Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: cbdeakin on June 11, 2017, 05:22:04 PM
-
Hi everyone, I'm new to Kitz and in need of some informed advice.
Apologies for dumping all this info in one post, I hope it makes sense:
My master socket (Line Jack Unit) was recently upgraded to a BT NTE5C + faceplate. My router ('Super Router' HG633) stats improved (SNR + attenuation) and my Max attainable rate increased by 15mbps, to 74mbps. However, the actual line rate remained the same and my interleave depth at this point remained very high (over 2000). This suggested that errors were present on the line.
So, I decided to upgrade to the TP-Link VR200, to match up with my ECI cabinet, which is approx 666 meters from my house.
When it arrived, it connected just fine and the router web interface appeared to show 0 packet errors. Interestingly, the downstream Max Rate had now reduced to: 60.68mbps. I discovered that some errors were present on the line using the excellent TP-Link Stat Grabber (I read a post suggesting to leave the username blank, which solved a login error). The relevant error stats are as follows:
erroredSecs=0
X_TP_US_ErroredSecs=0
severelyErroredSecs=0
X_TP_US_SeverelyErroredSecs=0
FECErrors=54317
ATUCFECErrors=88
HECErrors=0
ATUCHECErrors=0
CRCErrors=1399
ATUCCRCErrors=0
[error]0
Am I right in thinking that as long as there are 0 errored seconds and 0 resets / HRC errors, the FTTC DLM will gradually improve the speed of my connection? Could the FEC / CRC errors have a negative effect on my line?
Other router stats:
interleaveDepth=0
downstreamCurrRate=24999
upstreamMaxRate=16782
downstreamMaxRate=60688
upstreamNoiseMargin=171
downstreamNoiseMargin=139
upstreamAttenuation=175
downstreamAttenuation=164
My FTTC line has been stuck at 24.99 mbps for a couple of weeks now (below the official BT handback rates of 55mb and 32.4mb for my line).
Note - I should mention that my line has synched at 40mb several months ago, on a Talktalk 40mb service and I am considering upgrading to 80mb.
So, my main questions are: Should I request a DLM reset? Would my sync speed of 25mbps be considered a fault? Is this likely to cost a lot of money? Are there any alternatives?
-
I'd appreciate any advice anyone can offer.
-
It looks like you've been banded @25Mb, I would wait to see if the DLM relents and moves you're download speed to the next banding point. (Do not turn off your Router!)
Mine took about a 1.5 months to bring the download up to the 52.5Mb I have today. If your line is good you should see about 55Mb+ :fingers:
CRC errors are the one's to watch for, you have a few so I would get TT to run a GEA test to see if any line faults are present,
is there any noise on the line using the quite line test 17070 option 2?
-
Parkdale - It's good to know that you think it's a DLM banding problem also. I've requested a GEA test from TT on their forums. I don't know about the phone line test atm, my dad has taped up the master socket because the faceplate is a bit loose on the new designs ::)
Our TT contract ends on June 28th, so I will see if the line sync increases by then.
Does anyone know if switching to another ISP would force a full DLM reset?
Would upgrading from Talktalk Fibre Medium to TT Fibre Large also force a full DLM reset?
I think switching ISPs could be the quickest and cheapest option. If we take a short contract, we can always change back to TT later if the connection is worse.
Update 1 - Looks like the FTTC cabinet is actually only around 250 meters from my home (there's an ECI cabinet next to the PCP cabinet at the bottom of my street). It doesn't appear to be marked in the correct location on the codelook map. So based on this, I should be able to get sync rates of 70-75mb max.
Update 2 - TT ran a GEA Service Test. Only got partial results. The Estimated Line Length is 472.8 meters. So, I wonder which figure is correct?
-
Do you have any internal phone extensions? with phones connected.
How is your router connected to the socket, and distance, also the type of connecting cable used, can all be a factor in how well your connection performs
I see (rather late :-[) that you are on 40Mb profile, this would put you at 39993 ish Mb :fingers:
Moving to another ISP would not necessarily fix your current problem, you just take it with you!
