Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: notfes53 on February 18, 2007, 01:14:56 AM
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:wall: I've been telephoning the BT call centre and have made it though as far as line faults!
Please see the attached log that I've been keeping.
I followed the advice and connected- via a BT supplied filter - to the test socket behind my adsl faceplate splitter which was fitted by BT in 2000 when I first become a BT broadband customer on Home 500. I've never had any extensions at this socket. I don't have any virus or adware problems.
I now seem to be back where I started with a < 500kbps service again - despite being on BT's option 3 (up to 8MB), and having previously enjoyed download speeds between 3000kbps and 3800kbps.
Despite having been connected non-stop since reconnecting via the test socket on Wednesday 14th Feb, my stats appear to show less on-going connection time.
Is any training happening?
Why is my line stuck on an IP profile of 500?
How come my sync rate has been over 3500 this week, but has now seemingly settled at 800?
I've delayed calling back to the BT help desk until I can see three continuous days of connection time in my stats.
Please can anyone advise me what to say to BT, and what to ask for based upon my stats?
Thanks, Steve
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Hi Steve,
The easy question first: your IP profile is 500 because your router is syncing at 800. The more difficult one is to explain the big reduction in sync speed. Possible explanations are:
- a defective filter
- a telephone line fault
- a major source of local interference
If there really are no extensions wired from the master socket then you might as well put the faceplate back and connect to the normal outside socket. Then if you've got a different filter to try this would be an easy check to make.
Do you hear any crackling or other noises on the telephone? If this continues with the router disconnected then report it to BT as a voice fault (phone 150). If it disappears when the router is disconnected then you've probably got a defective filter.
Are you aware of any local sources of interference? Any electrical machine could be causing the problem; exercise treadmills are becoming a bit notorious, for example.
Eric
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Eric,
Thanks for your response and suggestions.
1) First, I'll disconnect my BT Home Hub from the "trailing adsl filter", then afix the BT master socket faceplate and plug in to the front of it - thereby utilising the integrated filter in my BT master socket. I'm assuming that I don't need to use another external mini filter - I'd never had any of these from BT until the BT Home Hub was supplied.
2) AFAIK there are no (new) sources of electrical intereference in the house/vicinity. We know most of our neighbours quite well, but couldn't swear to what appliances they all use! :-[. I think that we are the only family with a treadmill in our road, but it's currently covered with boxes and other garage junk, and definitley not running at the moment!
3) The line sounds clear, It hasn't always sounded as clear as it does now. But this is complicated by the fact that it has a DECT telephone base unit attached, with another two slave DECT units connecting to it wirelessly from other parts of the house, so we've never been quite sure if any previous line noise was internal (DECT-related) or external (BT line-related). This is our secondary phone line which we ambitiously call our business line, as my wife uses it for receiving calls for her Childrens' Party business. I think I might put a divert on to it to her mobile so that calls are re-directed by the BT network, so that we don't have to use these DECT phones at all.
I really am mystified as to why my sync speed has dropped so dramatically. Hopefully it's all to do with my following the call centre advice!
One further point. I used to be on BT BB Option 4. Around September/October of last year we received an email warning us that we were well over the soft cap of 40GB per month (we were close to 100GB). I have two teenagers - one of each - aged 17 and 18. They are into music and films. (I also like to watch some TV shows without adverts - a bit!) Around the same time I also received an email informing me that my service would be migrated to BT Total Broadband Option 3 (uncapped) - their new top package. Within days I also received an email from BT billing me for excess usage over the 40GB cap, in the most recent month. Fortunately, when I explained to BT customer service that I had been confused by their migration email, thinking I was now on unlimited usage, the supervisor to whom the case was referred agreed to waive my only-ever usage charge.
Could it be that my account has been flagged somehow to teach us all a lesson owing to our previous heavy usage. The trouble is that the new slow speed we've been getting has not been selective, i.e. does not just slow down p2p and, in any case, we have not been using bandwidth intensive applications this week. Any thoughts?
Anyway, I'm now going to implement the suggested master socket re-connection, and will see what happens and then post back the results here.
