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[kitz]

BT Openreach has temporarily suspended g.inp enabled for now until further notice.

Do you have a source please max?

It's one thing to say that "you suspect they may have because of [example] & [example]", or "that you think they may have because of [example]", but we mustn't say that they have, until we know for sure that they have.

[kitz]

We're on Huawei cab, ECI modem.

Hi Martin and welcome.    It is possible that a chunk of your lost speed is likely to be down to the ECI issue 2 :/

Did I see that you said you'd placed a tentative bid on a Huawei HG612?  Let us know how it goes    Alternatively wombats suggestion of the Billion would be a possible good alternative.
 

[burakkucat]

Looking at the last active time on his profile he's been on here since both of our posts - but no response.

I well know Max from his postings to threads in the TBB forum as, I assume, do you, jelv. 

Remembering that he once had a personal "hot line" direct to Olive Garfield (when the availability of a VDSL2 based FTTC service was late to be offered to him) I can only assume he now has a similar personal "hot line" direct to Joe Garner. 

Somehow I feel that if such a decision has been taken by Openreach, our very own Black Sheep would know and would share the information with us all. 

(Edit: To insert a missing word!)

[adslmax]

One of the senior management from Openreach has aware of the G.INP issues from 13 isp's had complaints to BT with the loss of speed with high ping. They take action and temporarily suspended g.inp until further notice. That's what BTO boss told me in email yesterday Joe Garner.

[jelv]

Edit: Someone has PM'd me something that has made me doubt my facts (I may be confusing adslmax with someone else) so this post is withdrawn while I check.

[GigabitEthernet]

My cabinet is still sitting there doing nothing. Nice road he has of the view though!

[WWWombat]

I need to look at mobiles and consider 3G/4G backup but I don't use my mobile phone too much and therefore hate contracts. I'm just on £7.50 PAYG with giffgaff at the moment and don't even use all of that. Apart from maybe if I'm travelling for work then the data will get used.

Rather than thinking of a mobile phone (ie a voice phone, with data features), you might want to think of it more as mobile data - specifically just for internet access.

I've got an unlocked Huawei e5372 4G modem-WiFi (about £75 on Amazon), with which I tend to use either a PAYG data-only SIM from EE (You can find ones with 6GB allowance at Amazon for about £16), or a PAYG data-only SIM from Three.

Once we start to use a fresh EE SIM, that data allowance lasts for 3 months IIRC.

The modem tends to get used when we go on holiday, giving net access for all the tablets. For backup access at home it needs an external antenna, stuck onto the outside of the bathroom window.

I was tempted by the 8800AXL as a combined device with the 4G backup option, though it wouldn't work well when out travelling. They hadn't quite got supplies into the country when I last needed the option.

[MartinW]

Did I see that you said you'd placed a tentative bid on a Huawei HG612?  Let us know how it goes    Alternatively wombats suggestion of the Billion would be a possible good alternative.

The eBay route isn't looking good at the moment, outbid already! TBH, it looks to me like between the unlock and now probably this update issue sellers are already getting wise. There's quite a lot of bidding on auctions and BIN's are looking to generally be £50+. I'm not going to put that amount down on what would essentially be an unknown 2nd hand unit with no comeback or warranty.

The Billion AXL looks great but I gave up shelling out that kind of money on this kind of thing some time ago. I used to sear by Draytek and spent large amounts on them until I had Draytek units that died in very similar time frames to previous D-Link's, Link-Sys & TP-Link. So I figure if it's going to die in 12 months time then I may just as well save myself £100

My last two have been TP-Link however because when the last one died it turned out to have a 3yr warranty and was replaced without any fuss so I was very impressed. Sadly however it took two weeks to process the replacement and I had to order something for the following day so it was all a bit of a moot point in the end.

Anyway, not really sure what to do at the moment. Probably just sit on my hands with half an eye on eBay for now.

[Chrysalis]

to suspend for what should be a minor issue seems ridiculous (assuming it has happened).

The fix is to simply give a hg modem to all eci modem holders. Or to get a fixed firmware rolled out.

As suspending it does nothing for those already affected and holds back a very good technology for those on ECI cabinets.

I would guess if it has been suspended the issue is neither openreach or the isp's want to foot a bill for sending out hg modems.

[MartinW]

The big question (in my mind anyway) is, if there has really been a suspension in the rollout, will they rollback those cabinets that have already seen the update? At least if they were to issue a firmware "update" that effectually rolls it back then it would sort those of us effected out for the time being until they can have another go at getting it right...

[Chrysalis]

I would imagine they would need a 6 month duration to get exec approval, followed by 6 months of testing to roll it back :p

Another solution of course is to keep the default profile as fast path and only add g.inp to replace interleaved profiles, in fact if they did that before they probably would have had zilch complaints given those on interleaving already had the latency penalty.

