Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: waltergmw on May 17, 2013, 12:37:46 AM
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Gentlefolk,
This is another "Are you sitting comfortably ?" story of little technical merit but of overwhelming importance particularly to VDSL users.
{Pace BS - this investigation shows quite definitely, as one of the very first in Ewhurst, that a very well meaning Openreach engineer of some significant experience had been dropped in it from a great hight without the slightest understanding of the implications of the much higher frequency / bandwidth requirements concerning installation practices. Furthermore, like many installations, it had been engineered to solve the specific needs of the EU with an unusual solution. The quandary the engineer and I had to solve was the minimum disturbance to the wiring arrangements and the decorations within the house.}
I had spent some time recently meandering amongst the Ewhurst worthies and came across IP Profiles (AKA bRAS figures in as much that they show identical figures).
When you have done this a few hundreds of times, some figures shout at you that all is not well with that particular service, or in this case a pair of services. When you see an IP profile of 14.52, and then apply BE's magic 96.79% factor, you obtain quite incriminating evidence that DLM has done its dastardly deed and permanently capped the service with a sync speed of 15 Mbps.
It was the first time I'd been invited into this particular house which is one of about 50 on a small recent development all built to the same basic design. The initial obstacle is that the developer laid ducts and BT very nicely provided BT66 boxes outside each house which feed the master socket right behind the front door but only sometimes with a single 13A power socket - i.e. just about the pessimum arrangement for anybody using the telephone. The result is that all these houses have slave sockets liberally spread about in far more convenient places. Now add the fantastic modern ADSL services; so where to mount the modem and then the computer ? But last November along comes the sparkly meteoric "Infinity" solution which, at a stroke, solves every maidens' prayer !!
That is until the the hapless uninitiated Openreach engineer arrives with the modem and HH3. He quite definitely did his best and the EU was overjoyed after he left as his speed had jumped from 3 Mbps to an astronomic figure for a few hours a bit less than the 41.1 Mbps promised by the BT Wholesale checker, whist it was being watched, but settles just under 15 after the customary training period.
So I arrive to a horrible birds-nest which takes some time to evaluate. The Master socket still has the correct incoming blue pair connection but the lower faceplate contains three sets of twisted pairs, all everywhere with the bell wires still connected feeding a total of 3 slave sockets and now a new master socket in the upstairs home office. The green pair of the incoming cable is fed back down to the BT 66 and then via standard external grade BT cable all round the outside of the house to the upstairs rear office now fitted with the correct SSFP arrangement. (Orange / white for the main A & B pair and green for the bell wire fed directly through to pin 3 of the lower front plate.). One other 2 pr cable just feeds the slave socket in the living room whilst a standard 3 Pr goes upstairs to the bedroom socket and then downstairs to the kitchen socket. Every one of these connections still include the bell wire. Little surprise that the service struggles along at under 15 Mbps.
The next problem is that the first master socket had captive nuts which just rotate so it was a demolition job even to dismantle it. Fortunately a very generous engineer, from an entirely different location, had provided me with a complete spare SSFP. I had little choice but to segregate the internal pairs connecting the green VDSL pair to the correct filtered output IDC with the other two into the lower faceplate. Upstairs in the rear office I removed that SSFP entirely and substituted a non-standard single RJ11 socket feeding just the modem. It remains to be seen how well this will perform in practice, but it is almost certainly a far better VDSL solution.
Now to get the cap removed taking about 3/4 hour to get the process rolling. Screen pictures of the BT Wholesale VDSL estimate and a horrible red worm on the BT speed test indicate that there's something rotten in the State of ....
More about that on-line chat conversation can be seen here:-
http://www.ewhurst-broadband.org.uk/?p=2281&cpage=1#comment-722
However the quite inexcusable fault process has been specifically designed for a "Tick-Box" approach for those within the organisation which is utterly bewildering for the uninitiated EU. What possible excuse can there be for the "track a fault" to announce immediately that the fault has been cleared ? Follow that with the slightly more detailed fault stating twice "Your fault should now be fixed" but then adding “Further diagnostic investigations are currently taking place. We will contact you as soon as possible to advise of progress.”
We might like, but do not expect, miracles from the field staff but IMHO Ofcom needs to fire every conceivable weapon at the managerial buffoons who think they might be helping their bonuses by perpetrating such utterly confusing drivel for every individual EU to comprehend. They might do well to study the operations of their subsidiary PlusNet who at least protect the EU from the worst excesses of the elephantine administration.
You may not be surprised that I have gained some notoriety and I am often greeted with broad (and much relieved) smiles when I happen across these types of pantomimes.
