Good Afternoon Guys,
I need some help diagnosing a fault which has appeared over the last couple of weeks and now appears to be getting worse.
Firstly here are the important details
ISP: Xilo (on Be LLU)
Attenuation: 34.0dB Down / 16.0dB Up (under normal conditions)
Sync Speed: 10Mbps Down / 1Mbps Up (under normal conditions)
Router: Cisco 887W (also have a spare Netgear DG834v4)
Up until about 3 weeks ago I had a fairly stable internet connection then one afternoon there was a short period (~30 - 45 minutes) where several disconnections were seen and the speed and attenuation fluctuated. At the end of it, the router reconnected at its normal speed and attenuation and everything was stable. I didn't think too much of it at the time.
Fast forward to Easter where this happened again but this time it went on for about 3 hours. My sync speed went from 10Mbps down to 2Mbps and everything in between with the attenuation rising to over 40dB. Eventually it calmed down and returned to normal. I raised a fault with my ISP (which is still open) and they advised that if the router is loosing sync then it's something "local".
A few days ago it started getting worse and on Friday I had the day off so decided to troubleshoot. So to start with, I disconnected everything and plugged a phone (no microfilter) into the test socket and did a quiet line test (here after referred to as QLT). This was absolutely silent. I then plugged a microfilter into the test socket, connected a phone and did the QLT again. Again this was silent. I had seen the disconnections on both the Cisco 877 and the Netgear. I tried both routers during the troubleshooting and was able to hear "broadband noise" from both of them.
I kept the QLT open and plugged the ADSL connection in. When the DSL was connected (and when it was connected) I could hear a constant noise (like static) on the line. If I hung up and redid the QLT, it would drop the broadband connection (at which point the QLT became silent).
At this point, I'm thinking the filter is dodgy so I grab some spares I've got and change them over. After some further testing (with the broadband in the main socket instead of the test socket), I finally get a quiet line and making a phone call no longer kicks the broadband off. Excellent I thought. Connection remained stable for about 14hrs before the symptoms reappeared - frequent disconnection / fluctuating speeds / noise on the line with the broadband.
On Saturday, I decided to go one further and replace the cabling and re-terminate all the connections. So, with Krone tool in hand I started with the connection from BT that terminates on the NTE5 (yes I know I shouldn't touch this). Did that and then did a QLT - absolute silence with and without microfilter). Then redid the extensions. Performed a QLT from each socket (without the broadband) and each one was quiet.
All the sockets worked, no noise on the QLT, reconnected the broadband and left it alone.
Today I'm in work (until 7pm) and decided to check the router and noticed that it had been bouncing wildly this afternoon. I can't check to see if there is any noise on the line, but I suspect it may be present.
So to sum up, line is silent when just using a phone for a QLT, but when the DSL is active, noise can be heard. I'm guessing it's internal to me, so what could it be and how do I stop it?
Edit: I'm assuming the fault is local to me, could it in fact be something like a HR fault on the line?
I've tried about 6 different microfilters at home, 3 different ADSL cables and 2 different DSL routers.
Many thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.
Regards,
Stuart