Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: divybc on December 27, 2016, 01:07:39 AM
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(https://i.gyazo.com/412245a880e438af7607ff5c69b9ad99.png)
Hello guys. I have been wandering this forum for a while and think it's time for a post and would appreciate some advice!
I recently had what I believe is DLM kick in on the line as I was tinkering with a few all in one modem routers.
After that didn't go well, I decided to chase perfection and go with the HG612 which I picked up on Gumtree locally for a fiver!
Got it set up with an Asus RT-AC68U and I got the line stats shown above.
My question is, I was always synced at 80/20 and now as you can see I am down to 73/20. How long is this process of getting pushed back up in experience? What should I avoid doing? Any tips or is it just going to happen in time?
Also, last quick one is that I see I have like 500 and 500 FEC errors there within 2hrs. Looking at these stats and your experiences, would I be quick to get back to my old sync speeds?
Thank you.
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This looks strange to me. You have G.INP applied, so the parameters look fine to me for a line which has it enabled. The FEC errors if I understand correctly are errors that would have occurred, but were prevented by the G.INP. I can't really explain the sudden reduction in sync speed, but I would advise trying to power down your modem for 30 mins, then powering it back on and see what the stats are then. One thing I would note is that the rate of 72998 on the downstream suggests some sort of banding to me may be possible, but I wouldn't know without looking at the stats previous to the HG612 being installed. As you said you had been playing about with other AiO solutions, it may be possible DLM hit you with banding, in which case you may see it fix itself over time (possibly up to a couple of months) or you would require a DLM reset. I would wait for burrakucat or ejs to take a look though, as they have much better insight.
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Thank you for the response.
I do think it's banded due to the amount of restarts I was performing with the AiO kits. As I said, I was on 80/20 for months on end before I had that spell of messing about due to Sky's hub being atrocious for port forwarding, dns changing, not applying dmz correctly, no QoS, poor wifi and the list goes on.
I did enquire to them if they could get me a DLM reset, but I was sure they were going to knock it back and sure they did. They told me OR won't entertain it unless my speeds are way under 60Mb.
I am due a master socket relocation, but Sky told me the engineer is an installer and therefore won't be able to call back to OR for a reset. Guess it's just a waiting game.
As for leaving it of for 30 minutes, I tried this earlier today with no joy, still syncing in at 73.
Any other insight on top of what you said from anyone else is appreciated.
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There are 4 types of engineer from Openreach I believe. General, Broadband, Underground, and REIN. A general Openreach engineer should be able to do a DLM reset, although I am not sure of this, so maybe Black Sheep could give some insight? They do also have contractors, but they are generally only used for either first installs (not sure how often in this case) or on bulk installs on new builds I believe.
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I guess it's a general engineer I'll be getting then.
What's weird is I had an engineer for a supposed fault in the copper joint according to Sky's line test on the 22nd. The engineer was a broadband guy and visited out the blue later that day.
He ran tests at the master socket and found nothing at all, in-fact he said my line is really good. I asked him at this point for a DLM reset and even though he was a really nice guy he told me that as his jobs notes say, he can't reset the DLM unless he has fixed a fault.
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Don't know if anyone could tell me this here, but would I need to disable NAT on the HG612 as it's already enabled on the router? I believe this is known as doubt nat. Correct me if I'm wrong please, bit of a noob at this.
Cheers,
Dave.
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Ignore the above. I am learning some more lol. The router shows my public ip and not a private ip and as the modem is in bridge mode we're all good.
Learn something new every day :D
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Engineers are only allowed to reset DLM when fixing a fault, and I think only specific faults, as I understand DLM resets are only allowed under exceptional circumstances and are monitored, so an engineer requesting one will get in trouble if not done for a good reason.
You still have very good speeds, and have G.INP enabled, I suggest you just enjoy the connection and don't worry about the small drop.
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Thanks for clearing that up Ronski.
I had a resync at 7AM this morning as shown my hg612 stats, supposedly retrain reason 1 which pushed my interleaving to 16/8. It also put me from 73998 sync to 74000 lol.
I guess its slowly working its way back up?
I will try to enjoy my speeds, but I'm so used to seeing over 70 on the speedtests.
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From the downstream snrm of 9.8dB and the exact sync figures, you're line is definitely banded by DLM at 74mb. Constant restarts of multiple modems is exactly the kind of thing that causes banding. Recent experience is that banding by DLM sticks, and requires an on site OpenReach engineer to perform a DLM reset. The engineer will only be able to obtain 74mb while testing at the cabinet so the issue should be easy to diagnose, IF you manage to get an engineer booked. ISP's often won't send an engineer for banded lines if the banding is above your low estimate.
