Post by: rbz5416 on February 10, 2018, 12:22:48 PM
Post by: ejs on February 10, 2018, 12:38:18 PM
Post by: j0hn on February 10, 2018, 01:03:17 PM
I'm looking to understand exactly what happens at the exchange to move a FTTC service from one ISP to another.Nothing to the data side of things. Both ISP's already have a GEA cable link connected to the feed coming from your fibre cabinet. Everything related is done with virtual paths. Exact same goes for your local cabinet, it isn't even visited during an FTTC switch.
The E-side that carries voice I'm not so sure. Usually its not even the same exchange as where your fibre went.
Post by: Black Sheep on February 10, 2018, 01:35:09 PM
I'm looking to understand exactly what happens at the exchange to move a FTTC service from one ISP to another.
I wouldn't know exact figures, but going from day-to-day experience, I would say the vast majority of customers moving their broadband service from one provider to another, will also move their PSTN (Telephone service) at the same time.
It is very rare I see 'Shared' (SMPF) circuits these days.
With that in mind, there's every chance that PSTN work will be required in the Exchange, but as mooted above .... the actual broadband part of the circuit will not require any intervention at the Exchange.
Post by: rbz5416 on February 10, 2018, 07:05:01 PM
I booked a switch from Vodafone to BT for Wednesday. The phone line is switched but the broadband isn't. I'm still connected to Vodafone using their logon credentials & have a Vodafone IP address & speeds (38mbps as opposed to BT's 52). I cannot connect to BT either with their hub or my own router.
All I can get out of BT is the the switch is complete so they just want me to go through endless router reboots & answer the same old questions about extension wiring & master sockets. No one at BT is able to comprehend the issue, so I'm trying to establish what might have gone wrong.
Post by: Dwight on February 10, 2018, 08:33:35 PM
Thanks so far but I'm none the wiser, so some context.
I booked a switch from Vodafone to BT for Wednesday. The phone line is switched but the broadband isn't. I'm still connected to Vodafone using their logon credentials & have a Vodafone IP address & speeds (38mbps as opposed to BT's 52). I cannot connect to BT either with their hub or my own router.
All I can get out of BT is the the switch is complete so they just want me to go through endless router reboots & answer the same old questions about extension wiring & master sockets. No one at BT is able to comprehend the issue, so I'm trying to establish what might have gone wrong.
Sound like some one at VP hasn't deleted/closed your account, so your still locked to their ISP!
Post by: j0hn on February 10, 2018, 10:32:02 PM
Sound like some one at VP hasn't deleted/closed your account, so your still locked to their ISP!Not quite how it works. Vodafone are meant to leave it running and the switch should take place automatically. If Vodafone turned his service off he would be left with no internet at all.
Sounds to me like OpenReach hasn't completed the broadband side of the order. It requires no work at the cabinet or exchange. Basically it needs OpenReach to push some buttons.
Call BT and ask them to tell OpenReach the broadband hasn't been migrated yet. OpenReach should be able to notice any mistake fairly quickly.
Perhaps BlackSheep could confirm this but I don't think an engineer has the ability to reassign ports like that. However I'm sure a call to the DCOE would soon resolve the matter.
Post by: Black Sheep on February 11, 2018, 08:07:00 AM
Perhaps BlackSheep could confirm this but I don't think an engineer has the ability to reassign ports like that. However I'm sure a call to the DCOE would soon resolve the matter.
Correct. Engineers have no control whatsoever over port allocation ..... the DCoE do. :)
Post by: rbz5416 on February 11, 2018, 08:22:33 AM
Post by: rbz5416 on February 13, 2018, 08:48:05 PM
Post by: ejs on February 13, 2018, 08:54:18 PM
Post by: burakkucat on February 13, 2018, 10:19:46 PM
Well according to the engineer, ISPs rent a number of ports in the cab, necessitating a move of cabling. He said in this instance the cable had been jumpered to BT but hadn't been disconnected from Vodafone.
Utter and absolute hog-wash. ::)
Post by: rbz5416 on February 14, 2018, 11:25:41 AM
Utter and absolute hog-wash. ::)Possibly, what's you're explanation?
Post by: Mark07 on February 14, 2018, 02:20:54 PM
Possibly, what's you're explanation?
It's just not how it works, ISPs don't "rent" ports. When an ISP puts an order through for a new connection, it gets put on the next free port available in the cab, therefore his "explanation" of the "jumpering issues" is wildly inaccurate. (To put it nicely!)
