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[bossian]

Well guys as you know my FTTC went live on the 9th. I have left things alone (no reboots etc.) for all that time and I have to say the connection is a mess

I have also been away on holiday for the last 9 days, so the connection was only being used mildly during this time, for regular email collection and remote access to my home systems.

The only records of my connection I have so far are my TBB Pings. Too many to mess about putting on here, so compiled them into a web page......

http://www.bosshost.co.uk/tbbgraphs/tbbgraphs.htm

The speeds at start were 62/18, have been all over the place since. I was getting 49/10 last night, but today 7/7!! I've been traditionally using speedtest, but for this connection I've been using the BTW one.

The connection itself seems ok, surfing/mail/ftp all work ok. My kids moaned about game lagging, so put they're Xbox and ps3 back onto virgin as the ping there is only 10ms against 30/40 on the new connection.

So info.....

ISP PlusNet 80/20 service

I have the ECI modem 'B-Focus V-2FUb/r Rev.B' attached to matching cab.

Draytek Vigor Dual WAN 2920 router (I also have Virgin 120/12)

So what do I need to do now? I have done no direct testing, swapping cables or the like yet.

Hack this modem? Get a HG612 of eBay? (found one for £20)

I have been reading all over the forum and there's a lot of info to take in.....so was hoping for guidance from one of the tech-heads on here where to go/do next.

Oh and I have not yet contacted PN, thought I would arm myself with the right info from you first 

And just as I post this, connections back to 49/8

[ColinS]

Hi.

Sorry to read of your troubles.   It's hard to diagnose anything just from your pings other than there is most definately an issue.  Similarly the BTW speed tester is reporting varying throughput performance, which, while again a strong indicator of problems, doesn't help us find out why necessarily.
ATM it is difficult to get stats out of the ECI modem, and unless you know what you're doing (not making any judgement here of course), might only cause you further grief.  I am probably biased, but if you can afford the £20, I think that the HG612 would be a good (ongoing) investment in diagnostic tools.
Once you have one, it is trivial by comparison to unlock it, and then you will have the benefit of both Bald_Eagle_1 and Roseway's excellent stats collection tools to help.  They will help us (collectively) to help you get to the bottom of it.

[bossian]

Hi.

Sorry to read of your troubles.   It's hard to diagnose anything just from your pings other than there is most definately an issue.  Similarly the BTW speed tester is reporting varying throughput performance, which, while again a strong indicator of problems, doesn't help us find out why necessarily.
ATM it is difficult to get stats out of the ECI modem, and unless you know what you're doing (not making any judgement here of course), might only cause you further grief.  I am probably biased, but if you can afford the £20, I think that the HG612 would be a good (ongoing) investment in diagnostic tools.
Once you have one, it is trivial by comparison to unlock it, and then you will have the benefit of both Bald_Eagle_1 and Roseway's excellent stats collection tools to help.  They will help us (collectively) to help you get to the bottom of it.

Thanks for the reply Colin. From what I have read, I understand the HG612 is the preferred method for diagnosis, so just bagged me the one from eBay.

Will I be able to use that on my connection all the time? Will PN/BT know I have the wrong box attached?

I'm very capable at IT electronic stuff, so luckily for you guys, I can follow instructions

I'm just new to this VDSL and need to learn all possible. I have a new FTTC going in at work tomorrow, so will have 2 to play with 

[ryant704]

Yeah you can use the HG612 on your connection.

IF you have an engineer visit they can get a little pissy about it, though they can't do anything about it. The main concepts of FTTC are easy to understand though you can go in-depth and it starts to get harder.

[ColinS]

Thanks for the reply Colin. From what I have read, I understand the HG612 is the preferred method for diagnosis, so just bagged me the one from eBay.

Good move.  I don't think you'll regret it, and you can always sell it on again later ...

Will I be able to use that on my connection all the time? Will PN/BT know I have the wrong box attached?

Yes, if you want to.  No reason why not, it's just what the guy had in the van.  There are some threads on here that discuss the ECI vs Huawei choice, if you have the time to read them.  In normal circumstances I doubt they would notice (in the sense of doing anything), although it is probably recorded somewhere by TR069 if nothing else.  But if you feel paranoid about it, just remember to swap things back if/when you think your ISP might send out an engineer.  As time passes, now that we are on PCP-only installations, no one will care a hoot.