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It's unlikely apart from speed tests that you'll notice any difference, my speed has fluctuated between 38 and 55 in the 4 years I've had it, and recently I took a hit on download dropping from 55 to 48 to gain 2Mbps on the upload (different modems).
Yes there is something odd (as pointed out by John most likely banding), given your attainable and SNRM you should be getting 80/20, but for 6Mbps it's really not worth the hassle trying to get it sorted out, given time it may sort it's self out. As long as it doesn't get worse just sit back and enjoy, it's far to easy to get fixated on these things.
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There are different types of banding - as DLM is resyncing the line to a slightly higher speed and quoting a retrain reason 1 - I would leave the line alone for a few weeks..
With the more permanent type of banding the sync speed would never increase after a retrain.
No real point asking for an engineer - unless you want to risk the possibility of a charge as BT engineers have been told not to carry out DLM resets unless they find and fix a fault.
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Appreciate all the replies guys. Really helpful info and makes a lot of sense.
The thing I was told with Sky is that as I am in contract I will never pay for an engineer if they send them out. As mentioned by John I guess if he tested 74 at the CAB then he should be able to get away with doing it.
It may all work out tomorrow as I am due some type of engineer for a socket relocation. If it retrained at 7AM and put it up a little bit, it may in time just do it itself as mentioned.
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Why would anyone bother with going to the cab to test the speed there? Anyone can see it's banded from the profile reported in the line test results.
I thought some ISPs had their own engineers or contractors to do internal and master socket work, so you might not even get an Openreach engineer.
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I mean I guess that's true, but I will see what happens.
If it's not openreach doing the work tomorrow then I guess I'm not too bothered. I was just hoping for a little more insight which you guys have given me.
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I've just had a read through of this thread and everything appears to have been covered. :)
Like ejs, I understand that ISPs/CPs can now have their own staff trained to perform NTE5 repositioning, rewiring of the incoming service feed and other such simple tasks, etc.
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Yep, turns out you're all right. It will be a Qube engineer tomorrow.
Hopefully the person does a nice, tidy job.
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Just a little update for you guys. Qube guy showed up, told me he cant do the job next minute he just start doing it anyway. He also said he has no idea why he was here and had no job notes.
During the job he mistaked a virgin line for the bt line, he blew a hole in the top of my wall about 15CM for a phone cable to go thru, he walked into my cabinet which had my new rtac68u on it and it fell and snapped 2 antennas off and finally left the old master with all wires hanging out along with a hell of a lot of dust cleaning for me to do!
Phoned Sky, supposedly need to wait till tomorrow till the MSR team review my case/job.
Not thrilled to say the least.
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wow what a failure of a job :(
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Sorry to hear that, hopefully it hasn't had a negative effect on your broadband. This is exactly the reason I will do most jobs myself.
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Qube guy showed up, . . .
To date, I have not been aware of any significant complaints about Qube (http://www.qubegb.com/) "engineers" but after reading your catalogue of damage/disasters, I think I'll have to regards Qube "engineers" in the same way that I regard operatives from M J Quinn and Kelly Communications.
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No negative affect on BB speed or max attainable on the line so I guess thats the only plus.
For the 3 hours he was here 3 things need to be put right. My router that was damaged, the hole and damage to my room wall and the wiring that is just hanging out of the old socket space.
I will update you guys later when Sky call to review the job.
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Sky called. Escalated to a complaint team and no time frame on a call back from them as they have no inbound number...
What an absolute mess this is in my opinion. I may have to get this all resolved and part ways with Sky :(
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Just a little update for you guys and another question if anyone can answer it.
I have managed to get a refund on my AC68U so that is solved!
As for the hole in the wall, they sent a Q&A guy out who was shocked and they are going to have that repaired on them. He also covered up the old MS with a blank faceplate. So I would say problem nearly solved!
Now, here is my question if you don't mind giving your input... It's appreciated once again.
I have the Sky Hub SR102 which I'm pretty sure you guys know is damn awful on WiFi, no dual band and so on (the list goes on).
I can either stick with it, go all-in-one again which caused my DLM problems in the first place due to them resetting after certain actions (they are now solved, back on 80/20) or I do have a HG612 3b which I am thinking of buying an RT-N66U to pair with this. My issue here is, the OR modem seems to report 151 errors and so many other error counters as soon as it gains sync. I am wondering if that is a GUI bug and if so, can this cause retrains by the DLM?