-
I think we will end up moving ISP. I don't think the line has a problem,the CRC / FEC error stats have reduced to almost 0. Talktalk also seems to think the line has been banded after checking the line, but they say we would have to pay if no faults were found by the BT Engineer. If changing ISPs will reset the DLM, then that appears to be the best option.
-
Sadly all ISP's have to tell you about OR charges, but I have never been charged for all my gripes about noise etc.
I see that you did not take up the offer of resetting the DLM on the TT forums, this would/may have lifted the cap.
Unfortunately DLM line management is something that is imposed upon us, as such we (The Public) have little or no control over what it does.
You could point out that if this doesn't get resolved, you're going move to a better ISP that understands you needs.
-
Few points:
The GE'A test should say if banded when Plusnet ran on my line it did.
If you are below handback rate surely you can argue there must be a fault?
If you can show you are always connecting at 25mb but your max connection is 60mb you should be able to argue there is a fault?
If you have the evidence and you end up with a charge dispute it. Take screenshots of BT checker and your stats.
At 475m on ECI cab with maximum crosstalk I would estimate at 50-55mb is a fair speed.
I did have a banded profile a year or so ago and a BT engineer came out got the usual BS but not all BS. He did eventually do a DLM at end I was not connecting at the maximum speed as I was wrongly banded 15mb faster.
He did moan at why the ISP didn't just do DLM reset.
These are my thoughts I would see if anyone else agrees?
-
The ISP's cant do a DLM reset. :)
-
The ISP's cant do a DLM reset. :)
Yep that was the usual BS but I have to give some dues some of the stuff he said made sense. In a total different league than Kelly/Other engineers.
I think a bit of accepting that their equipment isn't perfect and gets it wrong some of the time would go a long way. It is like the engineers have been told never accept responsibility it is never BTs or BTs equipment fault.
It should have been much simpler for him to do a reset. I had the evidence even his tester showed my line wasn't performing at full speed I shouldn't have had to beg and persuade like I did.
-
Nice, the DLM has finally uncapped my connection, much to my surprise. I suspect this is due to no errored seconds / no hard resets since upgrading the master socket and router.
My line stats are now:
upstreamCurrRate=9995
downstreamCurrRate=39993
upstreamMaxRate=18201
downstreamMaxRate=58886
upstreamNoiseMargin=104
downstreamNoiseMargin=121
upstreamAttenuation=179
downstreamAttenuation=164
upstreamPower=53
downstreamPower=51
I now need to decide if its worth upgrading to Fibre Large (80mb). Ideally, I'd like to be able to get at least 60mb, but the downstream maxrate suggests this isn't possible. But the downsteamNoiseMargin still has about 6db of wiggle room so I wonder if the max rate estimate could be wrong? Im tempted to connect my old router to see if 60+ is possible, but I think this might trigger the DLM banding again due to line errors.
I've also noticed that pinging my WAN gateway gets 6-7ms and pinging bbc.co.uk gets 15ms. So, ping times have improved by about 15ms...
-
Looking at those reported values (and assuming that they are true) I will suggest that the optimum would be on the 55/10 Mbps DS/US Openreach product.
-
I forgot to say earlier, the zero erroredSecs is obviously rubbish. The TP Link firmware never bothers to fill in the actual errored seconds count, and always reports zero. You cannot have zero errored seconds with a non-zero CRC error count. An errored second is a second that contained one or more CRC errors (or a few other types of error).
-
Oh, that's a shame. Here are my current error stats:
FECErrors=925
ATUCFECErrors=62
HECErrors=0
ATUCHECErrors=0
CRCErrors=314
ATUCCRCErrors=4
[error]0
As you can see, the CRCErrors are still quite high.
-
. . . the CRCErrors are still quite high.
We do not have the complete picture, so I am puzzled how you are able to make that statement. The missing information is the time frame in which that data was accumulated.
