Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: Bestgear on November 27, 2017, 11:55:47 AM

Title: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on November 27, 2017, 11:55:47 AM
Guys

I need advice please before I go speak to my ISP.

in Aug/Sept I have abysmal problems with poor speed and resyncs, which was finally sorted by a card replacement in my cabinet.

Before all this malarkey, I had circa 60-63mb  "max achievable" in the BTW speed tester, and typically saw 63mb attainable in DSLStats. It was even at 73/16 back in may as the MyDSLstats current line sync rate.

I am now left with a profile down at 43mb.

My SNR before the issues always sat at 3.7 up and 2.5db down - and never had issues - post card swap, I am up at 6.8 up and 9.1db down, hence my drop in sync rate.


What am I best to do in terms of approach to the ISP?

Will they entertain any discussion as its still above their current speed promise? - I am sure the speed promise was 56mb when I ordered the line!

I am having a second line and FTTC provided tomorrow from another ISP (not that that matters) but it will be interesting to see where that sits!


David
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: kitz on November 27, 2017, 11:31:57 PM
The fact that you previously had 3dB SNRm and its now at 9dB will account for a chunk of the speed loss.
If you are always at 9dB then its possible that the line may be banded.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 05, 2017, 08:50:04 PM
The fact that you previously had 3dB SNRm and its now at 9dB will account for a chunk of the speed loss.
If you are always at 9dB then its possible that the line may be banded.

Sorry for the late reply - how can I check if I am banded?

David
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: kitz on December 05, 2017, 09:13:59 PM
If your sync speed is always the same... and if your SNRm is higher than 6.3dB immediately after a resync.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: j0hn on December 06, 2017, 02:18:55 AM
The line was banded at 55Mb on 7th September. (Upstream uncapped).
This increased (or decreased?) to 49Mb on 10th September. (Upstream 10Mb)
It increased further to 44Mb on 11th. (Upstream 8.5Mb)
It increased again to 40Mb on 12th. (Upstream 7.2Mb)
It relented back to 49Mb on 14th September. (Upstream 12Mb)

You had a huge number of ES during this time which likely caused the banding.
The line is currently still banded/capped at 49/12.

edit: added upstream banding figures
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 06, 2017, 12:31:51 PM
Thanks John that is very much appreciated.

I will go pester PN again....
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 06, 2017, 02:17:45 PM
Hi

I spoke to PN, by chat, (having had to wait for yonks...) and their reply is below... I kinda feel that I have been fobbed off...

"so what I have done is look into your account and as you said there was a block put on the speed, the idea for this is to reduce drops in connection, because you haven't been having drops I have removed the cap now so your speeds should increase, we would suggest for you to factory reset the router after around 4 hours."

 ::)
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: burakkucat on December 06, 2017, 06:08:58 PM
"so what I have done is look into your account and as you said there was a block put on the speed, the idea for this is to reduce drops in connection, because you haven't been having drops I have removed the cap now so your speeds should increase, we would suggest for you to factory reset the router after around 4 hours."

To me, that is grade-one hog-wash.  :-X

Ideally you should try to find the interference source that causes the large ES count.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 06, 2017, 06:51:51 PM
Sounded like that to me too!

I will update the ticket tomorrow... having "followed" their advice.... ::)

I did not think my ES were "severe"... they appear to me as 0.26 per hour down and 1.64 up - over today.... but I suspect I may be missing something here... :)


Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: j0hn on December 06, 2017, 08:14:42 PM
No the ES were severe back in August/September when the banding was added. It has been extremely low since.

I would make a fuss over the poor support. Plusnet can't do anything to remove banding. Only an Openreach engineer can at the moment. Wether they will send 1 or not is another matter.

What does the DSL checker show as your downstream handback?
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: kitz on December 06, 2017, 10:05:18 PM
To me, that is grade-one hog-wash.  :-X

Sounds like to me an inexperienced CS rep who has got IPprofile & DLM profile muddled.  :-\

Judging by what was said, it sounds like the rep has increased the Plusnet Stable rate (https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=stable_rate).   This supposedly reflects the IPprofile from reports sent to them by BTw.     The fact that they suggested rebooting the router to pick up the new profile implies this is what they've done :(   In days of old, JamesBailey used to call it the magic button as it allowed full throughput as fast as the line could handle.



