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[tickmike]

Christmas REIN

This is what I have to put up with from a near neighbor down our lane from his Xmas lights.
Using a Medium wave portable radio at 612kHz and walking down our lane the interference is massive from his house, so I knocked on his door and got 'there is nothing wrong with my lights' crap and it's not affecting there VDSL internet. well it will not do !.

I spent ages explain to him and his wife and he said he was going to get it sorted, but he has not, I did offer to help him but that was turned down.
My ISP said it would take 6 weeks to get the REIN chaps out 

What can I do ?

It's cutting my internet down so it's making it difficult to 'Skype' my daughter.

I'm on a long ADSL2 line

[roseway]

Forgive me if I'm not understanding, but those graphs appear to show a somewhat reduced SNRM at times but no other impact. What happens to the error rate when the lights are on?

[door_bell]

Sounds harsh, but if someone knocked on my door and explained that my Christmas lights that are up once a year for a short period were affecting someones internet connection......well, I'd show them the way out!!!

What is it you were offering to do to help them 'fix' it exactly?

[gazaai]

Yeah I agree with door_bell here, its a bit too crazy no offence to be chapping on peoples door saying they are affecting your internet connection. If it was alright to do that, Id be at everyone's door saying to turn off there modem as there giving my modem crosstalk.

[Black Sheep]

Firstly, I have no idea how your ISP would have the slightest clue how long it would take to deploy a REIN engineer ?? They have no access to our (Openreach) work-stacks whatsoever ??.

Secondly, the ISP cannot just have a REIN case built at the first stage.
An SFI engineering visit would have to be raised to determine if your circuits MPF is working within acceptable parameters, and capable of rejecting normal noise levels ?? If this is proven so, then your ISP will then have to submit a data-pack with evidence of REIN-type patterns to our REIN team, who will then determine if a REIN case should be built. Sounds a lot of work, but in reality is (or should be) performed within 1-2 days.

Thirdly, if the REIN source IS proven to be the fairy lights at your neighbours, we have no powers of seizure. We can only inform them of their affects on DSL circuits.

 

[ejs]

If it's not affecting their VDSL2 broadband, perhaps you could switch to FTTC (if it's available to you at a decent speed).

[Weaver]

Let's say I have some xmas lights. Is there anything I can do to fix the interference they might produce? Is it likely to be radiated, or going through the mains, or both?

[roseway]

These issues are usually caused by the cheap and nasty switch mode power supplies used with the devices in question. The interference they cause is most likely to be radiated, which is why it can be detected with a medium wave radio. They may well transmit interference through the mains as well, but this is far less likely to cause problems.

[NewtronStar]

And I nave a nasty switch mode power supply for indoor Christmas tree it's fine if you select led lights to stay steady but once you select flashing or phasing the FEC errors will dramatically increase but definitely no changes to the SNRM   

[tickmike]

The error rate goes that high sometimes that I loose internet.
This guy has lights up all year and is like 'Blackpool' illuminations   but he has put more up for Xmas and it is some of those which are causing the problem with these 24v switch mode power supplies.
There is about 30 different sets of lights outside and it looks like he has got more in his house.
They are tacked along side of his drop wire that comes from the same pole as my feed.
Yes I could go on to FTTC but at £54 plus vat a month from my ISP I can not afford that.
Also for some of the near neighbors it's making it hard to pick up the local radio station on the medium wave (as they have different programs to FM).

[Mas]

I would just pay for the broadband, if its causing you this much grief then £54 a month is cheap.

[Ronski]

Things like that could drive people to go out dressed as father Christmas armed with a pair of well insulated side cutters 

Mind you they may end up electrified!

[sevenlayermuddle]

I wish I'd seen this thread earlier.  My assignment for today, as better half left for work, was to string up four long and tacky-looking strings of lights, around the garage, a tree in the garden, and down the fence.  About 600 leds in total.

Faced with the prospect of up and down ladders, getting stung by rose bushes, and generally wasting a nice sunny day,  I would have welcomed an excuse to not do it.  And "it'll kill our broadband" would have been an excellent excuse.     

But too late, the lights are already up, glowing nicely.   I can't see any stats these days with BT supplied fttc modem, but broadband performance seems fine.   Of curiousity, I might wander around with a radio tomorrow, see if any undue RFI is being generated.

[Ronski]

I strung ours up on the eleventh and have seen no ill effects. I think there was 780 LED's in each of the two sets we've put around the house. Putting up the Christmas lights is not a job I look forward to, but this year it was a lovely sunny day, I doubt it will be that nice when it's time for them to come down.

[NewtronStar]

Have you noticed more people are decorating the outside with Xmas lights this year, I updated are old 1996 outside bulbs this year with 62 meters with 960 LEDS it looks amazing and does not effect this FTTC circuit and uses less power than the old 48 bulbs