Broadband on the Isle of Wight

A friend of mine rang me last night to discuss her broadband.

She lives in a fairly rural part of the Isle of Wight running a small Alpaca farm. SDSHNKL is her exchange. SamKnows doesn't know of any of the properties where she lives but gives a straight line exchange distance of 3.69km to her postcode.

Her ISP, farming.co.uk who I assume is a reseller, has recently moved her from fixed 1/2 meg to some sort of variable rate service (perhaps a max ADSL type service) and her performance has plummeted, scarcely getting 50-100 k.

The local firm that she uses for PC issues has suggested she look at a new wireless BB service that's recently started on the island, not sure of the name but thought it was something like TechScore, somebody Munro being her contact (sorry I didn't make a note). Bandwidth was 5Gb peak, 20Gb off peak - far more than she needs so that's not an issue. Cost was reasonable as well.

When BT originally installed BB for her some years ago she said they had to do what sounds like a lift-and-shift to get a viable circuit, and then had to run a special cable from the incoming socket (they installed one that separates the BB & voice signals so no further filtering needed, don't know the exact designation) to where she has the router and PC. I suspect from her description that it is a fairly long run, if so that won't help performance. I have suggested if she has time to put the router directly into the socket and test via wireless from her laptop.

Any thoughts on a reasonable way forward for BB for her would be appreciated. After a 90 minute call last night my brain was a little addled.

How about router stats - this will inform about line length and relative performance for a start.

Sounds like a proper data extension, and 30m of extra twisted pair wiring, will make little difference, if they have 6000or 7000m of phone cable to the exchange.

There are times when the fixed speed products cope better with long lines, mainly due to problems with the IP Profile and flapping lines. A sensible ISP can request the line be put onto a fixed speed profile under Max which are available for 0.5, 1 and 2Meg so suggest that in the first instance.

I'll find out her router and see if I can get the stats.

I take your point about fixed speed being better on long lines.

Changing ISPs if hers won't revert her will, for reasons to do with web and email hosting be a little more challenging. And it's a hassle she really doesn't want, she's trying to run a business and household on her own and just wants things to work properly don't we all!).

ISP solution of a fixed profile under Max may be the best, but without seeing line stats hard to say.

If the line attenuation is under 60dB, then line speeds of 2Meg or more are feasible. If 63dB or higher then a real lottery, and the wireless service should be given consideration.

I now have the router stats.

Down: CS=256 kbps, LA=63.5db, NM=12.8db
Up: CS=448 kbps, LA=31.5 db, NM=8.0db.

If it's relevant, the router is a Netgear DG834 v4.

It would seem that with an attenuation of 63.5 then it's into 'lottery' territory.

Out of interest I see from the stats page she emailed me the WAN had been up for 577 hours, so clearly left on much of the time.

Get the router rebooted, and if the NM is still 12dB after a reboot, then that explains where the speed has all gone.

If the line is stable, then ISP should have no problem getting the margin dropped down to 6dB. But I suspect its via a retailer who uses a reseller who buy from someone who buys from BT Wholesale, so a long convoluted chain.

In which case if the details after the reboot, and the telephone number of the line can be emailed to me [email protected] I can get BT Wholesale to take a peek, and if its stable lower the noise margin and that will give them back the missing speed

Thank you Andrew. I've emailed her your kind suggestion, though it may be tomorrow before she reboots the router.

Andrew, email with relevant details on its way. Many thanks.

To add to what I said in email, the 63.5dB attenuation indicates a very long line. Modems stop displaying the attenuation at this value, i.e. the real attenuation is higher than this figure, suggesting a line length of other 6km to the exchange.

If we get nowhere then best option if sticking to DSL would be a LLU provider who will not have an IP Profile setting.

Some update on this, though increasingly confusing it seems to me.

Got the line set to half meg fixed rather than variable profile. Whether this is actually a good idea is another matter in some ways, inasmuch as it goes faster but drops out more often...

Many phone calls to the person (all-inclusive call packages are great!) is showing a much more complex situation.

When she had broadband first installed in 2005, BT had trouble getting it to work and the BT engineer (who she recalls seemed to know what he was doing) installed a new box where the line comes into the house. This box is fairly deep and says ADSL V1.0 on it so I assume it�s an NTE5 box with voice and ADSL sockets on the front with the filtering done internally. Just had an email saying she�s found the original notes and that it�s described as a NT2000.

Discussing the house wiring has revealed a strange set up.

The ADSL connection is plugged into the ADSL port on the front of the box, then goes back inside the whole box and disappears off to her office upstairs. Why it goes back inside I have no idea.

The voice socket is feeding just a wired phone in the sitting room.

But� There is another wire coming out of the NTE5 box which goes off around the house to a socket that feeds a phone/fax/answerphone in her office; it also feeds a socket to which is connected a Calor Gas auto-orderer (her Calor Gas tank is linked wirelessly to this receiver which automatically orders another supply when the tank detects it�s getting low). It also supplies her Sky box which is hard wired into a telephone socket in the kitchen.

All very odd.

The broadband connection has become much less reliable � though faster when working � than before. But she has found that when it is off if she picks up the handset and replaces it the Netgear immediately starts to re-establish connection and broadband is back up, for a while.

We discussed putting additional filters in where possible. She tells me that she tried putting a filter in the socket in the office before plugging the answerphone/fax/pcmodem back in (remember it was previously bringing the internet connection back up when she put the handset back on the rest). With the filter IN, it prevented her being able to bring the internet back up by putting the handset back on the rest. Just to double check, she removed the filter and lo and behold was able to bring the internet back up again. She�ll try the same process with the corded phone in the sitting room but is guessing the results will be the same.

What seems so weird is so many things seem to be happening the opposite way round from the way that they are expected to behave.

Any thoughts, ideas, whatever, on how to progress this?