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[Black Sheep]

This next engineer might be more persistent, I think they have an obligation to delve on second visits ? Others on here might clarify.

No engineer worth his salt wants to attract a repeat report (repeat visit), nor would the business, for obvious reasons.
It not only affects the customer experience, it also gets logged on the engineers stats and is costly to the business as an extra 'truck roll'. So a 2nd visit should see deeper scrutiny applied, when fault-finding.

There is of course the elusive intermittent fault that disappears the minute the engineer knocks on the door, but a 'bridged tap' result doesn't fall under that category, it is a hard and fast fault condition.

I admit, i'm struggling to get my head around your internal set-up, but would mention the engineer is only responsible up to the master socket. The 'proving' of the bridged tap fault is relatively straightforward, as the engineer should run a GEA test on his mobile phone that is pretty much the same test as your ISP runs.

If when he arrives at your premises it tests bridged tap in extension 1 socket (or however it's wired), he/she should then go to the master socket and re-run the test ... if it's clear at that point you know the fault is inside. If it were me, I would also perform the test with my own Hand Held Tester (HHT) connected, not your own router.
I have to say, in all the years I've performed BB faulting - I've only ever had one bridged tap fault outside - and that was somebody accidentally terminating a circuit they were working on, over the pair of wires that I subsequently picked up as a fault. This was done in the Cab, and on the Quante strip connections.

As in all walks of life and all careers, there are those just starting out on their knowledge path and those at the end of it. Most engineers I've met are happy to chat with the customer and explain what they are doing regarding testing, but not all will be aware of the little tips & tricks that can be used to help identify faults.

Maybe start a convo with whoever rocks up over a cup of tea and take it from there ??

[g3uiss]

I can testify a cup of tea is always very greatfully received 

[rugby675]

Ok so the latest engineer had a look at the setup and found some discrepancies in the wiring between the master and extension sockets. I haven't previously looked at this in much detail myself as usually ends in complete disaster.

However, although the 2 "blue" wires connected as expected in ports 2 and 5 there was inconsistency in the way the third wire was terminated. So at the master the orange was terninated to port 3 but at the extension port the white and orange wire was terminated to port 4 with the orange not terminated at all. Would this result in an issue? Time will tell I suppose to see if speed increases in coming days.

[Black Sheep]

Quick reply from me - the 3rd wire isn't required in most cases these days - it was used as a bell-shunt back in the day to make the phone ring.

If it is connected, it adds an imbalance to the circuit and is like an antennae for unwanted noise. If I had been the engineer, I'd have removed any connections other than those on 2 & 5.

[burakkucat]

. . . there was inconsistency in the way the third wire was terminated. So at the master the orange was terninated to port 3 but at the extension port the white and orange wire was terminated to port 4 with the orange not terminated at all.

From the way you have described the connections, there was an "aerial" connected to the mid-point of the series connected capacitive/resistive shunt across the active pair.

I would have disconnected all of the wires except the blue pair at each of the sockets.

[Having typed the above, I see that Black Sheep had already "got there" before me . . .]

[rugby675]

Many thanks. I will leave it for a few days now to see if anything improves and will tidy up the wiring afterwards. I've got some plans to change to a filtered faceplate or use the A B connectors to make the extensions data only anyway so will do as part of that work.

Apparently fault on line which suggested a bridge tap has now cleared after rewiring

[Black Sheep]

Apparently fault on line which suggested a bridge tap has now cleared after rewiring

As suspected it would ... 

[rugby675]

No movement yet, bah. Sync speed still 64 with attainable 77, latency in the high 40s. Noise margin 6.2 though, I'd have thought this would be higher if interleaving had been applied.

[Black Sheep]

No movement yet, bah. Sync speed still 64 with attainable 77, latency in the high 40s. Noise margin 6.2 though, I'd have thought this would be higher if interleaving had been applied.

Others are way more clued-up than I in the timings involved with the DLM, but in my experience, the magic starts to commence after 3 days have passed since repair.

Have a look again tomorrow evening, or Tuesday morning .... hopefully there may be improvements ??

[rugby675]

 

[g3uiss]

No movement yet, bah. Sync speed still 64 with attainable 77, latency in the high 40s. Noise margin 6.2 though, I'd have thought this would be higher if interleaving had been applied.

SNRM won’t be higher because of interleave unless it’s capped as well.

[rugby675]

Sync speed still holding at 64, prepared to sit tight I suppose but can't help feeling that is there still something at play causing errors on the line so I could be here forever.

I suppose the only way around it is to monitor error rate using a different modem, don't think it can be done using a Home Hub 6? But then if I were to disconnect it might see that as an error and reset the time period again. So frustrating that such stats are so blind to the consumer, I understand that most people would have no use or need to view them, but providing an avenue to diagnosing issues such as this would be useful especially when ISPs are not interested as long as receiving the minimum speed.

[g3uiss]

If you just disconnected once in a thirty minute period you shouldn’t have any issues, repeat resync will cause banding. A Broadcom modem with DSL stats will give you anything you want to know. I’m not sure about the Hub ! Others here can advise.

[rugby675]

Spoke to a very helpful person from my ISP today who advised me that the line is a lot more stable than it was and have a done line reset to hopefully remove any DLM sooner than having to wait a longer period of time. Advised it may take up to 10 days however even with the line reset. Still getting 64 down attainable 77. Just a waiting game now, roll on FTTP!!!

[rugby675]

Ok, so sync speed still holding at 64 two weeks after last resynching, attainable 77. At least the connection is stable, but I have no idea of any smaller errors or what the degree of interleaving that has been applied and therefore no sign of interleaving relenting. Apparently a DLM reset was done last week but haven't seen any resyncs to suggest that this took place even though was told it went through :S.

BT Openreach checker still suggests that there is a Bridgetap on my line as of the 19th, although it has been suggested this should be taken with a pinch of salt it must be based on something and therefore detecting some sort of error.

I've still got the complaint open with my ISP so spoke to them today and they now suggest that there is an external fault on the line as of last weekend? Sending yet another engineer to look at the external line and cabinet tomorrow now. Feel I'm going around in circles with this.

I could settle for the speed, if only the latency was improved, I carry out remote drone surveys in my job and the high latency is a pain when any actions are delayed by a second or two, If i have to make split second decisions as to what to survey, the current delay is making it really hard work.