10-day stabilisation period.

[Ezzer]

This is the short offical version


The 10 day stabilisation period

What is the 10 day stabilisation period and what is it for?
The 10 day period is to allow DLM to re-profile the line, in order to stabilise it and to determine the MSR.

What actually happens during the 10 day period?

DLM collects performance data and determines the stability of the line. If the line is unstable, it re-profiles the line and then monitors it again. This process repeats until the line is stable and can take up to the 10 day to complete.
During the 10 day period, Max tracks the lowest BRAS rate and once the period is complete, the MSR is set accordingly.

What happens once the 10th day has passed and the MSR and FTR are set?

Max and DLM continue to work every day even after the MSR and FTR are set. If a line becomes unstable after the 10 day period DLM will still attempt to stabilise the line in the same way that MAX will continue to change the BRAS profile if the line rate fluctuates after the 10 day period.
The MSR and FTR are purely for reporting purpose as described below. The MSR and FTR are fixed after the 10 day period, unless a recalculation is triggered by BT Wholesale Broadband Assurance. This initiates a new 10 day period, purely for the MSR / FTR calculation.

What happens if I do not use my modem until (e.g.) the 7th day?

The MSR and FTR will be set after the 10th day using the data available since your first log-in. DLM will continue to try and stabilise the line as described above if necessary.

What happens if I’ve been on holiday and haven’t used the service in the first 10 days?

The MSR and FTR process uses a 10 day rolling window in order to capture circumstances like this. Stabilisation will occur as described in the answers above. See section 7.2.

Does this mean I’ll get the same Line Rate when I retrain the modem after the stabilisation period?

Not necessarily. Broadband Max is a rate adaptive service and will always try to sync up to the highest line rate your line can support reliably. When you sync on subsequent occasions you may experience different Line Rates. The Line Rate achieved is dependent on a number of factors including line conditions and any local sources of electrical interference (see the section on REIN in this document). Line conditions can be affected by weather conditions such as rain or prolonged dry periods. Electrical storms can also have a significant impact on line rates you may achieve.

 

[Weaver]

@Ezzer, that's from the Myths and Legends document isn't it? Worth putting that up, definitely.

Everyone - it seems to me then that many people, myself included in the case of one of my phone lines in particular, are really at a disadvantage by the assumption in this that there's only ever one "day 1" in the life of a phone line.

Users who have been using ADSL for a long time, from before the time when physical remedial work has been done one their line, or before they have improved routers and other aspects of their hardware and environment, are it seems to me forever tarred with the FTR derived from this one-and-only ten day period. So if you start a new service, make sure you start "fast" and do everything right from day one, so as to get a better service guarantee and a chance of getting "faults" fixed where "faults" are droops in performance, whereas the ancient customer or the customer who was simply unlucky during the ten day period, be it with weather, environment, noise environment or deeply unwise choices of in-premises wiring, unwise router or microfilter choice etc will be penalised forever.

My recent experience with a moronic support department at a well-known ISP was that even though I had been an ADSL user with that same ISP since 2004, before IPStream Max became available in the area, was that the ISP was still quoting numbers at me that they seemingly were obtaining from BT Wholesale and that were so out of date that they were still trying to talk to me about my line as if it were "capable of 500kbps" despite it having run all year for the last couple of years at well over 1.5bps on the Max service after a free upgrade. Or perhaps they just found it all too confusing and should visit this site from time to time.

Has anyone else had the experience of getting stuck with an ancient "first 10-day" period? Is there a way to get unstuck?

It seems to me that Openreach would do well to offer more premium chargeable services to end users surrounding ADSL installation. I would have thought that it would be better to offer an option for end users to be able to get expert advice from a specialist engineer before and after the initial period, and for the user to be able to then make changes or improvements or as Openreach to help with this, and then optionally ask for a second test period to see how the recommended or improved plan works out. And I would expect all of this to be chargeable. But small business users particularly would be able to get a much less random outcome.

Does anyone know if Openreach can be booked directly simply to carry out a line assessment? And then to recommend chargeable line upgrade work that the user can pay for, rather than just fixing "faults"?

[waltergmw]

Hi Weaver,

I think your ISP can only get BT O to re-train your modem if there has been a definite fault on it.

I've been helping one such person where an anomaly had been observed.
The attached picture is the current data provided from BT, but it won't be updated until the training period has elapsed whch will be next Saturday.

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

Has anyone else had the experience of getting stuck with an ancient "first 10-day" period? Is there a way to get unstuck?

Its something that a BTO engineer can request after fixing an obvious line fault, or your ISP can request it too after a major fault fix. - Some ISPs may take more convincing than others.

>> still quoting numbers at me that they seemingly were obtaining from BT Wholesale

The BTw database is a guide - and is often 'conservative'... as they also make an allowance for people having not the best internal wiring/filters etc.

>> despite it having run all year for the last couple of years at well over 1.5bps on the Max service after a free upgrade.

lol - you'd think they would take some not wouldnt you.
I know on my own line (7dB atten) they were quoting 6500..  then after 2 years of continual sync of 8128 they increased it to 8000.  It stayed at 8000 for all of 2 months as I then went LLU.... and they put it back down to 6500 - despite me being able to get 24Mb!