Thanks for your help., Steve
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Wow! :D
BT Speedtester:
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 500 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 2784 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 452 kbps
Our house is only 85m from the exchange. The exchange is 'Green' on the PlusNet d/b, so I'm still rather disappointed about the downstream performance. :'(
How does my attenuation and S/N margin look? Considering how close I am to the exchange is there any way that I can get BT to look at my line and check connections etc?
BT Home Hub ADSL stats:
Uptime: 0 days, 0:01:36
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,784
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [KB/KB]: 250.00 / 334.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 15.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 33.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 7 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 270 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 54
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
I'll do three more days of monitoring again - at different times to see if my IP profile responds to the big increase in my sync speed now that I've eliminated the micro-filter and gone back to connecting directly to the BT ADSL faceplate. I'm glad that I don't have to brave the helpful people at the BT call centre again today!
I hope that my d/l sync speed might improve too, but am aware that this may well fluctuate
Is there anything else I should be doing/avoiding or looking out for?
I'm hoping that the BT exchange will now automatically ease my line back up to a higher IP profile.
Regards, Steve
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That's truly terrible performance for the attenuation you have. You should be up near the maximum 8 Mbps sync speed. If you're using a filtered faceplate then that's about as good as you can make it, and it suggests that the fault is external. I think it's got to be a line fault, so you don't have much option other than to nag BT. :(
Eric
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Hi Eric,
Well that's interesting. I just didn't know if my adsl line stats were up to much.
By coincidence - when you were posting your reply - BT's offshore call centre called me and made an appointment for a BT engineer to come to my house - A RESULT! ;D
Next Thursday. 22nd Feb
I'll show him my stats, so if you can just prime me with a few specific key things to say, or point out, I'd be most grateful.
Thanks again - this forum has to be one of the most switched on and responsive I've ever used. I shall endeavour to contribute in some area a.s.a.p.
Cheers, Steve
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Hi Steve and welcome :)
I'd also expect you to be getting higher speeds for your attenuation -
Eric has already covered the main points regarding this so Ive nothing further to add on those points.
Couple of minor things to clear up.
No it wont have anything to do with your usage - The speed you sync to the exchange at is negiotiated between your router and the dslam at the exchange. Therefore the problem is somewhere/anywhere between the exchange and in your home.
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Having had a quick look at the pdf - it seems that you are quite often syncing at 800 and as eric has already said - this is what is limiting your speeds to 500k.
It takes around 3 days of syncing at the higher speeds before your IP profile (and therefore throughput speed) increases.
Although things look okish right now at 2784 (still a bit low), as soon as you get a lower sync speed, your throughput speed is once again going to be limited. :/
You certainly need to point out the frequent 800 syncs to the BT engineer when he comes.
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Thanks Kitz :)
I'm looking forward to Thursday - and will keep up the adsl line stats log between now and then.
Plus I'll let everyone know what the BT engineer has to say....
Cheers, Steve
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Good luck and please do let us know how it goes :)
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First part of morning spent in eager anticipation of BT engineer call :o
BT Broadband's India call centre had made the appointment, at the weekend, giving me a slot of 8.00 to 10.30 on Wednesday (yesterday), but I asked them to make it Thursday (today) as I thought I'd be out yesterday.
- AT 10.40 today no engineer had arrived. I tried calling BT on 0800 800 151 to see if I could be put through to despatch, however that number only deals with PSTN (public voice network), so no option but to call BT Broadband's offshore call centre. At least I now have an 0800 number to call - 0800 7318578.
- Nice gentleman in call centre then keeps me on the line whilst he makes a call back to the UK - to figure out with UK despatch why my engineer is a no-show. He stayed with me for 35 minutes whilst he himself was held in a queue. He kept me informed all the time and apologised for the delay. Well, at least it was on an 0800 number and I got on with some work.
- After 35 minutes he informs me that the service time slot was correctly booked on BT's system, but that despatch had failed to inform the engineer in the field about my appointment!
- Within an hour an apologetic engineer turns up from BT Openreach. He explains that his sole responsibility is to test the service at the master socket - using his own ADSL equipment and laptop. Apparently all the engineers were in a meeting this morning and no call slots should have been available on the system.
What sound does a "passing buck" make...?
