Unstable line question

Hi. Hopefully someone can help me understand this better. I've been having an issue with disconnections. Sometimes I can go 6 hours with none, then I'll get about 92 in the space of 2 hours. I've been told that my line is just unstable due to the distance from the exchange (fibre but 1.5 miles of copper wiring to travel). My question is this: Is it normal that this has only now become a problem? After 5 years or so of relatively stable connection? The house behind mine (further from the exchange) is supplied by the same pole, yet that connection is stable. I've mentioned it to a couple of engineers but they haven't given me a reason as to why there would be a difference?

Can you glean any stats from the router ?

I recorded some of the stats in a table to see if I can make out a pattern but I don't really understand them if I'm honest. I wanted something concrete to show an engineer too. I've got a ton of screenshots of the router stats at various times but they never seem interested.

Stats table

If you have errors etc can you post including WAN uptime. It is best if you can post up all the stats.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 04-Feb-18 16:44:07)

Like this(?):

Router stats screenshot

That's just a snapshot of what the connection is currently. As you can see, it's been connected for over an hour. The rates bounce around a lot.
I don't really get errors in the stats. Just drops. DSL Down, DSL Up. There are a lot of '[DoS attack: ACK Scan]' mentions in my logs though. Probably not for this forum but BT don't seem interested in my router as it's a Netgear. I've tried a TP-Link Archer though and I get the same drops so I don't think that's it.

What estimates are here?
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...

Depending on your ISP might need to use address finder.
Post non fibre too.

In reply to a post by agentsquirrels:

Stats table

Your line has a major high resistance fault on it. The line attenuation is moving around crazily, it shouldn't really move at all, at most a few 10ths of a dB between resyncs (unless a new SNRM band is picked up on resync e.g. D1 to D1 and D2). If you haven't connected the router to the test socket, try doing so and leave it be for a few days. If similar issues occur, report a telephony fault to your ISP (I presume the line is noisy?)

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 18:26:23)

Thanks for all the replies!

I've been connected to the test socket since early November, which is right after this fault started. I looked around online to see all the things I could check at my end so I got a new filter and plugged into the test socket. It hasn't made any difference, and there is a crackle on the line at times. Someone actually came out about the crackle in December. He was the only one to detect a fault, but he wasn't a broadband engineer, just a telephone engineer so he completely ignored me when I started mentioning my router and then told me he had no interest in computers! The 5th engineer will be out on Tuesday, and once again it will feel like I'm the mental one for saying theres a problem.

I actually found some old stats from my TP Link Archer as well:

432 2017-11-24 19:50:40 SYSTEM Notice DSL link up
431 2017-11-24 19:50:33 SYSTEM Notice DSL training G.993 started
430 2017-11-24 19:50:22 SYSTEM Notice DSL training G.994
429 2017-11-24 19:50:08 SYSTEM Notice DSL training G.994
428 2017-11-24 19:50:03 SYSTEM Notice DSL training G.994
427 2017-11-24 19:49:59 SYSTEM Notice DSL link down
426 2017-11-24 19:49:38 SYSTEM Notice DSL link up
425 2017-11-24 19:49:30 SYSTEM Notice DSL training G.993 started


Line Status:
DSL Modulation Type:
Annex Type:
Upstream Downstream
Current Rate(kbps) 965 6955
Max Rate(kbps) 1066 7292
SNR Margin(dB) 6.6 6.9
Line Attenuation(dB) 102.3 37.1
Errors(pkts) 41810 61782

That's from late November.

The BT Wholesale checker is another stumper. These are my accurate numbers (sorry I didn't take a screenshot at the time so it's a bit unformatted) :


VDSL Range A (Clean) 9 4.7 1.2 0.8 3.4 Available -- -- Yes --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 7.1 2 1.1 0.5 1.8 Available -- -- Yes --
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available -- -- -- --
ADSL Max Up to 3.5 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available -- -- -- --
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available -- -- -- --
VDSL Multicast -- -- -- Available -- -- -- --
Bridge Tap N
VRI N
NTEFaceplate N
Last Test Date 16-05-2017


And these are what it has been showing for the past 2 months:

BT Wholesale results

At this point I don't even know what to say to BT. I'm pretty sure there's a line fault, but they keep telling me everything's fine, it's just the way the line is, even though it never was like this before. Another interesting aspect to this is that my brother's awful connection (i.e. the person in the house behind ours whose connection is now solid) was fixed right around the time ours went to hell. It could just be a coincidence, but none of the engineers have looked at the pole that connects both our houses, and none of them have responded when I've pointed out the disparity between the two connections.

Wow, that's some change in line estimates. Just to confirm, the line estimates have increased or decreased? I don't think I've ever seen estimates increase/decrease that much before, seems like the database is broken.

I'm unsure why the engineers are tossing you off like this, you have a significant line fault that needs fixing. Line length is totally irrelevant, whether a line is a few hundred meters long or several miles long, it should be stable, not dropping out as frequently as you're experiencing.

