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[neilgl]

Hi all,
my line was fine for 2 years with BT ISP until 11th April (Easter Monday)
Since then there has been a repeatable pattern at particular times of day where sync is lost and speed drops. Nothing changed in my house.
It is affecting all 8 houses in our street.
RAMBo has currently set my ip profile to 500k.

The REIN engineers are apparently "working on it" but no matter how many times I try, BT help desk and complaints manager cannot seem to get the answer from BTW as to exactly what they are doing and when.
The date for "resolution" comes and goes regularly, last one was 3rd June, next is 6th June.
I have a suspicion that they are not working on it at the time when the noise occurs; I think they should be. (e.g. radio test etc.).
No engineer has been in our street for weeks.

BT complaints manager said that BT do not have any SLA with BTW for fault fixing and do not have any means of finding out what BTW are doing.

Anyone have any ideas?
Regards,
Neil

Stats when it had been up for a while:
Connection time 0 days, 15:25:20
Downstream 2,592 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps
ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.1
Latency type Interleave
Noise margin (Down/Up) 11.1 dB / 18.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 57.0 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 17.8 dBm / 11.8 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 0
Loss of Signal (Local) 0
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 13847 / 0
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 114 / 2147480001
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 98 / 0
Error Seconds (Local) 77

Stats when it had dropped in the early evening
Connection time 0 days, 0:27:29
Downstream 928 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps
ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.1
Latency type Interleave
Noise margin (Down/Up) 11.8 dB / 18.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 57.0 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 14.1 dBm / 11.8 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 100
Loss of Signal (Local) 9
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 83523 / 2
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 0 / 2147480001
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 0 / 1
Error Seconds (Local) 452


 

[roseway]

Hi and welcome.

If it's affecting the whole street at repeatable times, then REIN does seem to be the probable cause. It's a difficult area because, even if BT do find the source of the problem, there's no certainty that they will be able to get it fixed. I suggest that you try some DIY fault tracing, and there's some good guidance on doing that here. We've seen some examples here of people with similar problems being able to pinpoint the source of the interference as a piece of faulty equipment in someone's home.

Looking at your stats, you have a long line (57 dB attenuation) so your connection is always going to be vulnerable to interference. So it's worth while making sure that your own installation is as good as you can make it. There's some useful information on doing that here. It won't fix the REIN problem, but it may well help.

[Oranged]

Notice the downstream output power has dropped significantly but SNRM has only increased marginally ? On a long line that's not good so could it be more like an exchange problem ?

[waltergmw]

Hi Neilgl,

It might help if several of you had the same modem and ran Routerstats so you could present the recorded results.
You need to ensure that BT openreach are treating this as a common mode fault and not individual ones.
Check if any of your neighbours are on LLU services and whether they are affected.

You might try wrapping a wire around your modem cable and feeding it into an audio recorder just in case you could glean further information.

If you can trace your lines back towards the exchange it would be worth seeing if other branches of the distribution network are also affected.

Kind regards,
Walter

[neilgl]

Hi all,
thanks for the suggestions.

Routerstats does not seem to work with BT Home Hub?
I wrote a perl script to automate gathering stats from the Home Hub and create an Excel graph of it.
Thats what shows me the "repeatable pattern", morning and evening. See attached screen shot. (Can do others if needed)
Other graphs show time it was OK over the bank holiday when the "noise source" went on holiday  (and RAMBo caught up at last)

Yes several neighbours are affected. I keep telling the "help desk" (and complaints) that it is a common fault, and I said the same to the three Openreach engineers who have visited my house (one of whom fitted a new master socket to no effect).

I can't talk to BTW directly can I ? (Openreach or REIN engineers)

Latest Help Desk Complaints dept. update yesterday "wait till 6th June" i.e. just what BTW have told them "wait till 6th June" for next update.

On with more radio tests...

Regards,
Neil




[attachment deleted by admin]

[waltergmw]

You can only talk to your ISP and then locally to the Openreach engineers.
If you have a co-operative ISP they can confirm your observations and hit Openreach hard.
Otherwise it's down to giving the Openreach engineers lots of coffee and bacon butties.

Openreach will not officially consider neighbouring connections due to "Regulatory Compliance" issues.
However if you chat up all the neighbours and present the data to your ISP or the local Openreach engineer they might just be persuaded.

Kind regards,
Walter

[Ezzer]

Approximately whats your location ?

[neilgl]

Hi all,
my location is Milton Keynes.

The ISP is BT and they are sort of co-operative in that they say they have "escalated" it to "network engineering".
But they can't get an update from BTW REIN engineers as to exactly what they have done/are  doing/plan to do.

Their chief complaints lady said that was due to deregulation.
I said - surely all ISPs must have SLAs with BTW and documented escalation procedures including corrective action plans?
She said no.

Regards,
Neil

[waltergmw]

I think you will find that all non-LLU ISPs buy services from BT Wholesale who in turn rely on BT openreach to provide "the last mile".