OK, now we're in business:
I sit the engineer down and show him my ADSL connection log. He asks what type of router I have - "is it the white one?", "Yes", I say, "Oh", he says. There's a pause whilst he looks at some of the service calls in his notebook. He points out one where the same BT Home Hub is involved. Mutters.
Now, for a few days I've at least been syncing at about 3000 to 3500kb/s, but my IP profile has stuck resolutely at 500 - except for one short period within the last 24 hours when the IP profile went up in 2 stages - once to 2000kbps and then briefly to 2500 kbps - with attendant rises in d/l throughput speeds to match.
However in honour of the BT engineer's visit my line has started to sync at 786kb/s, and my IP profile has returned to 500kbps. "Oh", says the BT engineer, that's because it's capped, because there's a fault on the line. Also the S/N Margin is now floating around 16dB.
Er.... What? What's this cap he's talking about? I try to ask him to elucidate, but he changes the subject. As for the S/N Margin he informs me (I assume correctly) that with fixed rate services, the higher the S/N margin the better, but with adslMax, the lower the S/N margin the better - he's looking for around 6dB to be happy.
I show him the log, and explain that my sync speeds (and, even my IP profile speeds) have been much higher, briefly, and "Doesn't that prove that the fault is external to my house?" No, he doesn’t think that the problem is external.
He connects his equipment, and hey presto, it syncs at over 3000kb/s
He connects my BT Home Hub and, conveniently, it is still syncing at 786.
I asked him if my attenuation of 33dB was a bit high for my very close proximity to the BT Exchange. Although My house is 85m to the exchange - as the crow flies, the cables don't take the shortest route - it turns out that, with the detour, there is about 600m of copper and/or aluminium between my master socket and the exchange. He tells me that he's seen much higher attenuation.
He's apparently not permitted to tell me that my service provider's equipment is the guilty link in the chain (i.e. crap) - but, nevertheless, that is my clear inference. Engineer mentions in passing about 5 or 6 BT Home Hubs that he's attended to which 'might' have similar issues - only he's not allowed to say 'officially'. Yes, this is something that I must take up with my service provider - BT Broadband.
As far as BT Openreach's engineer is concerned, my ADSL line has tested out OK at the master socket. This is despite me having a detailed log showing various sync speeds over the last week. So is the variation in sync speed the fault of my router, after all??
Before he leaves the house, and I telephone BT Broadband customer service I do a soft re-start of my BT Home Hub from my browser. It now decides to sync at 2848kbps. Only I'm again left with an IP profile of 500kbps (which is what I think the BT Openreach engineer means when he says my line is capped because I have a fault - i.e. in his opinion, a fault with my router.)
So my throughput d/l speed is now in the 400's again. Message from engineer - not his fault, and it will take time for the BT exchange to respond to my better sync speed.
"How was it for me?"
He leaves - a happy man; I'm left perplexed. I have that uneasy feeling that you get when you're wondering if you've just been 'had', but you don't know enough to be sure one way or the other.
I suppose that, having made a complaint to BT Broadband about my service, I was not really expecting someone to come round to say his half of the circuit was OK, but my service provider's part probably wasn't, and there was nothing he could do about it.
£27.99 per month and I'm not getting what I'm paying for and no-one is taking the blame yet!!
You have to laugh :lol: - and then you cry :'(
any recommendations as to where we go next?
Thanks, Steve
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I see you're still having fun then, Steve. :)
However in honour of the BT engineer's visit my line has started to sync at 786kb/s, and my IP profile has returned to 500kbps. "Oh", says the BT engineer, that's because it's capped, because there's a fault on the line. Also the S/N Margin is now floating around 16dB.
Er.... What? What's this cap he's talking about? I try to ask him to elucidate, but he changes the subject. As for the S/N Margin he informs me (I assume correctly) that with fixed rate services, the higher the S/N margin the better, but with adslMax, the lower the S/N margin the better - he's looking for around 6dB to be happy.
There's no cap which will cause the router to sync at a lower speed than it otherwise would. The IP profile is effectively a cap on the throughput, so I suppose that's what he meant. It's a function of the lowest sync speed over the previous three days, so you need to sync consistently at a higher speed for a further three days before the IP profile will go back up.