-----
ETA

Since PN started using Dedicated WBMC, they have now mostly done away with the PNstable rate for those on dynamic IPs as the routing is different. 
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: burakkucat on December 06, 2017, 10:42:16 PM
Sounds like to me an inexperienced CS rep who has got IPprofile & DLM profile muddled.  :-\

Never having been a Plusnet customer, I wasn't too sure to what that statement might have referred.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: burakkucat on December 06, 2017, 10:43:53 PM
I did not think my ES were "severe"... they appear to me as 0.26 per hour down and 1.64 up - over today.... but I suspect I may be missing something here... :)

As j0hn has now confirmed, it was historic ES' that caused your problems.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 22, 2017, 03:56:27 PM
Hi Guys

Apologies for the radio silence - just managed to get an engineer out to the house today.

Had a real hassle with PN around this fault - as they claimed my speed was still within the service estimate, even though the previous speed before the cabinet fault was higher. PN kept ignoring my request and statement (with evidence) that pre fault, the speed was much higher.

Anyway - the engineer attended, and could not get the attainable above 52 at my home or AT THE CABINET, and he spent probably 2 hours on the phone with someone, and in the end the conclusion is that the "new" card in the cabinet (remember it was replaced in october) was limiting the sync and that the guy on the phone could not get the line rate any higher than 52.

He disappeared for 40mins and returned saying he did a lift and shift of my line at the cab, and that the attainable is now back to where it was, up at 63Mb.

So - will be interesting to see where it settles - at least they bothered with the lift and shift - that was really appreciated.

I do wonder how many others on my cab are sitting with less than they had - he said they tried a few ports before they found one that would sync at the full speed and said that two he tried would not go over 32! (and that is physically connected to the card!).

What limiting is there on the cab outside of the profile? -   its like saying a 100Mb ethernet wont run faster than 60Mb....?


Thanks guys


David
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: burakkucat on December 22, 2017, 05:17:30 PM
I do wonder how many others on my cab are sitting with less than they had - he said they tried a few ports before they found one that would sync at the full speed and said that two he tried would not go over 32! (and that is physically connected to the card!).

I wonder if the card was handled incorrectly and it got zapped with static electricity before it was installed into the card-cage.  :-\
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Chrysalis on December 22, 2017, 05:30:36 PM
Hi Guys

Apologies for the radio silence - just managed to get an engineer out to the house today.

Had a real hassle with PN around this fault - as they claimed my speed was still within the service estimate, even though the previous speed before the cabinet fault was higher. PN kept ignoring my request and statement (with evidence) that pre fault, the speed was much higher.

Anyway - the engineer attended, and could not get the attainable above 52 at my home or AT THE CABINET, and he spent probably 2 hours on the phone with someone, and in the end the conclusion is that the "new" card in the cabinet (remember it was replaced in october) was limiting the sync and that the guy on the phone could not get the line rate any higher than 52.

He disappeared for 40mins and returned saying he did a lift and shift of my line at the cab, and that the attainable is now back to where it was, up at 63Mb.

So - will be interesting to see where it settles - at least they bothered with the lift and shift - that was really appreciated.

I do wonder how many others on my cab are sitting with less than they had - he said they tried a few ports before they found one that would sync at the full speed and said that two he tried would not go over 32! (and that is physically connected to the card!).

What limiting is there on the cab outside of the profile? -   its like saying a 100Mb ethernet wont run faster than 60Mb....?


Thanks guys


David
likely its tie pair crosstalk, engineers dont have direct access to ports so a port swap is changing the tie pair you on
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: j0hn on December 22, 2017, 06:28:41 PM
Personally I think your new port has a worse downstream, but a MUCH better upstream.

When he changed the port it comes with a DLM reset. This removes g.inp and applies interleaving. This means the downstream attainable is exaggerated by roughly 10%
That would make the attainable lower than it was before the swap. At least your banding is now gone.

I believe you had an engineer who didn't know what banding was. He's expecting to sync at 80Mb at the cabinet and wondering why it won't. Your line was banded though. He could try till sunset it won't sync above the banding even at the cabinet. Probably nothing wrong with the card.
Title: Re: Advice needed - failed card now left 20mb worse
Post by: Bestgear on December 22, 2017, 06:36:10 PM
Thanks for the replies - and John - I agree he did not seem to know what banding was, even though I did give him history and some wise words (stolen from here!).

Given he was on the phone for two hours, I would have hoped that the guy he was speaking to did!

It will be interesting to see where it all goes over the next few weeks.

Thanks for the advice and guidance!

David