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Author Topic: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?  (Read 7491 times)

Heyho

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3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« on: September 12, 2016, 06:58:27 PM »

First post here...but I've been lurking a while trying to glean and understand as much as I can.

I have a copper connection of approx 4.5km to my nearest exchange (Wingham).  I suppose I've had problems on and off for years, with periods of good service in between, but nothing as persistent as my current issue.

It started probably 3 months ago now, and was pretty consistent in that I would have a pretty stable connection during the day, then somewhere around 9pm, my connection would drop, and re-sync if I was lucky an unusable speed (and I mean unusable - 2Mbps here is a good speed!)

I raised the fault with TalkTalk (I've been with them since October last year), and went through the usual rigmarole of assuring them I have nothing connected to my master socket except a faceplate filter (BT) and a phone.  After several profile changes on the line, an Openreach visit was arranged, but as I expected, as the visit was mid morning, everything was working and all line tests showed no problems at all.  As our pole carries electricity too, he booked a cherry picker and returned in the afternoon to check and re-terminate the connection at the pole.

Things continued much the same - sometimes my router (HG633) would remain in sync for 2 or 3 days and speeds would remain usable, then the fault would recur - sometimes with the same pattern, sometimes totally unpredictably.  The fault was raised again with TT, and the saga continued, with another OR visit (I was not present, but once again, the line was electrically perfect), and then last week a 3rd visit.  The OR engineer was extremely helpful - this time the same line checks were carried out and passed.  He then drove out to the nearest cabinet (2.8km away) and checked the terminations there, as well as stopping along the way as there was an earthing point shown on his diagrams which he said was something that was done in the 60s to phone lines, but is not good for broadband (PU point?).  By this point I'd been scouring the web for similar problems and stumbled across REIN faults.  The engineer suggested that I may very well have a RIEN fault with no prompting from me, but said he hadn't been trained fully although he had found and solved a few previously.

With nowhere else really to go with the fault at this point, I decided to try 2 other routers I had in the shed - a HH3, and and old Thompson 585v8 from Plusnet.  To my surprise, both seemed to be far less susceptible to the fault than the TT unit.  Mysteriously, the HH3 appeared to switch itself off after an hour or so (power saving not active either), so I continued using the 585.

I have been dabbling with routerstats, and it's new to me, so forgive me if I'm supplying the wrong info!  I've been trying to monitor the downstream noise margin, but on the occasions when the fault occurs properly, it seems to freeze the program completely, so I'm unable to capture the resulting graph (maybe because I'm running under Linux and wine?), but on the occasions that I've witnessed it, the SNR margin remains stable at around 6db, then plummets momentarily before going up to 12db before stabilizing again.  As well as this, I noticed large gaps in the bits/tone graph, but only ever in the Downstream portion (when the fault occurs and I run a speed test, it only ever affects the download speed, upload is always constant at around 0.7Mbps, when DL can be 0.1 or lower)

Pictures attached are of my current situation - not failed (obviously), but running about half normal speed. 





I've tried the usual stuff with a MW radio, and not really found anything conclusive - I initially though my freeview box may be sending RF back up the mains, but the fault still seemed to occur with it switched off.  Typically, since I found out how to use routerstats, the fault doesn't seem to have occurred to the point that I have no connection, but I will persevere.

Any help would be gratefully accepted!

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Heyho

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2016, 08:42:25 PM »

Came home today to find routerstats frozen again, but managed to screenshot the last part of the graph, at the point when the connection gave up according to those who were home.



The upload noise margin sits at 6db, and does not deviate one bit - it is a completely flat line.  I'm at a loss as to what I should do now.  If I continue to badger TalkTalk I feel that they will just arrange another OR engineer, who will have no history of the fault as the previous 3 haven't, and just carry out the same fault finding procedures.

One point to note maybe is that it dawned on me recently that there is a MW transmitter about a mile and a half away, and although the neighbours that I've questioned confirm that their connections are slow, they are no slower than usual, and are not having the same problems as I am.
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ejs

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2016, 05:11:17 PM »

The full line stats might be useful to see.