Kind regards,
Walter
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So it was a case of Walter's wheelbarrow to the rescue, once again! ::)
Do you now have an Hlog graph for that line? As you know, I always like to check that plot for obvious signs of wiring deficiencies.
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@ BKK,
Sadly - no !
It took over three hours, and a very irate Mrs W, to discover and tidy up the mess and then watch the Indian paint dry !
I do have further photographic evidence which will arrive via e-mail shortly.
I need hardly add that absolutely nothing has changed for the benighted EU yet despite “Further diagnostic investigations are currently taking place. We will contact you as soon as possible to advise of progress.”
Kind regards,
Walter
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I hate new-sites. Firstly, the builder decides where the duct is to be run from 'kerb to premises'. We submit plans showing where our plant/duct is to be run, box-to-box (ie: pavement/carriageway work). How it gets from the boxes to the house is at their discretion.
The builders (on every new-site I've ever been to, and that's a lot) also employ the electricians to run the internal wiring. This generally ends up being star-wired and worse still, it can leave the NTE on a single cable and then 'Tee out' various extentions from a junction box, that is now inaccessible under the boards.
The problem arise with VDSL and the 'Wiring Solution' model that accompanies most jobs. This allows the EU to request the white modem be fit anywhere they like (within reason), however, being a new house most don't want a couple of black drop-wires cleated around their premises in order to meet their needs. In the same breath, they don't want Billy BT to run a nasty looking couple of internal wires around their lovely new skirting boards.
We are not supposed to patch anything through the builders pre-installed wiring, as they're nothing to do with us and the demarcation point would entail 'owning' the buried cable.
So, we are left with a quandary ?? If they don't want any new wires run, then the modem goes at the NTE5 in the hallway with an electrical adaptor plugged in to give greater capacity for the 2 items needing power.
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@ BS I quite agree and offer my condolences ! The very worst offenders are usually electricians who (mostly) really don't have clue about Network or BT cabling requirements.
What I am planning to do, as it is within the EU's wiring - even though it was obviously installed by an Openreach engineer, is to wall mount the modem at the closest incoming point possible to the SSFP but then run some cat 5 back to the BT66 connected via a RJ45 module and plug to the CW1308 external cable going to a standard RJ45 skt and thence to the HH3 router. That way reduces the noise input to the weak incoming VDSL signal and uses the more robust ethernet signal to connect to the remote HH3. Again I appreciate that this solution probably falls outside the normal installation specifications.
Kind regards,
Walter
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Sigh. :)
And how much did the EU pay for all the time you spent on it Walter? If only everyone had access to you and your amazing wheelbarrow. :)
Easy to throw stones at the current OR management. Less easy to remember that this was all done in the name of 'competition' aka political dogma. The result is that everything has been left to fester since ~1983. Ah, but this is a 'new build', wired by a 'developer'. So clearly, such competition results in the higher standards you report. :o
Please, keep up the excellent work you do on behalf of those fortunate people who have access to informed and engaged people like yourself.
:drink:
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@ Colin,
Suffice it to say a pint doesn't yet cost as much as a BT fine for incorrect house wiring !!!!
I must point out that the wheelbarrow would be practically wheel-less without the amazing efforts of the Kitz community esp. Eagles, Pussies (plural), Irish lads and sheep !
Kind regards,
Walter
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As an aside I would mention that a solicitor friend of mine tells me that the more canny house purchasers are beginning to ask for details of adsl/vdsl speeds and wiring diagrams as part of the "enquiries" stage during the house purchase process. This is similar to the standard enquiries made for other services (eg drains). If the seller cannot/won't provide answers then this can provide a bargaining chip for the purchaser to seek a price reduction.
I think that house builders will have to eventually respond positively to this trend, and get their "electricians" to make appropriate installations in the first place. Working from home is now not uncommon.
This also might help to address some of the legacy issues - if I had known what a dogs dinner the wiring in my 50 year old house was I might have reduced my original offer price.
As a further aside, when I relocated from my previous property (where I had normalised the wiring so that broadband worked OK), the new owner completely gutted the house (unnecessarily in my view) and the builder severed the incoming underground BT wiring and then buried it! So they lost even basic telephone connectivity. BT then charged them an absolute fortune to fix the problem to the premise (once they had found the underground wiring) - but apparently the wiring inside the house had also become an absolute disaster area due to the builders/electricians antics during the rebuild. So the occupants were still unable to receive even a basic BT phone service from the areas in the house where they wanted it. I learned this from the OR engineer who installed my VDSL service who purely by chance had worked on my previous property trying the fix the myriad problems (I only moved half a mile away). He thought it was hilarious!!!
So I suppose the moral is - buyer beware!
But well done Walter!