As far as noise margin is concerned, a higher value is always better as far as stability is concerned. But with Max the speed you get is related to a target noise margin, which is set at 6dB initially - the router will sync at the highest speed it can for that noise margin. If the connection proves to be unstable, then the exchange equipment will increase the target noise margin for better stability, which will have the effect of a lower sync speed. So what the engineer said is sort of right, but he didn't put it very well. The 16 dB-ish noise margin which you got could be the result of this margin increase process, but it could also mean that a transient noise problem on the line caused the router to sync at a low speed, and when the transient problem went away it left the router at a low speed and a high noise margin.
I think the next stage is for you to beg, borrow or steal a different ADSL router and try that. The Home Hub could be the problem, and this would test it for you.
Eric
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:clap: Eric - Thanks for the response and support!
It just so happens that BT had sent me two Home Hubs in error. I have a pre-paid bag in which I can return the surplus hub. I've taken your advice and plugged in the spare
Here is my latest set of stats:
DSL Connection
Link Information
IP profile for your line is - 500kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 454 kbps
Uptime: 0 days, 0:20:38
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 3,776
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [KB/MB]: 852.00 / 7.19
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 17.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 8.0 / 33.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 15.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 36 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 296,118
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 3,500
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 3,194
I'm going to carry on maintaining a log, and sit tight for a few days, hoping that my sync speed stays where it is or improves, and that my IP profile eventually re-sets itself to something much faster.
Keep you posted on progress with my back-up home hub.
Thanks, Steve
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Here's hoping it stays that way. :thumbs:
Eric
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I have also been told on ADSLmax that the lower the SNR margin the better.
Indeed I agree this is mis-information to the extent that you get a higher sync rate the lower the margin is, but of course as we know this needs a decent margin in the first on top of which is set the target margin (the lower this is, the higher the attainable rate).
I have noticed our Home Hub SNR margin hangs around 9.0dB which I guess is our target margin. We have interleaving, maximum register-able attenuation and presently a maximum downstream on the Home Hub of 1248K.
I have noticed that the older BT Voyager routers, like many routers out there, seem to squeeze a bit more out and could get 1.4meg with 9dB margin. of course, the USB modem goes for gold and produced 1.7meg with only a few dB of margin.
Unfortunately Openreach engineers for the most part aren't completely up to speed on the workings of ADSL or at least have problems explaining these to the customer. However it does seem ADSL is a confusing technology and where you have a perfect voice service your mini hifi system or treadmill can be the spanner in the works.
I can't quite understand how those devices interfere with ADSL? Is it electromagnetic or whatever? Even more odd is how it gets on the line and if it affects the line or the equipment directly. It would be interested to know if RFI filters (such as the BT Block 80 RF3) filters would have any effect.
On a final note I noticed that if the Home hub drops out, it often goes for a far lower rate. I have accidently unplugged the line cord a couple of times and it has come back up at around 448k downstream. This then knocks the IP profile down to 250K for a few days! Whereas if you power off and power on, it normally goes back to a nice higher speed.
Note: I am not overly fussy about my broadband and don't make mountains out of molehills e.i. i wouldn't throw a hissy fit because i can only download at 5000kbps on my 8meg line.
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Sorry was making a long post this afternoon and my lappy crashed - lost the post and didnt get chance to re-do it till now :(
Since then eric and soms have covered most of it anyhow, but a couple of things I was typing........
I can see where the engineer is coming from with his comments - particulary when he plugs in his kit and gets 3000 and yours is only showing 786.
I do try not to diss certain kit, because the HH does work very well for lots of people, but I have seen several instances where the old frog and voyager 105 USB modems work better on MAX lines than the HH. So yes the variation could possibly be your HH... having now seen your later post.. really does makes you wonder if there are good and bad batches of them?
>> if my attenuation of 33dB was a bit high [snip] there is about 600m of copper and/or aluminium between my master socket and the exchange. He tells me that he's seen much higher attenuation.
Very possible, the engineer will obviously know the area, and which areas are problematic due to aluminium on the line. This unfortunately is something of a problem through out various areas in the UK. BT arent concerned about this as long as the line works due to the huge expense of re-laying new lines. :/
>> that's because it's capped
I too assume he means that restricted due to your IP profile :/
>> As for the S/N Margin he informs me (I assume correctly) that with fixed rate services, the higher the S/N margin the better, but with adslMax, the lower the S/N margin the better - he's looking for around 6dB to be happy.
