the engineer will carry out a reset but a charge for the visit would apply.

Although we always try to go the extra mile for customers, as an ISP, we can only assist you in line with the procedures laid out by the Supplier and advise you as fully and honestly as possible even when it is not a popular response.

If you would like to drop an email in to [email protected] detailing your line number and this thread I can make sure your service is retested as fully as possible and offer advise based on the test results going forward.

Kind regards,

Miriam
IDNet

It's possible to remove banding but not easy.

Here's some possible ways:
- Band your connection significantly lower than the banding that's been applied. For example, if your downstream is banded at 20 megabits by the DSLAM, try banding it yourself to 10 megabits. This is temporary of course, allow up to a month or two and hopefully something positive will come from it. After that time reboot your modem to remove your own banding (assuming you have something like a HG612).

- Change package to a speed limit lower than your banded sync rate (if possible). However I believe this won't work if your downstream banded sync rate is say... 20 megabits and you were on up to 55 megabits, changing to 'up to 40 megabits' would no doubt cause DLM to do nothing I believe. Not 100% though.

- Change ISP, but only if the back-haul is changed as well! For example, moving from BT Wholesale's back-haul to an LLU one such as TalkTalk Business's back-haul will effectively cause a 'DLM reset'. This should work for example if you move from say... Plusnet to AAISP via TalkTalk Business (their terabyte packages currently are on TTB's back-haul) but that's also assuming TTB LLU is available at the exchange you're connected to (or the parent exchange?).

I was told a while back that Uno can do a DLM reset but I don't know 100% sure about this, you might want to contact them first. I heard they were officially advised by Openreach to request a 'frames engineer' to do it, that way no engineer is sent out. Sounds odd to me so I'm not sure if I believe it but you can always ask Uno.

- SFI engineer [1]. It's possible, depending how co-operative they are and what their job notes say, to get a DLM reset. But I think the only reason I got the first SFI engineer I had to do a DLM reset was because the job notes explicitly said I was getting a high amount of errors on Yukon before I had fastpath taken away by DLM at the time. They were doing a DSL test on their JDSU while the connection was still heavily interleaved, so I 'suggested' maybe they should try fastpath as that's actually a fair test then. They did reset DLM on my request but I may have been lucky, the fact I'm with AAISP via TTB or finally it may have been possible based on what the job notes said. I don't know for sure but there will of course be a charge if there's no fault found, unless you're with a wonderful ISP like AAISP who will fight your corner when it's clear there's a problem (which I had). Four engineers later and things are far better now than they originally were and I didn't get charged .

Hope this helps.

[1] I believe this is relevant, https://support.gradwell.com/hc/en-gb/articles/21554...

Edited by Ixel (Thu 21-Dec-17 17:09:25)

An SFI is for ADSL only, what you should be ordering via your supplier is a �Super Fast Visit Assured� I believe.