I'm very capable at IT electronic stuff, so luckily for you guys, I can follow instructions

I'm just new to this VDSL and need to learn all possible. I have a new FTTC going in at work tomorrow, so will have 2 to play with 

Enjoy, if that's the word when you're trying to diagnose a problem?  But there's lots of people here that will help you.

[bossian]

Yeah you can use the HG612 on your connection.

IF you have an engineer visit they can get a little pissy about it, though they can't do anything about it. The main concepts of FTTC are easy to understand though you can go in-depth and it starts to get harder.

Excellent, the one I've just brought is already unlocked and both Lan ports are on........I wonder if it's from one of you guys......

I'm beginning to get a grip on the understanding of FTTC.....here begineth the learning curve

[bossian]

I'm not worried about having the HG612 always connected.

I expect this thread will end up as a PN support call/thread, as I know there's some sort of problem.

I'm just wondering if having it connected can be seen by PN, if, say they dial into it? Or can only BT do that?

[roseway]

I'm just wondering if having it connected can be seen by PN, if, say they dial into it? Or can only BT do that?

You can stop external interference with the router by sending the following command from telnet:

Code: [Select]

killall -KILL start btagent
If you're not familiar with this router's telnet interface, there's an extra stage needed to get to the CLI. It looks like this:

Code: [Select]

telnet 192.168.1.1
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.168.1.1
Escape character is '^]'.

Welcome Visiting Huawei  Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:     (password is always 'admin', even if you've changed it in the GUI)
ATP>sh


BusyBox v1.9.1 (2010-10-15 17:59:06 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

#

[bossian]

I'm just wondering if having it connected can be seen by PN, if, say they dial into it? Or can only BT do that?

You can stop external interference with the router by sending the following command from telnet:

Code: [Select]

killall -KILL start btagent
If you're not familiar with this router's telnet interface, there's an extra stage needed to get to the CLI. It looks like this:

Code: [Select]

telnet 192.168.1.1
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.168.1.1
Escape character is '^]'.

Welcome Visiting Huawei  Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:     (password is always 'admin', even if you've changed it in the GUI)
ATP>sh


BusyBox v1.9.1 (2010-10-15 17:59:06 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

#

Do I have to do all by telnet? Or is there a GUI? Or is it a bit of both?

[bossian]

I'm reading all sorts of stuff on here at the moment....but there is so much to take in

A quick question......would having a UPS supplying the power to my modem be any sort of issue?

It used to supply my old Draytek120 modem on ADSL, now the new ECI modem, plus my router and virgin modem...plus a server and NAS (I have a little server room at home)

[roseway]

Do I have to do all by telnet? Or is there a GUI? Or is it a bit of both?

There's no way to disable the BT agent process from the HG612 web interface. You could install DSLstats and use its Custom commands feature to send the command to the router, but that would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

[bossian]

Do I have to do all by telnet? Or is there a GUI? Or is it a bit of both?

There's no way to disable the BT agent process from the HG612 web interface. You could install DSLstats and use its Custom commands feature to send the command to the router, but that would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Understood. I see how certain commands need to be telneted in....I have dabbled with Linux, so understand CLI

[bossian]

UPDATE

Well my brother-in-law text me from Germany today, moaning that I wasn't answering the phone. Grabs phone, no dial tone

So after a little testing, it seems the openreach filter plate on the NTE5 is not passing the phone, but is passing the broadband

Today I have been getting tremendous amounts of dropouts, but since I removed this filter plate and attached a micro filter its been ok.

I never use the landline, unless its for free phone numbers or my brother-in-law calling from Germany and to be honest, I never checked after the FTTC install that is was working

So, could this faulty filter plate be the cause of my problems?

Have called PlusNet and they're arranging for an engineers visit next week....but the agent I spoke too wasn't sure if the plate was the connection issue. He said he could see an horrendous amount of reconnects since the install and said DLM was definitely the cause of my speed reduction.

On a brighter note, my FTTC business install went ok at work today........74/20.  8)

[ColinS]

So, could this faulty filter plate be the cause of my problems?

Have you tried your phone directly in the underlying test socket of the NTE?

On a brighter note, my FTTC business install went ok at work today........74/20.  8)

Congratulations!

[bossian]

So, could this faulty filter plate be the cause of my problems?

Have you tried your phone directly in the underlying test socket of the NTE?

On a brighter note, my FTTC business install went ok at work today........74/20.  8)

Congratulations!

Yep, my micro filter is connected to the back test socket and my phone is working now and my broadband has settled down now too