It may be worth contacting your ISP's CEO or even better the Openreach CEO to get this sorted, as that should allow a higher skilled engineer to visit your premises and hopefully fix the problem for good.

Good luck!

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 19:10:05)

What real speed does your brother get? Around 9Mbps or well over 50Mbps? That should tell us which estimate figure is correct.

The real speed is much less. My brother only really goes by speed checkers (wifi tested) which he gets around 6.7 with, 5.3 at worst. I would assume the downstream rate is probably slightly over 7.

I mean, the speeds are comparatively [censored] to most people's speed, but we live in the countryside so I'm realistic about that. I don't online game or anything so all I really want is a stable connection, capable of handling streaming a couple of movies/tv shows at the same time(SD obviously). It's not asking a lot. At the moment, I can barely load a youtube video in 360 which is grim. I never really tested my speed before because I never had to, but I would imagine it was slightly better than my brother's is now. I never had buffering issues.

As for BT, my thoughts are that they've either done something at our expense to solve my brother's issue (he complained a lot over the course of a few months - he's also a business customer - AND one of the guys at BT I spoke to actually mentioned that very thing, which gave me pause) . It's really just sapping my energy, not to mention the amount I've spent on mobile broadband lately. I hate complaining and I don't like the thought of yapping on at people just trying to do their jobs, but 3+ months of awful, disrupted service when we're already paying far too much for what we get (we're on Infinity 2!! - my dad was talked into it thinking we'd get better speeds). I'm glad to have some confirmation that I'm not nuts though, and that there is something going on, so thank you very much everyone for confirming that the stats aren't normal.

Why the heck are you on Infinity 2 with those estimates? Definitely need this whole thing sorting out by contacting a higher level member of staff at your ISP.

I hope this is fixed soon, sounds like you've had a right time trying to get this sorted. I can totally understand this, don't even remind me of ADSL days - #hell.

My dad is the bill payer and when he logged in one day he got a recommendation email for Infinity 2. He obviously saw the promise of better speeds and agreed immediately. I had absolutely no clue about speeds, or copper wiring or anything at that point either. It was only after I wrote out a list of questions for my dad to give to an engineer fixing a fault one day that we found out the DSL checker actually existed and that we couldn't get anything more than 8Mbps at best.

Then all the faults started so it's sort of been trying to tackle the biggest thing first. One of the engineers even recommended we go down to broadband again, but it was worse than fibre has been for us. Plus, if there's a line fault, changing to broadband shouldn't make a lick of difference.

Hopefully it will get sorted. I guess this is just what happens when you live rurally. We're not as valuable as people who live in cities so problems are pushed to the bottom of any given queue because they affect a smaller number of people. C'est la vie. Thanks for the help though. At least I know that I can show the engineer my stats knowing they're not what they should be.

Hmm, I would downgrade if you can�t get BT to downgrade you from Infinity 2 to Faster Broadband (which is the package you should be on for those line estimates). You�re paying extortionate prices for what you receive...

You should be treated the same as a customer in the city.

Do you know what type of fault the CP fault has been raising, broadband faults, or noisy line faults ?

You really need to be raising this as a broadband issue .

Why? The line attenuation is changing, so why would it be a broadband fault? Line attenuation changes signify that there�s high resistance somewhere, it�s unlikely that a broadband engineer would be able to fix that.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 20:38:01)

It's been raised as both. The telephone engineer came for the crackle but every other one was a broadband engineer. The guy I'm in touch with at BT can see the drops. He tested the line over the day that it was going particularly nuts and said he could see the wild speed variations so it's not like they can't see it. So they can see it, I can see it, but the engineers seem reluctant to declare a fault.

Try reporting a telephony fault again, fixing that will most likely fix the broadband issue.

In reply to a post by agentsquirrels:

The real speed is much less. My brother only really goes by speed checkers (wifi tested) which he gets around 6.7 with, 5.3 at worst. I would assume the downstream rate is probably slightly over 7.

Thanks, that's close enough to what I wanted.

It almost certainly means that there was something radically wrong with the estimator at the time it said you could get between 32.4 and 65.9 Mbps. He is getting what is expected from the estimate for yours you are seeing now. So we can forget about the old reading, assuming your 1.5 miles of copper is from the FTTC cabinet.

There is no way you should get those high speeds at 1.5 miles.

I don't usually bother replying to your posts William ... and when you say dumb things like ...

it�s unlikely that a broadband engineer would be able to fix that.

I am reminded why.

... could it not have occurred to you that a (very) high percentage (like I don't know any) broadband skilled engineers are not multi skilled, so can do UG stuff as well ?

On the other hand, there are plenty who do line faults who are not BB trained .....

Changing attenuation is not going to be considered/looked at by someone attending a noisy fault.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by agentsquirrels:

The real speed is much less. My brother only really goes by speed checkers (wifi tested) which he gets around 6.7 with, 5.3 at worst. I would assume the downstream rate is probably slightly over 7.