If someone could recommend me the best in their opinion setup then please do as I am tired of messing around with stuff now. All in One? If so, which solution? Or the HG612 (bear in mind what I said above) paired with another router?
Thank you! You guys are really helpful here.
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Personally if you are planning to stick with Sky I would go separates. If you want to use sky Ipv6 as well you need to choose a router that will support both sky's login requirements and ipv6 requirements. There aren't many that will support both out the box.
Probably worth having a look at skyuser.co.uk to get a feel of what people are using these days for all in ones..
I myself use 3 devices but that's just me. My old asus is now my access point.
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Would the RT-N66U support Skys IPv6? I know it supports Sky's authentication by using Merlin, just not sure how I could set up the IPv6 part.
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My rt-ac88u would not support it properly with merlin. Even with a modified merlin it was still problematic so I jumped over to pfsense which works fine for both requirements. I am not sure about the 66u I'm afraid.
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Would I see any advantages over using IPv6? I have just bought the 66u, but it's still sealed so can return. Not sure about pfsense, seen a load of people mention it on Sky, but not clued up.
(https://i.gyazo.com/b72aea6131c98e05c929966fe84deaed.png)
I take it that it will be the same settings as these? This guy seems to have it working.
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it will work but the issues with asuswrt with sky is maintaining the prefix between reboots/disconnections. So you will have working connectivity but the code is not fully compatible with the system sky use to make prefixes sticky.
Note sky are sticking to proper RFC standards and the issue is with asus not (as well as other manufacturers).
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Also I would prefer to be reliant on pfsense for updates rather than a firmware that has been modified by one individual. No advantage now but probably be needed one day (ipv6..)
I use stock pfsense auto install, no tweakimg. Very easy to setup and install. Configuring is easy for sky stuff...
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Cheers for the replies. I am aware now that it has issues.
@Skyeci
Can you PM me to get me started with pfsense please? Literally know zilch about it. I would appreciate it.
Cheers.
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There's a few current build threads on here for Pfsense.
Mine: http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,18987.0.html
Chrysalis: http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,18944.0.html
Chunkers: http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,18985.0.html
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Thanks for that Ronski. I have started to look into this although I seem to have my 66u running ipv6 no problems on a fork of merlin all thanks to @Skyeci.
(https://i.gyazo.com/639abae81268321f21c47271c0a8c5bb.png)
These are the stats I am seeing now after all the wiring redone from the inside and the master back to it's original location. Do you think I'll keep my interleaving turned off :P?
Just thought I'd let you guys know, the only issue that remained with qube was the hole in the wall and they have offered £75 pound bank transfer for me to get that sorted as they have no one who can work on brickwork.
Thanks for all the help and info guys, looking like it is all sorted now.
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your welcome.. Lucky you with lovely stats.. can only dream of a sync of 79mb... You still have headroom as well. Jam on! - vdsl envy!
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I can't complain really, but I am having some spikes of painfully slow loading on the net. Every time I have these spikes, I note the HEC errors are jumping quite a bit too.
Can anyone enlighten to me what causes these errors or why this may be happening?
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Probably worth setting up tbb ping monitor if poss. See what your latency is like and will show spikes etc..
Also what dns servers are you using. If you can specify them manually on the Asus for the wan port try changing them to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220,
Can you replicate the issue with a hard wired device etc..
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I am running open dns so we're all good there.
Also, this is with a hardwired pc and a wireless s7.
Thanks,
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(https://i.gyazo.com/c8bf37dbb243ef983d9487317389f12c.png)
Had a retrain this morning, seem to have improved the HEC errors.
By looking at these new stats in the last 4 hours or so, would you say there is any cause for concern or chances that I may be banded again?
Essentially what I am asking is does DLM take FEC errors into consideration or only ES and CRC's?
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No need to worry about FECs, at one time I was getting millions a minute for weeks on end, haven't seen that level for a long time now.
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I regularly get 50,000+ FEC's per min when my main crosstalker is connected. DLM only looks at ES & resyncs. It doesn't count CRC either.
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Essentially what I am asking is does DLM take FEC errors into consideration or only ES and CRC's?
The simple "rule of thumb" (or paw!) is to regards FECs as CRCs that never happened due to the intervention of the error correcting mechanism.
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That makes sense.
Thank you. I guess I shouldn't be seeing any re-sync's if my stats continue this way. They actually look pretty decent after researching most of the things online, including the help from yourselves.