If that is extrapolated BT Retail should be buying from BT Wholesale  who in turn etc.

BT Openreach have a semi-automated administration system (which does occasionally fail). Many faults are fixed in the end by the BT Openreach broadband engineers but if the fault is not resolved then specialists such as Ezzer here are called in as the problem is escalated.

It has to be said that intermittent RF interference tracking can be a very tiresome and time-consuming task. On some occasions it's even more complex where noise is induced in an adjacent pair, possibly some distance away and which is then picked up by your line through crosstalk. If the faulty line does not have a broadband service on it, then the problem could remain on that line for a long time without being detected as the 3 kHz phone will continue to work quite well.

Provided that you can demonstrate the fault to your ISP, and provided they then have both the will and the systems in place to persevere, BT Openreach will usually manage to cure the problem eventually. However it's important to differentiate between a constant badly-perforiming line and an intermittent problem as you have demonstrated. Sadly some of the ISPs do not have the determination necessary and will accept BT Openreach's initial diagnosis (usually that the line is too long). In the final analysis if a line can't be made to synchronise reliably then BT Openreach can walk away using the "No Universal Service Obligation" clause. However in my experience, and with a good ISP, BT Openreach will continue to try every method they can to cure a clearly defined problem.

Kind regards,
Walter

[neilgl]

Hi all,
yes thanks for the update. Does anyone happen to know if any ISPs do actually have Service SLAs (Service Level Agreements) with BTW ?

My line has an intermittent problem - I have various graphs to prove it, and the "line too long"  cannot apply as it was OK for two years before 11th April.
Also I used to have another phone line for BT business broadband 2MB (paid for by the company until 1 yr ago).
That went to the same exchange and was rock steady at 2MB for 3 years (and low evening contention - nice)

Im going to rig up the radio test just now...

Regards,
Neil

[waltergmw]

Hi Neil,

If you buy a leased line then service level agreements can apply. However for any domestic ADSL service with no USO then SLA's would not apply. However your ISP and BT O will usually provide a resolution based upon a  best endeavours basis. If you can demonstrate the evidence then your ISP should be able to report a fault, but just because a line used to be satisfactory is not a contractual reason to demand a repair. If a cable becomes degraded or perhaps has had a pair crossed due to maintenance activities, then you just have to keep politely pressing for a resolution. Hence my suggestion to use a good ISP with fault processing facilities. It is also apparent that foreign call centres can be ill equipped to deal with the matter efficiently especially if they use a scripted procedure without a full understanding of the technical arrangements in place.

Kind regards,
Walter

[silversurfer44]

It is also apparent that foreign call centres can be ill equipped to deal with the matter efficiently especially if they use a scripted procedure without a full understanding of the technical arrangements in place.

My ghast is flabbered.

[neilgl]

Hi all,
the good thing is that they can follow a procedure.
Unfortunately, the procedure seems to be carp. i.e. no-one (UK or foreign) can get a decent response from the monopoly of BTW ?
i.e. what are they actually doing and when.
Regards,
Neil
p.s. I've just been booted from a server as ping was too high >999

[Ezzer]

thereason why i asked your location is that I cover the norfolk area. used to cover a lot more. The REIN team is based in leeds and give me a call if there's a potential issue comming up. They called a few weeks ago and asked if I could look at a task in an area slightly out side my normal patch, supposedly with everything being sorted. (my time is bugeted for the area I cover, if it's out of this area then permission from managers and other stuff needs to be organised) i this case it wasn't and the soft and smelly hit the fan. I've had 2 further calls asking if i could cover a problem which where quite some distance from where I work, I was curious if your one of those areas. in this case no. Although I do know milton keynes a bit as i used to work there for 30 months in a pre bt life.

What you describe sounds like a classic REIN issue. an easy REIN is a source which pops up nice and clear using the radio, the nasty version is where the offending item broadcasts the noise back down the mins so you get the same volume of noise everywhere the source can be anywhere in the area.

Going found with a radio when the problem pops up can be a great help to a REIn engineer. the procceses can be cumbersome to bring about a REIN specific fault from the end users perspective. Once I do get such a fault officialy i have no right to approach a 3rd party if i suspect the problem is comming from their cutladge. but I chance it anyway, usualy people are understanding. As far as I understand ofcom have their own set up where they do have the right to investigate at a 3rd partys curtladge and take action to have the offending item removed but if it gets to this stage  get no feedback myself so I'm not 100% on this point. as all th REIN problems i've come accross where its identified as 3rd party issue they've been ok and understood the issue.

otherwise Walter interesting to read your comment as the one occasion i'm aware of an exchange based REIN issue was at great yarmouth were a dsl card was found to be causing the problem

[neilgl]

Hi all,
thanks for the update.

If it was me I would be out with the spectrum analyzer.

Someone said three houses had had cards put through their doors (16th May) but no answer.

Can it be correct that no-one can officially approach a 3rd party who is causing intereference? (Like broadcasting on reserved frequencies is not allowed)

Regards,
Neil