@ Black Sheep,
In your experience, does attenuation generally tend to increase during warm, dry weather anyway?
I couldn't see my connection stats last summer, but that was when the problems started (21st July onward).
I didn't seem to do quite as badly during the wet & cold winter months (November until the very recent warm & dry spell).
Paul.
Hi BE, BE here
Being quite OCD with my (currently ADSL line but soon to be fibre !), I monitor my stats all the time. I have to say, I have never seen my attenuation vary at all, but then given that loop loss is approx 13.5dB per Km of cable, the line would have to increase by 800 metres to increase the attenuation by 1dB. Obviously, this ain't gonna happen !!
In spite of the higher frequencies in use by VDSL, I would hazard that the general principle is the same and that attn should not vary, or not by any significant amount anyway. Therefore, I would lean towards the 'dodgy joint' scenario in your particular case. Now, given that you say it is worse in
warm weather, I would tend to think it is overhead rather than underground. Underground I would have thought would have been more susceptible to water ingress during bad weather rather than affected by heat. Heat would, to my mind anyway, expand a joint slightly and this
could be enough to affect the attn. I've seen this scenario often enough in the field I work in, where a bad solder joint can be perfectly conductive at 10c yet not at 25c. A can of freezer spray can prove an invaluable tool !!
All this though is based on ADSL systems and observations of many lines. It may or may not apply to VDSL. When my line is finally VDSL'd (5th April), I may be able to help you further (assuming that I get the Huawei modem
)
Best wishes
Blackeagle