Thanks, that's close enough to what I wanted.

It almost certainly means that there was something radically wrong with the estimator at the time it said you could get between 32.4 and 65.9 Mbps. He is getting what is expected from the estimate for yours you are seeing now. So we can forget about the old reading, assuming your 1.5 miles of copper is from the FTTC cabinet.

There is no way you should get those high speeds at 1.5 miles.

Yeah it was pretty much spot on in it's estimates for our phone number a few months ago. I thought maybe the wildly different speeds were indicating that there was definitely something going on with the line, but when I mentioned it to one of the engineers he just went 'oh right' and made no mention of it again. It's a situation where I feel like I'm offering useless information to them at times because I get little response back. I don't know if it's because they know that I don't know much about it (and I don't, which makes vocalising why I think there's something wrong, difficult). I don't even feel like I can point to a telephone pole because what do I know? There's a length of line that a farmer took out with a bale about 7 months ago that might be worth checking, or the pole right outside our gate that my brother connects to, but they always seem to be looking at things a mile or 1/2 mile down the road.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 21:11:51)

Ok, thanks for confirming. I know most broadband engineers are multi skilled, but what if the task given to the engineer is broadband only when the fault is telephony related? Surely, problems could arise there. Can you confirm to me that changing line attenuation is not related to the telephony side? Also, I don�t appreciate you calling me dumb, that�s incredibly offensive.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 21:23:16)

If you know that, why did you suggest otherwise ?

A broadband fault includes, as part of the faulting process, testing the line for �voice� faults ....

Did you perhaps have standard broadband before and your dad logged in, noticed Infinity 2 and ordered it? Fibre is often much less stable than standard broadband.

If you've always had fibre, it aint that.

We can't really do a whole bunch as you are not the billpayer which sucks, e.g. any escalations would need to be done by your dad.

Because sometimes like I said, the job notes suggest a broadband fault, so why would the engineer go about trying to fix a telephony fault when they're there to fix the broadband fault?

Really? Well, when a broadband engineer attended our property, he didn't test the line for voice faults, which didn't surprise me because he was there to fix the broadband (conduct a DLM reset).

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 21:35:23)

Did the engineer make a PQ (pair quality) test with their JDSU/Exfo, what�s that if not a test of the line, the bearer of the ADSL/VDSL circuit.

You fix the line fault because it is almost certainly affecting the data service ...

Yes, they did, but what I'm saying is that they didn't attend to fix a telephony fault, so that's why I've always thought that getting the correct type of engineer is critical to fixing the correct side of the service, but what you've said makes sense.

Is fixing the line fault always going to fix the data service on VDSL though, especially if it's affecting a section of copper that is not between the cabinet and the modem?

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 21:47:33)

No it isn�t always going to fix it. Depends what the issue reported is.

So, to get this straight...

Broadband engineers can fix both broadband and line (telephony) faults, but telephony engineers can only fix line (telephony) faults? Or, can they all fix both types of fault if they're multi skilled?

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 22:01:56)

Many engineers are multi-skilled. You get sent to fix broadband, and the line tests pants, you fix that.
Test the broadband before/during/after as part of this process.

Sent to fix a noisy (line tests OK) if it PQ�s OK, and no noise when you test , that�s it, end of.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Did you perhaps have standard broadband before and your dad logged in, noticed Infinity 2 and ordered it? Fibre is often much less stable than standard broadband.

If you've always had fibre, it aint that.

We can't really do a whole bunch as you are not the billpayer which sucks, e.g. any escalations would need to be done by your dad.

No, we'd been on regular Infinity for years. Probably been on Infinity 2 for about 18 months or so? I would say about 4/5 years on fibre in total but I'm not 100%. Broadband was a lot slower and not particularly stable for us either unfortunately. I'd worry about downgrading only to have the same problems.
It's all in my dad's name, but any internet connection queries are all going through me at the minute. He's 76 and knows how to check his email and look at fishing videos on youtube, but that's it so he wisely asked that BT contact me with any and all info about this issue. They've opened a case on it, and say they'll follow it through to it's completion, whenever that may be.

Ah, I see! Thanks very much for confirming. Makes total sense now.

I presume the EU would get charged if no noise is present? LOL.

Yes, you would experience the same problems, unless whatever's causing the issue doesn't affect any/enough of the ADSL frequencies.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Feb-18 22:08:42)

Yes, charged by the CP.

Faster Broadband i.e. VDSL2 but with no Infinity marketing is exactly the same the connection technology and parameters so only difference will be the price you pay.

If you are actually talking about dropping from VDSL2 to ADSL2+ then the equation is different since different technologies and then the debate is around not just distance to cabinet, but distance to telephone exchange

Was that reply intended for the OP Mr.S ?

Believe so, but the distinction in naming of BT Consumer services is a good general thing to point out