The gaps in the middle of the downstream bitloading don't look good, but then the highest bitloading on the downstream being lower than the upstream probably indicates that it's a really long line.
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Weaver

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2016, 05:50:45 PM »

Welcome, by the way.
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Weaver

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2016, 05:56:39 PM »

If you feel you're getting nowhere, you perhaps could try getting Andrews & Arnold to sort you out
    http://aa.net.uk/broadband-trial.html

(Yes I know, I know, and I'm still not getting my commission  ;D )
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Heyho

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2016, 09:18:56 PM »

Thank you all for your replies  :)

I managed to grab some more "events" this morning, I don't know if they reveal anything...





And these are the line stats as of this evening, which so far has been OK.
               
Uptime:    0 days, 3:07:26    
DSL Type:    G.992.1 annex A    
Channel mode:    Interleave    
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:    1,024 / 2,432    
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:    960 / 2,400    
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/MB]:    0.00 / 178.84    
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:    12.5 / 17.5    
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:    31.5 / 55.5    
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:    7.0 / 5.5    
Vendor ID (Local/Remote):    TMMB / IFTN    
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):    0 / 0    
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):    0 / 0    
Loss of Power (Local/Remote):    0 / 0    
Loss of Link (Remote):    0    
Error Seconds (Local/Remote):    134 / 0    
FEC Errors (Up/Down):    3 / 19,214,291    
CRC Errors (Up/Down):    74 / 30,765    
HEC Errors (Up/Down):    43 / 10,336     

As you can see, the router has only been up a few hours - often I have no choice but to reboot it.
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Ronski

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2016, 10:58:11 PM »

Have you tried FTTC although you'd probably only be able to get the BT Faster Broadband variant (I think that's what it's called IIRC),  the Red Lion in Stodmarsh gets an estimate of 7.2/1.2 at best, at worse it's 2.7/0.5 impacted.

Might be worth entering your address here and see what you get estimated https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker - select the address checker link at the bottom, not the postcode checker.
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aesmith

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2016, 11:24:20 AM »

It's a long line, isn't the problem just as likely to be on the 2.8km from cabinet to house, meaning that FTTC would also suffer? 

How does the line work for phone calls, any audible noise on a quiet line test?   Do you have internal extension wiring?   FYI we're on a 5.3km line (55dB) and get a synch speed of just over 4meg so I think there's something degrading your line somewhere as well as this intermittent issue.
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ejs

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2016, 04:16:30 PM »

The attenuation wasn't as high as I was expecting, which means the speed is worse than I thought.

I think it should be using ADSL2 instead of ADSL1 really, although of course this won't solve whatever issue(s) are affecting the line.
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Heyho

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2016, 09:18:39 PM »

I've done all the fibre-checkers, and came to the conclusion that I wasn't prepared to pay for a service poorer than most people receive on ADSL.  However, it would mean that I could potentially double my download speeds.

I spoke to the last OR engineer about this, and he said that at 2.8km, I could pretty much forget it, it almost certainly won't work. 

Interesting that a 5km+ line can sync at 4Mbps - I've never seen a DL speed here anymore than about 2.4Mbps for the entire time I've had broadband (which is since it was available), so maybe local conditions dictate that it's the most that's possible.  Looking at the "Making Kent quicker" site, there are no plans whatsoever to improve broadband provision in this village.  There is a line of sight microwave service based locally, but pretty sure one of my very close neigbours enquired, and we are sitting too low to see the signal - plus their reviews have taken a serious nosedive in the last 2 years or so by the look of it, with the number of subscribers outstripping the ability to supply...  The only possible way my speed may improve would be ADSL from the cabinet, or the long range FTTC that is being trialed in some places.
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Heyho

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2016, 07:08:30 PM »

Minor update...

Had a £65 engineers charge from TalkTalk, which they were unable to justify to me, so I was refunded pretty swiftly.

A further chat with their call centre whilst trying to resolve the above resulted in an advisor trying to "fix" the fault remotely, despite all that has gone before - needless to say he was unsuccessful, and even told me he had updated the router firmware, despite me checking the version before and after and noticing no difference.  Eventually he diagnosed the fault to be the router, and ordered me a replacement, despite my protestations that although the HG633 is not able to hold a poor line, it was not the problem, and I have other routers which hang on longer, but still disconnect in the end.

The new router arrived, and would you believe it the fault is exactly the same.