Its true that with fixed rate services the higher the SNR Margin the better... but the same also applies to Max. With traditional fixed products lines could become problematic when the SNR Margin dropped below 10dB.. with maxdsl problems tend to start to occur at below 6dB, although there are several routers that can and do hang on below this figure.
Basically 6dB is the typical Target SNR at which your router will try and sync to the exchange at.
If you want more info theres an explanation of SNR and SNR Margin (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm).
Roseway also made a good post here (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=147.0).
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Hi
In respect to Soms queries about where the interference comes from, I have theory as I've never been able to get a BT engineer to actually tell me exactly how REIN interferes with ADSL (from experience RFI filters seem to be preventing DSL from working completely in most cases BTW);
First let me say i'm not an electrician by any stretch of the imagination, but from what I remember voltage transformers (such as the 240->12v converter you'd get in a high-fi) work by passing a primary coil onto a circular or square magnet, and the output voltage is generated via magnetic force via a secondary coil. I believe in some PSU's this EMF bleeds out and interferes with the data flow required for DSL communications. I've also noticed that Dimmer switches (especially those on 12v lighting) produce the same result. With treadmils I believe the interference is again Electomagnetic in nature but more likely caused by the Motor driving the belt.
Interestingly though I've found a use for this...My faulty Nokia charger will without fail knock out ADSL on both sides of my house when my nice neigbours refuse to turn the volume down during all-night gaming marathons :D
Rgds
Havelock
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:lol:
Youre baaaaaaaad
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To quote Jessica Rabbit:
"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way"
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Nice one :lol:
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600m of cable should still not give you an attenuation of 33dB. I'm about 3km from the exchange and my attenuation is 37dB.
Before BT removed the line length test from public consumption, Kitz's line was measured at about 800m (correct me if i'm wrong kitz), and her attenuation is 7dB!
So there's obviously something going on... getting BT to believe it is another matter though.
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>> Kitz's line was measured at about 800m (correct me if i'm wrong kitz), and her attenuation is 7dB!
Yep your right, although Im about 120m straight line - the line length is 783 meters with 7dB attenuation.
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Another call to India resulted in Line Faults calling me back and offering a further engineer visit. They are keeping the file open for at least another three days.
It appears that the latest genetleman at the BT call centre line faults department spoke to BT in the UK and they think I should be getting up to 6.5mbps, as opposed to between 3.0 and 3.5.
:dance: - I'll believe that when I see it!!
My estimate of 600m does follow the route that the engineer detailed. Its effectively going almost all of the long way around a square with lengths of 160m on each side, when I live just over half way along a side that's attached to the exchange at a corner of the square, and the short route would have been 85m! (sorry that this explanation is so wordy) - it just adds to the frustration!
Even at 600m, what sort of attenuation range should we see if we've got relatively good copper all the way?
Is the max d/l synch rate determined partly by attenuation, and partly by signal to noise? Is it possible to construct a simple matrix showing attenuation bands from low to high on one axis and a rising scale of S/N values on the other axis, and predict synch rates in the boxes - even if it's only theoretical?
Finally is 'interferece' just going to affect S/N or can it affect another measurement too? or does that depend on how 'interference' is defined?
p.s. just a thought: I have a separate business line supplied by my employer, and I've requested to have Broadband on that line too, to save dialling in and then tieing up the voice line. If/when it is supplied it will be interesting to see whether the stats are indistinguishable or not. The line has a much more recently installed master socket and it's very own cable from the top of our local telegraph pole!
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> Even at 600m, what sort of attenuation range should we see if we've got relatively good copper all the way?
Probably about 5 - 6 dB, and a lot of envious people.
Max download sync rate is determined solely by the SNR margin. Attenuation is line loss, and remains the same regardless of what speed you sync at. SNR margin is affected more by interference, quality of the copper, etc..
Because higher sync speeds use higher frequencies, they are more prone to interference, and SNR isn't as great. Max DSL works by setting a target SNR margin, e.g. 6dB, that means your line will sync at the highest rate it can achieve whilst keeping the SNR margin above 6dB.