[tommy45]

Those already interleaved typically would only have had 7-8ms added by interleave, but if using the incompatible ECI modem they where hit twice, ie 16-17ms of added latency due to interleave being applied to the upstream ,as G.inp was enabled
As said they should replace all incompatible modems that they supplied with  G.inp compatible ones, and sort out a firmware fix ahead of rolling out g.inp on eci cabs,

[kitz]

The fix is to simply give a hg modem to all eci modem holders.

The financial impact would be too high.  This would be a no until all other methods have been exhausted.

Or to get a fixed firmware rolled out.

I agree... and I should imagine this will be the route they are taking.

suspending it does nothing for those already affected and holds back a very good technology for those on ECI cabinets.

We do not know yet just how far impacting this is.   We know it affects a certain chipset, we dont know yet if it is only that particular chipset and if any other equipment uses it.   I believe I may have been the first to identify the Lantiq issue and start to have suspicions about the HH5A and also the TP-link TD-W9980.  Both proved later proved to be true.  Just what else is out there with the same/similar chipset? 

if there has really been a suspension in the rollout, will they rollback those cabinets that have already seen the update?

I've suspected for nearly two weeks that there has been a suspension of the ECI cab roll out, Ive voiced this suspicions a few times, but I have no proof.  I also suspect that a DLM reset may also now be removing g.inp from the DLM profile - but have far less circumstantial evidence of this than I do of the ECI cab suspension.     

I don't think they will roll back [note MY think - no source & not fact] because it has seen a lot of improvements for a lot of lines.    In the early days they did match modem to cab, so in the grand scheme the impact on Huawei cabs is going to be a lot less than on the ECIs.  There are far more Huawei cabs than ECI's but if they continue with rolling out on the ECI's then a very high percentage of those users will be impacted so they have to stop the roll out.

I would imagine they would need a 6 month duration to get exec approval, followed by 6 months of testing to roll it back

Note that we have been lucky on here in that we have seen and have got feedback from TP-Link, theyve openly told us they were working with Lantiq and members of this forum have beta tested, so we know a fix is possible.   However as yet there is no official fix in the wild, just the beta available to members of this forum.  I believe TPlink are working with at least one member of this forum with some further enquiries and they will not release a full fix until they are happy that all is well.

Same goes with BT, they need to be satisfied that the fix works with ALL equipment before they roll out nationwide.

I do believe that they should be more open with the public and even the ISPs though and announce that they are aware of the issue and are working on a fix.

I've been trying to do some digging in a few places but everywhere turns up stonewalled and no-one knows nothing.  The press type statement that went out to TBB, was actually confusing and only proved that the LH didnt know what the RH was doing.  When I get home tonight, I will try something else.

[WWWombat]

I would imagine they would need a 6 month duration to get exec approval, followed by 6 months of testing to roll it back :p

I would imagine the opposite - that long before the rollout started, the rollback mechanism was tested. Checking this part of the process will have been part of the acceptance testing.

In the very earliest stages of the rollout, while being watched carefully, rollback would have been an integral part of the daily plans. People responsible for an overnight upgrade will have needed to decide, there and then, whether to rollback, while the execs would only find out what happened after breakfast. I have the "been there, done that" T-shirts for such events - from one memorable occasion of taking out a chunk of SE England before rolling back (embarrassing), to another of having to report back to the execs at breakfast time why I needed to stop a widespread software release from happening (scary). In the last one, I had about 3 hours to call on other technical staff to check that I wasn't mistaken, and that we really were about to release something that had gone FUBAR.

As trust is gained through the small, initial rollouts that run just fine, the plans for widespread rollout will tend to accelerate the rollout at the expense of room for rollback - as it had already proven unnecessary.

The problem, in this case, is that the rollout became so widespread before the ill effects were noticed; rollback then becomes non-trivial. By this point, it does need exec approval because there is likely to be a significant cost to choosing to do anything - stopping, continuing or going backwards.

The first question the high-up exec will be asking: What is the scale of the problem? That "left hand - right hand" problem Kitz mentioned suggests that the answer to this question was not initially known.

After that, the question is whether to fold, stick or twist. In the absence of understanding the scale, a "stick" seems like the easiest first choice.

I know people like to characterise organisations like BT as full of incompetence as well as bureaucracy, but it really doesn't work like that.

[Chrysalis]

regarding cost remember when openreach reissued the hg modems due to overheating however this time is different as I expect there is no longer a contract in place for the hg modems as openreach seek to abandon supplying them to end users.

whilst the cost may be too high it is definitely unreasonable to expect end users to bear that cost given that they had no say in g.inp been turned on, on their lines.  it is openreach's responsibility to fix the problem even if it means taking a hit in the pocket.