Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[tancred]

Hi, First time posting. Had BT FTTC 80/20 for more than a year ... but never had good speed (15 in eves and 25 in daytime). Finally got round to getting an HG612 and unlocking.. Stats posted on MDWS (user = tancred). Premises about 400 metre for Cabinet (verified)

Would someone who knows a lot more than me mind taking a look at my stats and offering me an expert view?

Seems to me that I should be doing a lot better than this...? Suspect I am banded at 30/5 (perhaps for long time) and line QLN profile doesn't look great? No D3 tones either.

Resync earlier today was me doing quiet line test....( very faint  hiss but nothing dramatic)

Have additional service on second line in same house (PlusNet from same cabinet, could be business though rather than home because my employer provides ) and getting 48/8 pretty reliably on that line.

Thanks for any comments you can offer

[Dray]

It looks like DLM has capped your speed to raise the SNRM from the default of 6. It does this in response to multiple disconnections. In comparison with others having the same attenuation as you of 19.3 it seems that double your current speeds should be achievable.

I think you problem could be related to poor extension wiring, so is your modem connected to the master socket? Is the master socket an FTTC master socket? Are any extensions properly filtered?

[gt94sss2]

Some of the experts will be along later but at first glance it does look like your line is banded.

What does https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ report for your line? (Remove your number before posting the results).

Are you testing the line in your master or test socket? Are there any telephone extensions and is so are they all filtered?

[tancred]

Thanks. This install was an upgrade form an original Infinity 1 service and was engineer installed when first took out the infinity 1 a few years ago (2012 ish).

Few disconnects over last few days as I experiment with changing modem from an ECI one (cabinet is Huawei) to the HG612 and moving it around to try rule out local interference ( but no more than 2 or 3 a day).

Have changed router couple months ago to mini pc with pfSense... original Homehub 3 was always falling over


Connection has a "modern" I plate wall connector and I recall from a few years ago when the OR engineer installed it is the master socket... certainly its near the drop wire entry to the house. There only one extension (other than the one that plugged into the same wall connect as the BB ) and that extension does have a filter (but I think from looking in the loft the extension circuits are a star type).

Quiet line test was from test socket...

TBH I think I have been restricted in terms of speed since before the switch to the infinity 2 service.

ADSL line checker says possible range of 29 (impacted low ) to 60 (good high)

[Dray]

I would say that the main issue is with the star wiring as this will have significant impact on your connection. The first thing to do would be the removal of the ring wire, and then think about rewiring your sockets so the master socket is the first connection on the line and the modem is connected there. All other extensions should be filtered by the master socket filter.

[tancred]

Many thanks. Have disconnected ring wire from the extension and changed the filter on the extension (doing one step at a time) ... ring wire disconnect didn't seem to make a lot of difference, but changing filter caused max attainable to increase to +/- 49 down (SNRm 14.5)...

Given distance from cabinet, and what I have had speedwise for the last few years,  I will  be relatively happy with that if I can get reasonably close to it in practise ....although I suspect I am not really going to benefit from infinity 2 (vs infinity 1 which is now claiming 52 down as a max)

Guess I will have to wait for DLM to do its stuff? I assume it will eventually lift any banding without an OR reset?

Definitely looks like that at least the extension with the phone on is star wired... (house is a real hodge podge of wiring with multiple changes over many years... but I think all done by BT).

One day I will spend the time and effort to get it all downstream of a the filtered master... but for now I want to leave alone and give DLM chance to do its thing! 

Thanks again for helpful comments

[WWWombat]

Looking at the error statistics, you can see a dramatic change at about 08:15 on the 16th May. You used to be getting a lot of errors (visible in the "B0 FEC" and "G-Retransmit tx" graphs).

Whatever you did then has certainly helped, but it could well be worth ensuring there is no star wiring involved.

If you don't have a filtered frontplate on the master socket (ie are working with just the plug-in type filters) and have daisy-chained sockets, it can (ironically) be sometimes better if the modem is plugged into the last socket in the chain (in a filter, of course).

Anyway, given that you were running at perhaps 20Mbps under par, with a high SNR, the number of errors that needed to be handled was pretty high. Getting rid of those will give DLM the best chance to work ... but be warned that DLM doesn't remove banding lightly. You might need to involve your ISP support desk to get that to happen.

[tancred]

Thanks. The step change that you pointed out was effectively caused by the simple (to do, but not for me to to diagnose! ) step of replacing the local micro-filter with a new one on the only phone extension on this line. There is another phone on the "master" but that is on an Openreach provided and installed filtered face plate

As I get to understand this better (unlocked HG612 is a great tool  and this forum and its members are a fantastic resource) it's clear that there are opportunities to improve the home wiring and that's on my to do list.

However, at the moment, beyond starting to plan how to do that  (in terms of cabling etc. .... which will not be entirely  straightforward given this is a very old cottage that's been significantly extended at least 3 times to my knowledge), I want to see if I can get to North of 40 Mbps before  I do anything else, i.e. leave well alone in case DLM is minded to relent!

I suspect it was in that error-ing state for a very long while before I changed the filter. I don't ever recall getting decent speeds on this line either from the original Infinity 1 nor on the current Infinity 2 which has been in place for the last couple years now. So DLM, as you say, may not give in easily, if at all.

So whilst I am going to wait a couple weeks to give it chance I am already starting to think about enlisting the help of my ISP (....BT Retail, its an Infinity package). .. and also thinking about how to avoid an engineer visit fee and ensure I end up with a DLM reset.

.....I'm also hoping strongly that if an engineer (speed boost?) is sent out that its one who knows what he is doing.  This forum has a few threads that demonstrate that that isn't always the case..... but that's probably a minority of cases in the real world? People rarely comment/"send out the brass band" to celebrate success, but failure understandably can often result in outrage and /or "lots of heat and noise"?

Once the base case is improved then I will try to improve further (hopefully not irritating Mr. DLM in the process!) with some physical improvements to the wiring.

Thanks for you comments I appreciate them