fast/interleave control

zen don't currently give me interleave on/off control
does *any* ISP give this control directly ?
(likley it's a BT thing)

my adsl recently went to pot
and i find they turned on interleave on it today

448 Kbps Interleaved 7616 Kbps Interleaved

it's lame having to get support to turn it on/off for me
"please sir, can i have some more?"

I believe the zen portal allows this, I think it's a request which zen ask's BT to turn on/off.

?

zen portal just shows what it's setup to currently

Line rate data
Upstream Downstream Interleave Date
448 8128 Auto 20-Jul-2006 05:18:13

i can't see any controls for it

Hi
This can be done by support and the details you need are located here.

http://www.zensupport.co.uk/knowledgebase/article.aspx?id=10539

Regards
Gary

Hi,

In reality interleaving shouldn't be something that is constantly being switched off and on. There may be a need for a change and change back if there are adverse effects of doing one or the other - but it's not a feature designed for short-term changes.

It also involves an order to BT, subject to standard BT lead times (up to 5 days - though it usually takes less) so by that measure there's no system that would guarantee short-term changes would be delivered.

regards,
Phil.

interleave as far as i know is just using a chunk of the bandwidth (512kbit) for error correction
(but also increases the latancy)
i suppose switching it on/off would [censored] up profiling on BT's end...

but it *should* be a user option imo, directly you turn it on/off/auto, resync your dsl to apply the changes, sorted

where as the current sort of thing is
you ask support nicely, support ask BT admin poeple, bt admin poeple talk to their engineers
BT engineers login to their remote admin system and change an option

and IT systems are supposed to simplify our lives
roll on the paperless office i say

Hi,

We don't ask BT admin people to make the change. We submit an order to BT, with a lead time of up to 5 days. At one point they were discussing making it a chargeable option. My concern would be that would happen if they were receiving large numbers of orders for interleaving changes that aren't necessary.

regards,
Phil.

I'm wondering how many of BTs wholesale customers (i.e. all the customers of all the ISPs who use BT provided DSL) would actually have any idea of a) what exactly it is and does and b) when exactly they might want to change it.

I understand that a few technical users might want control, and at the same time I wonder if the cost of making this available, and supporting those users who manage to screw it up, would be way more than could be justified to make things slightly easier for a few people, who shouldn't be changing it often anyway.

It sounds like one of those features that never gets done because even though it could be useful to some users, there is always something else which gives 'bigger bang for the buck'.

Ruz

My feeling exactly Narsty.

I'll bet there is a setting on BT's DSLAM which controls Fast/Interleave mode. There would be an ssh and possibly snmp interface to that. Easily scriptable, they could have a database which schedules requests coming from ISPs, and auto-execute a certain number of requests per hour.

I'd happily write the code for them over a few weekends.

The only problem I can see is that sometimes a customer might disconnect themselves by moving to fast mode.

Oh well, we're stuck with BT and their 20th Century plans. Anyone know if they outsource the DSLAM configuraiton work to India?

I have just emailed a request for interleaving to be switched off. it has been on since the day my Zen connection was enabled, although there was a stable (non-interleaved) 8Mb+ connection on the line for the previous occupant.

It occurred to me that it would be more user firendly and less error prone if the portal had a button that sent the email request to support with the necessary data (which is all in the portal database anyway).

Is interleave on as standard/default on Zen.

No they dont outsource it to India.
Gary

My recollection if memory serves me right was that DSL Max has features (Target margin and interleaving) which are better ways of handling interference. However it is more susceptible to existing CPE, wiring, filtering issues that might already be present but not impacting on lower band width fixed rate lines.

Interleaving itself is a standard feature of DSLAMs and is quite simply error correction, which can be enabled on any line to improve its overall performance and stability. Interleaving introduces powerful error correction algorithms, which in some cases

It's set as "Auto" - therefore it will be applied automatically if BT's DLM systems determine it's needed.

regards,
Phil.

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I'll bet there is a setting on BT's DSLAM which controls Fast/Interleave mode. There would be an ssh and possibly snmp interface to that. Easily scriptable, they could have a database which schedules requests coming from ISPs, and auto-execute a certain number of requests per hour.

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You know, this sort of comment from someone who claims to be an "IT Infrastructure Engineer" really worries me. Do you seriously think that it is "good practice" to allow end-users to interact with key infrastructure elements in this way?

No doubt you'll be proposing that companies deploy firewalls that allow users to open ports as and when they like, or a system that allows your average man in the street to change the routing tables for an entire ISP just because they think their ping is a few ms too high.

In reply to:

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The only problem I can see is that sometimes a customer might disconnect themselves by moving to fast mode.

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If this is the only problem you can forsee, I suggest you look again....

In reply to:

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Anyone know if they outsource the DSLAM configuraiton work to India?

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And how exactly is such a xenophobic remark necessary or relevant to whether end-users could or should be allowed to modify their interleave settings? Are you trying to suggest that staff based in India are any less capable of undertaking configuration work on DSLAMs? If such work were outsourced to a country such as Peru, would that make any difference?

Thanks

It took about 2 days after emailing the request for the interleaving to be switched off.
Sync seems to b e stable at about the same speed (~7.5Mb/S), and ping times to the zen gateway have gone down to 13ms (from SE England).
I think that I can detect faster loading of some web pages (eg where there are 100s of thumbnail jpgs).

It makes me think that when interleaving is set to auto, it will switch on automatically, but not witch off automatically - can anyone contradict that?

Same here. I had to request it be switched off too but alas, I could only remain happy for about a month. After about a month with no disconnections at my end, a very stable ~760KB/s downstream, I checked my router stats to see how many uncorrected blocks I had which turned out to be roughly 0.4% of all blocks received. Alas, BT doesn't like this apparantly and my downstream has taken a dive from that lofty ~750KB/s to 600KB/s and decreasing every other day now it would appear.

Enjoy it while you can I guess :/.

In reply to:

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my downstream has taken a dive from that lofty ~750KB/s to 600KB/s and decreasing every other day now it would appear.

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Sounds strange.. Is your SNR going up or down. If down, it would seem that your line or router is deteriorating.

Up. Was 9dB, now 12.5dB.

I think it would be fine.

Most users wouldnt touch it anyway, power users tend to know what they want and currently simply request their isp to do it anyway. adding a API to allow live adjustments or at least queue adjustments to run when a schedule job is run would save manpower and hassle for the customer so both sides win. I cant really see a downside other then work involved in setting up the api.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 14-Jun-07 02:16:17)

It is about 3 weeks since my interleaving was switched off.

My router has remained synced at 7520kbps for that time with no problems noticed. So I think I can confidently say that interleaving had been applied for 6 months with no good reason.

I notice that the target SNR for my line must have been increased because it now consistently syncs with SNR 3 dB higher and sync speed 400kb lower than before interleaving was automatically switched on.

The stats in the portal have not been updated, and still show my line as interleaved.