>> I would have thought that it would be better to offer an option for end users to be able to get expert advice from a specialist engineer before and after the initial period,

Thats kinda what it used to be like in the 'old days'..  a BT engineer installed adsl for you and did a line check.. and in some cases measured the attenuation before they would even install adsl. 

£150 for install... min £50 for a modem or £100 for router & min £30pm for 512kbps.
and to top it off sod all if you lived too far from the exchange. 
I remember a friend of mine biting his nails as he lived 2 miles from the exchange and it was touch and go if he could get 512kb...  ahhhh the good old days

The problem is adsl is dirt cheap these days - theres little profit in it particularly IPStream. .. and when you get cheap then standards go down
rate adaptive DSL is a bit of a nightmare for openreach lots more call outs on long lines.

[Ezzer]

@ Weaver, yes that is from the Myths and legends document.

Also to quote
"It seems to me that Openreach would do well to offer more premium chargeable services to end users surrounding ADSL installation. I would have thought that it would be better to offer an option for end users to be able to get expert advice from a specialist engineer before and after the initial period, and for the user to be able to then make changes or improvements or as Openreach to help with this, and then optionally ask for a second test period to see how the recommended or improved plan works out. And I would expect all of this to be chargeable. But small business users particularly would be able to get a much less random outcome.

Does anyone know if Openreach can be booked directly simply to carry out a line assessment? And then to recommend chargeable line upgrade work that the user can pay for, rather than just fixing "faults"?"

This isn't permited by offcom. Rules are as the end user your only contact is via your service provider,who then contact BT whole sale who then might contact openreach. and the chain works in reverse as well. For instance an Openreach engineer is not permited to speak directly to the service provider

[waltergmw]

Hi Ezzer,

It is perhaps understandable that BT O adopt a very cautious culture so as to avoid being swamped by false calls.

I know of one instance at THCN where the local residents raised a BT W High Level Complaints request to replace a 1.2 km loop with a 0.4 km more direct route but were given a transparently vacuous excuse for not accepting their additional funding for the work.

On another occasion at THBL we were aware of an authentication issue affecting a number of subscribers and all attempts to have the problem investigated were ignored. These included talking to an engineer working in the exchange and a High Level Complaint. It took BT O several more days to attend to the matter.

On a third occasion at THGI a new business line was "installed" without a site engineer's booked appointment actually taking place, yet the job was logged as complete. After a telephone fault was logged the engineer called and the line was installed 3 days later with an excellent dial tone but it went dead on the day the broadband service was supposed to be ready for service. Two days later the work was rectified. This escapade caused a lot of additional work for both the BT fault team and BT O.

However BT O field staff can be very co-operative and, for example, fit NTE5 sockets automatically where required.

It would be so much more helpful if a more positive aproach could be adopted. There is obviously a difference between an individual dealing with a broadband fault for the first time and those of us involved in commissioning many broadband services a year. But how can one become a BT O recognised affiliate with direct access to them ?

Kind regards,
Walter

[anon_private]

When I setup broadband for the first time recently, I noticed quite high values for downloads over a couple of days.

Am I right in assuming that these could be attributed to line stabilisation studies being conducted by the modem in concert with the local exchange.

Thanks

BT line

[roseway]

Not exactly in those terms. The modem/router will always connect at the highest speed it can for the target noise margin. The IP profile will be set at a level which is directly related to the connection speed. Initially this is likely to be comparatively high, because the first switch-on is probably during the hours of daylight. Later on, the chances are that there will be re-syncs at lower speeds, as a result of higher interference levels at night or from other sources. So the IP profile is reduced accordingly.

In addition, if the connection is found to be unstable because of fluctuating noise levels, the target noise margin will be increased above its initial value of 6 dB, which will further reduce the connection speed and therefore the IP profile.

These measures continue throughout the life of the connection, but it's during the first 10 days that the MSR and the FTR are determined.

[waltergmw]

@ Roseway & anon,

I wonder whether anon is describing his download synchronisation speed or whether he is saying a lot of data is being downloaded ?

If the latter, it's possible that further clarification is required.

Kind regards,
Walter

[anon_private]

Walter,

I noticed larger than expected megabytes of downloads in my ISP account during the first couple of days.

[roseway]

I see. In that case I misunderstood. No, the system doesn't initiate downloads for testing purposes, but there is always some handshaking traffic, which might be slightly increased during the early stages. I wouldn't have thought that it would amount to anything significant though.

[waltergmw]

@ Anon,

It will be worth keeping an eye on your download quantities as recorded on your computer(s).
I am aware that some ISPs do have occasional glitches in their data download counters.

I believe that ADSL modems and their corresponding DSLAMs / MSANs in the exchange send data to each other to obtain the optimim transmission parameters but this is NOT actual download data from your ISP.

I have no doubt there are other services but the only automatic data download I'm aware of is BT's firmware updating of their 2Wire 2700HGV modem. They could also be developing a similar régime for other hubs as well.
All such items are likely to be quite small and probably not noticable in normal circumstances.

Kind regards,
Walter

[anon_private]

Thanks to both.

Best wishes.

A

[anon_private]

Walter,

What is the difference between an ADSL modem and a router?

Thanks

[waltergmw]

As is often the case terminology is used in diferent ways by different people !

My short answer is that an ADSL modem is a single ethernet port device probably with a firewall and NAT facilities included; whereas a router has those functions plus multiple ethernet ports.

Perhaps some of the gurus will expand or correct me.

Kind regards,
Walter