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As an aside I would mention that a solicitor friend of mine tells me that the more canny house purchasers are beginning to ask for details of adsl/vdsl speeds and wiring diagrams as part of the "enquiries" stage during the house purchase process......
Funny that! I had been wondering how long it would be before that would happen, and even more with queries about problems experienced, things like the metal spec. Could aluminium make a property unattractive devaluing it?
We can suss BT response! :-X ::)
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This has been mentioned before. I've seen it myself, mentioned on one of those daytime programmes that DSL availability/speeds now falls within the top 5 priorities, of the buyers list.
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Gentlefolk,
Returning to the Ewhurst jungle once again, after the threats from India about charges for faulty internal wiring, we had completed the move of the modem to the front door SSFP Master Socket and installed UTP Ethernet cable to the router in the upstairs office.
I'm now pleased to announce that 24 hours after the BT Openreach visit we achieve a sync speed of 52.78 Mbps instead of 15 Mbps and the EU is perhaps asking himself why this has persisted since last November ?
However euphoric celebrations should be tempered with the knowledge that the DLM logic is still to be released from the initial sampling period.
Kind regards,
Walter
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However euphoric celebrations should be tempered with the knowledge that the DLM logic is still to be released from the initial sampling period.
I understood that this happens the day after, assuming that a sync has been achieved and held for a reasonable period on the day. In other words, it will not interfere on the day of installation, but steps up to the mark the following day, which I then assume means that the earliest at which a resync to a new profile would occur (if a one less than 80/20 was thought merited) would be in the early hours of day 3.
Is this your experience?
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Walter, thought with the advent of self-install upon us, and how you and your wheelbarrow get around, I would mention a handy little tip I stumbled across the other day.
I performed a bog-standard, easy peasy, FTTC install. Just needed the face-plate changing and the obligatory tests running. It got to the 'Moment of truth' and connection to the i-pad and i-phone were instant. Went upstairs to log-on to his ethernet'd desktop PC (run through PL Adaptors), and failure !!! I rebooted the Modem and Hub and still no joy. It was only by unplugging one PL Adaptor and immediately reconnecting that it sprang into life !! As you know, routers, IP Addys etc are not my bag, but I'm guessing that by performing this action, it did something with the Hub's IP address ??
Whatever the reason, I thought it worth a mention in case yourself (or anyone else for that matter), comes across this issue.
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Two DHCP servers on the same network, maybe? Both vying to serve up an IP address to the new client ( the PC). Until you unplugged the powerline adaptor, it was winning the race! Perhaps?
cheers, a
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PL Adapters? >:(
The only place in The Cattery where I might put a pair is in my litter-tray! :P
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Powerline Adaptos. :)
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Those nasty beasties may masquerade under any name they so desire. >:(
The only location, in The Cattery, for which they would be fit is (IMO) my litter-tray! :-X
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Whoops, sorry. I just saw the top line of your post and assumed you were asking what they were ?? :)
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No problems. :)
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@ BS,
Belated thanks for your little tip.
I do use home hubs as an easy way of spreading an ethernet service around the house provided that there are no Baby Alarms, Door Chimes, Oil tank level alarms etc. etc. already using the wiring in the same way.
However when dealing with India and possibly an inexperienced subcontract engineer together with the promise / threat of a £99 fee to unscramble the mess left by the original installer, I try very hard to use an old fashioned RJ45 Ethernet cable direct from the modem to the HH3 or other router. I have also learnt to take pictures of the internal wiring of every phone socket before and after. KISS is very definitely the order of the day so there can be no possible excuse for further obfuscation or argument.
@ Everybody
Here is an extract from the very happy EU afterwards:-
A proper BT engineer called Jonathan arrived on Thursday morning and spent about an hour here. He was very pleased with the wiring that you put in place and could find no fault with it at all. He acknowledged that the Infinity Engineer had made little effort to get it right and he said he would report this as all he seems to be doing at the moment is sorting out the mess left by sub contractors!
He didn't have the testing equipment that you thought he might have but I took photos of the screens that he worked through. He was quite happy for me to take the photos - see below.
The broadband speed has shot up to a rather splendid 50Mbps - see screenshot below.
Walter, I can't thank you enough. I shall keep monitoring the speed just to make sure BT don't cap it again!
Another very happy chappy and more importantly, one who is now aware of the substandard practices which are all too prevalent around here.
I very much hope he will relay his experiences to his neighbours and possibly the existence of a certain "wheelbarrow" !
Kind regards,
Walter
PS I have another service with an identical situation where the wheelbarrow will trundle on Friday next.
PPS I am attaching pictures which clearly demonstrate the capped service beforehand and the somewhat lower EXFO sync speed after the reset.