Unstable connection

Greetings all, I'm on a Zen Small Business Fibre package and I've been having trouble with an unstable connection for a few weeks now.

The connection will go down for a minute or so every day or two and when it comes back up the speed gets slightly lower each time until Zen reset the line and then the process starts again.

I've got a case open with Zen but just wondered if anyone had suffered anything similar in the past.

I'm currently running a FritzBox 3490 with the latest firmware. Errors from the logs that crop up regularly are:

Timeout during PPP negotiation.

Internet connection cleared.

DSL not responding (no DSL synchronization).

The quality of the signal is being impaired by incorrect cabling. Please make sure your line doesn't include any branching or multi-distributors. The branch is x meters long (the x changes between 6 and 16)

DSL connection info is as follows:

Negotiated Connection Properties
Receive Direction Send Direction
Max. DSLAM throughput kbit/s 25000 20000
Min. DSLAM throughput kbit/s 128 128
Attainable throughput kbit/s 45678 9136
Current throughput kbit/s 24999 9001
Seamless rate adaptation off off

Latency fast fast
Impulse Noise Protection (INP) 52 0
G.INP on off

Signal-to-noise ratio dB 15 6
Bitswap on on
Line attenuation dB 20 27
approximate line length m 522

Profile 17a
G.Vector off off

Carrier record A43 A43

Error count info:

Seconds With Not Remediable Errors (CRC)
Errors (ES) Many
Errors (SES) per
Minute Last
15 Minutes
FRITZ!Box 2028 1266 3 98
Central exchange 185 0 0.1 1

As the disconnects only last for a minute or so it's not causing me too much trouble but it's an annoyance that I could do with getting to the bottom of so would appreciate any advice.

I'm no expert but it sounds like a physical line issue.

If you plug a standard non cordless phone into the line (assuming its a BT line) and dial 17070 it'll allow you do do a Quiet Line Test, so you can listen for any noise / crackles etc. If there is noise, you may want to report it to your phone provider as a phone fault (don't mention broadband).

It could also be an issue in the street cabinet. The weather lately with so much rain, water could have gotten in somewhere it should not and be causing issues.

I disagree with your advice to report the issue to your voice provider.

A simple voice fault will get just that checked, the voice service. Many HR faults are only apparent when �seen� via DSL stats.

Report the broadband issue, get it all checked.

I had a similar issue around a couple of years ago, just after I replaced a Zyxel router with a FritzBox when I recommitted to a new contract. The line would drop maybe a couple of times a day, no evident pattern to it. The line speed would reduce after every drop.

After a lot of investigation with Zen's tech team, we arrived at the conclusion that it was somehow linked to the router. I restored the Zyxel router and the issue stopped dead. So, if you have another router, it's probably worth a try to put it back in circuit.

Edited by Pablo_Pablovski (Thu 05-Mar-20 08:14:49)

Just a quick update - Zen have done a line test and that's come back normal so they say the issue is something local.

I've removed as much equipment from the mix as I can get away with (including one of these splitters) and it's been stable for the past 24 hours or so.

I am still seeing "the quality of the signal is being impaired by incorrect cabling" messages in the FritzBox event logs so I'm not 100% convinced the problem is resolved but I'll keep an eye on it.

Next step if the issues reappears is to dust of an old Zyxel router and give that a try!

Edited by deleted (Thu 05-Mar-20 14:31:08)

Over the past 7 years, I have owned a 7390; 7490 and now a 7590 Fritz!Box,. For F!B concerns, I have always contacted AVM Support in Germany. They respond quickly and will no doubt ask you to send diagnostic data from the diagnostic software built into you F!B. They respond in English.