Trying to get out of my contract now, and see what the local microwave services are like.  :(
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fourtytwo

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2016, 05:10:53 PM »

HI Heyho, I myself have suffered REIN over a long period and your snr plots look very familiar. I see you are with TT and I am with Pnet, I dont know if TT use the same DLM software to control line stability as Pnet (actually operated by BT wholesale) but shifts of 3dB are very suspicious and rather than directly REIN is the DLM intervening to try to stabilize the line (it always does this in steps of 3dB up or down).
I used to think the DLM would only intervene in the wee hours but eventually proved that it would do so anytime if it decided the situation warranted it.  I found this was induced by high error rates and if your read about the DLM on this site you can see that different ISP's can set different profiles, all very complex!! Basically if your error rate becomes high due to REIN or any other cause the DLM will intervene and cause a re-sync at a 3dB higher snr (higher snr = lower error rate).  In my case it became impossible to see the REIN activity due to the DLM constantly messing around with the line, eventually after many months I managed to come across an enlightened support engineer who disabled it for me leaving it locked at 6db. I was then able to see the REIN events themselves that were at times 6.5dB in amplitude, lasted from 5 to 20 minutes and were loud and clear on the radio!

No the BBC didnt want to know, nor Ofcom, nor Pnet initially!! I was convinced the cause was coupling with the power lines as they were ty-wrapped together around my house exterior, in desperation i separated them as much as possible and this halved the REIN amplitude allowing the modem to hang onto the line continuously. After much pleading Pnet/BT/OR oficialised this mod by replacing the drop cable and clipping it some distance from the power cables.  I still have REIN in fact the whole village is infected!! but it no longer knocks out my BB!

Hope this story in some way helps you :)
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Weaver

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2016, 05:28:21 PM »

I believe that TT Business don't have stupid DLM, but I wouldn't know if the TT Retail ISP is the same?
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burakkucat

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #13 on: September 24, 2016, 06:32:13 PM »

I believe that TT Business don't have stupid DLM, but I wouldn't know if the TT Retail ISP is the same?

Talking from experience (for G.992.1, G.992.3 & G.993.5) with a TalkTalk residential service, it is possible to request that the DLM be disabled for any particular circuit.

For my own circuit I requested that the DLM be disabled and the target SNRM be set to 6 dB. If I am remembering correctly, when Roseway was with TalkTalk he did likewise.
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Heyho

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Re: 3 months into intermittent long line ADSL fault - is this REIN?
« Reply #14 on: September 25, 2016, 03:47:15 PM »

HI Heyho, I myself have suffered REIN over a long period and your snr plots look very familiar. I see you are with TT and I am with Pnet, I dont know if TT use the same DLM software to control line stability as Pnet (actually operated by BT wholesale) but shifts of 3dB are very suspicious and rather than directly REIN is the DLM intervening to try to stabilize the line (it always does this in steps of 3dB up or down).
I used to think the DLM would only intervene in the wee hours but eventually proved that it would do so anytime if it decided the situation warranted it.  I found this was induced by high error rates and if your read about the DLM on this site you can see that different ISP's can set different profiles, all very complex!! Basically if your error rate becomes high due to REIN or any other cause the DLM will intervene and cause a re-sync at a 3dB higher snr (higher snr = lower error rate).  In my case it became impossible to see the REIN activity due to the DLM constantly messing around with the line, eventually after many months I managed to come across an enlightened support engineer who disabled it for me leaving it locked at 6db. I was then able to see the REIN events themselves that were at times 6.5dB in amplitude, lasted from 5 to 20 minutes and were loud and clear on the radio!

No the BBC didnt want to know, nor Ofcom, nor Pnet initially!! I was convinced the cause was coupling with the power lines as they were ty-wrapped together around my house exterior, in desperation i separated them as much as possible and this halved the REIN amplitude allowing the modem to hang onto the line continuously. After much pleading Pnet/BT/OR oficialised this mod by replacing the drop cable and clipping it some distance from the power cables.  I still have REIN in fact the whole village is infected!! but it no longer knocks out my BB!

Hope this story in some way helps you :)

Thanks for the information...I will do some reading up about DLM.

Tonight I will draft a letter to the CEO's office at TT, as detailed in their complaints procedure, before maybe going to the communications ombudsman.  Maybe pointless, but all I feel I can really do here is play by the rules.

For anybody interested, here is the support thread on the TT forum.  The replies as you can see more often than not completely avoid the issue!

http://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Unlimited-Broadband/Shockingly-slow-broadband-sometimes-unusable/td-p/1928262

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