So to try and answer your question, an attenuation vs SNR graph would be difficult, you'd have to define a variable as a constant i.e. sync speed.
What someone has tried to do is a graph of attenuation vs achievable sync speed.. I would imagine target SNR margin is defined at 6dB. Note it's very rough, and assumes good quality cable along the whole route, but you can see, even with 33dB attenuation you should be getting close enough to 8Mb, which is consistent with what I would have expected anyway.
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2F6%2F65%2FADSL_Line_Rate_Attenuation.gif&hash=e0c0a62c0403a67bef38bc8c9fd9234f29bc142f)
Image from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.DMT)
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from experience RFI filters seem to be preventing DSL from working completely in most cases BTW
There are different versions of the RF filters. hardwired BT ones come in the form of a block 80 varient (screw terminals to IDC connectors) with the addition of a set of inductors to filter RFI on the A and B terminals.
The block 80 RF and RF2 filters do stop ADSL from working properly, however the more recent RF3 filters are fully ADSL compatible.
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Cheers Soms...something I didn't know. I Should really go look at PSTN equipment myself. In most cases BTwholesale don't tell ISP's (or at least their helpdesks) when there are new introductions of PSTN hardware even if it is Broadband affecting...
Havelock
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Well, it's been a week now. No more contact with BT/engineers, but my speeds have slowly climbed:
Today's speed test and stats:
IP profile for your line is - 4000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 4832 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 3684 kbps
I'm now syncing at 4832 = almost 4000 up on my low point a week ago
Uptime: 2 days, 6:26:09
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 4,832
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [GB/GB]: 8.20 / 10.01
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 15.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 22.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 16.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 3 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 422 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 510,514
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
However - the biggest change has to be the Attenuation. It has suddenly improved from 33dB to 22dB - without me making any changes in the house at all. Perhaps BTw or BT Openreach have done something to my line without my knowledge. And the S/N Margin is even showing a shade better on the above stats. It was always either 6.0 or 6.5 previously.
I don't know if there's any margin for further improvement. From the graph posted by Mr Chris it does seem as though I should be able to get even higher speeds - but noise may be the limiting factor.
I wonder what can have happened, and whether there is anyone that I can call to find out how they've made the improvements? I also wonder if any further 'complaint' will even get a response?
Thanks for all the support to date - Steve
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That big reduction in attenuation means that either a line fault has been repaired or they've connected you to a different line pair which follows a shorter route. Whatever the reason, it's definitely good news!
The small change in noise margin when you took the reading doesn't mean anything - the target noise margin (6 dB by default) is the starting point when the router syncs with the exchange, and it will sync at the best speed it can consistent with that noise margin. After that the margin will drift up and down a bit as interference conditions change.
You probably won't get BT to admit that they've done anything - it's not unusual for connections to improve after a complaint, even though BT say that they haven't changed anything. I think I would just keep quiet and see how it goes.
However you should really be getting a faster sync speed for that attenuation. I haven't checked back over all the messages in the thread, but have you done all you can locally to improve your internal wiring and filtering arrangements?
Eric
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Hi Eric, et al
Spoke too soon!! :o
Attenuation gone back from 22dB to 31dB
IP profile dropped from 4000kbps to 1500kbps
Sync dropped from 4832kbps to 1856kbps
D/s throughput dropped from 3715kbps to 1392kbps
Back on the phone to BT - going through to Line Faults.
Will update asap - Steve
UPDATE:
Lovely lady in BTBB Line Faults has promised to get another engineer around to my house.
This morning Royal Mail delivered me a new CISCO 837 ADSL router for my business line, courtesy of my employer. Once I have that up and running and the line activated I cannot wait to see if there are any differences in the statistics!
Any experience of/views on that router as compared to the BT Home Hub??
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>> Attenuation gone back from 22dB to 31dB
Wonder if this perhaps ties in with some heavy rain? - water/underground cables then it gets better as the weather clears?
>> new CISCO 837 ADSL
very nice :) cant give you a personal opinion since I think they are normally out of most peoples price range. From the comments I have seen, users seem to think they are the dogs danglies, but Ive heard they are a bit more complicated to configure.