FECErrors=925
ATUCFECErrors=62
HECErrors=0
ATUCHECErrors=0
CRCErrors=314
ATUCCRCErrors=4
Looking at the above I presume it is stating the respective error counts for the devices at either end of the G.993.2 link. Inserting spaces, hyphens and new lines gives --
FEC Errors = 925
ATU-C FEC Errors = 62
HEC Errors = 0
ATU-C HEC Errors = 0
CRC Errors = 314
ATU-C CRC Errors = 4
The simplistic rule is to regard FECs as CRCs that did not happen. I.e. they are evidence that the error detection and correction mechanism is working as it should.
There are no HECs. Nothing to consider.
Finally the CRCs. The ATU-R reports 314 have occurred and the ATC-C reports that 4 have occurred. Without the relevant time-frame . . . :shrug2:
-
I've upgraded to Talktalk's 80mb Fibre package. Here are my speed test results:
http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6418928402
The VR200 router has synced at 58.7mbps downstream and 18.4mb upstream.
Ideally, I'd like the downstream to sync at over 60mbps, so I may try other routers.
A guy on the Plusnet forum (post#2) suggested that he managed to get 6mps higher sync rate (compared to lantiq) using the BCM63169 chipset.
Heres the link:
https://community.plus.net/t5/Broadband/Recommended-Chipset-Router/td-p/1149389
Does anyone know of any routers that use this chipset, and does it make any difference which broadcom chipset I use? Can anyone suggest a decent modem or router with a broadcom chipset?
-
Ironically, the "guy" (Kitz is actually a woman) is the very same Kitz of the forum you are on!
As bk said above, ZyXEL devices are highly regarded around these parts. If you'd like a cheap option, the TP-LINK W9970 also uses a Broadcom
chipset, although not as good as the one in the ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A, for example.
I'm assuming based on you having migrated products, a DLM reset has been performed, although I can't confirm this for sure.
-
Be interesting to see what sort of Sync you get with a Zyxel router as I have heard good things about these. I am using a TP-Link TD-W9970 with Broadcom Chipset and get about 65 down. I also have a Billion 8800NL R2 with Broadcom chipset and that gets about 63 down. Might look for a cheap Zyxel to test myself.
-
Thanks for your advice.
I've reread the post and I'm wondering if Kitz meant BCM 63168, instead of BCM 63169? BCM 63168 does seem to be more widely available.
-
If your interested you can compare the BCM 63XXX series it just like your typical CPU yet as with most processors the motherboard it's set into can make a hell of a difference and also the firmware used.
BCM63XX (https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/hardware/soc/soc.broadcom.bcm63xx)
[Moderator edited to fix the link.]
the link has gone shy lol here is a snapskot
-
I'm sure Kitz meant the BCM63168, as that's the chipset she currently uses. It can be found in many devices, the favourites being the Zyxel VMG8x24's.
It's the best performing chipset I've ever used, and I've tried a few Broadcom and a few Lantiq chipsets. The mediatek chipsets are the worst performing I've used.
Here's a couple links that might help matching chipsets to modems.
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=14436.0
http://wiki.kitz.co.uk/index.php/BCM_routers
-
I decided to take a risk and go with the Technicolor TG589VAC for £22 on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TECHNICOLOR-TG589VAC-DUAL-BAND-WI-FI-ROUTER-/272709266825?hash=item3f7ebd2d89:g:pv0AAOSwiOFZOlWL#
It's on BT Wholesale's list of approved routers:
http://www.fcs.org.uk/image_upload/files/BTW%20List%20of%20Approved%20Modem%20CPE%20v7.pdf
And it has the BCM63168 chipset (with G. INP support), so hopefully I will see an improvement.
The Zyxel VMG8924 also looks decent, but I didn't want to spend a lot.
I also tried the HG633 again, but it synced a bit lower than the VR200.
-
Here is a more up to date list of Openreach Approved VDSL Modem/Routers (MCT)
https://uno.help/knowledge-base/article/openreach-approved-vdsl-modems