Post by: j0hn on February 14, 2018, 02:28:04 PM
1st come 1st served.
ISP's don't and never have rented ports.
What you had was an idiot engineer who made random stuff up.
Post the same in your thread on ThinkBroadband and the knowledgeable members and OpenReach staff there will tell you the same. It's simply "Utter and absolute hog-wash" as my whiskered friend pointed out.
Post by: Black Sheep on February 14, 2018, 05:18:48 PM
Without knowing exactly what has happened, what the engineer has said or was indeed hoping to convey ....... it's impossible to say conclusively what he intended to put over to the OP !!.
For info .......... I personally have had many occasions where I have had a simple FTTC8 task (Cab only work), that has required me to move the Cab jumper-wires from the original VDSL port to the newly allocated ones. Not every time is it a case of a simple digital command switch-over.
I have a feeling this is what he may have intended to convey ?? If your BT hub wasn't working before his visit, and he visited the Cab and now it is ..... I would humbly suggest that this is what might have happened ??
Regarding the ISP's "renting a certain number of ports", this is not so and I wonder if a break-down in communication/understanding has occurred here, with either one or both parties involved ???
Post by: burakkucat on February 14, 2018, 05:20:55 PM
Post by: Black Sheep on February 14, 2018, 05:22:26 PM
Post by: burakkucat on February 15, 2018, 12:37:28 AM
Post by: rbz5416 on February 15, 2018, 08:38:58 AM
For info .......... I personally have had many occasions where I have had a simple FTTC8 task (Cab only work), that has required me to move the Cab jumper-wires from the original VDSL port to the newly allocated ones. Not every time is it a case of a simple digital command switch-over.So not quite "Absolute hogwash" then?
I have a feeling this is what he may have intended to convey ?? If your BT hub wasn't working before his visit, and he visited the Cab and now it is ..... I would humbly suggest that this is what might have happened ??
Didn't seem too much scope for misinterpreting what he said but maybe he was just dumbing down to punter level & as you say, something was lost in translation.
Thanks for the clarification.
Post by: Black Sheep on February 15, 2018, 12:51:12 PM
So not quite "Absolute hogwash" then?
Didn't seem too much scope for misinterpreting what he said but maybe he was just dumbing down to punter level & as you say, something was lost in translation.
Thanks for the clarification.
Absolutely.
I reiterate .... if your line didn't work whatsoever on BT Broadband, (and you will still connected to Vodaphone FTTC) ...... then a subsequent visit to the Cab resolved the matter ...... it HAS to be a very simple solution of just rewiring to the new BT FTTC ports.
What he was trying to put over I have no idea, but I know I tailor my conversations with the EU's to suit. I won't, for example, start boring the sh1t out of someone who has no interest at all in what the problem was ... I'll just say it's fixed.
If it's someone with a bit of a clue, or shows an interest, I'll run through graphs, charts, REIN the whole kit and caboodle and start chatting SNR, attenuation and similar terminology with them. If it's an elderly person who genuinely wants to know what I've done, but you can clearly see confusion, I will 'dumb it down' for them and put it into laymans terms.
It's very easy to 'read' people quite quickly in this respect. :)
There are the very few occasions where it would take an absolute age to explain what has taken place to resolve the issue, so bearing in mind the clock is always ticking against us (friggin' stats :-( ) ...... it can be easier to just say the fault was in the Exchange. It really is horses for courses and every job is different.
Post by: j0hn on February 15, 2018, 02:08:04 PM
Quote
So not quite "Absolute hogwash" then?That was aimed at the part about ISP's renting set numbers of ports, and not that he re-jumpered your line.
I completely disagree with the dumbing it down part. The engineer has simply told a whopper. Either that or they are very misinformed and actually think that's how it works.
Post by: kitz on February 15, 2018, 02:40:40 PM
There shouldn't need to be any work done at the cab at all. Any jumpering will be on the MDF in the exchange. The fact that your phone had gone over to BT suggests this part has been done correctly.
As far as the DSL side of things then AIUI, once the FTTC tie pair is installed, any port mapping at the cab is supposed to be done remotely. Change of ISP does not require a visit to the cab as the port mapping is a software configuration so that it goes to the correct GEA cablelink service from the OLT using VLANs.
The FTTC OLT/L2S is quite often at a different exchange to the more local exchange MDF.
I'm not quite certain what happens with FTTC but certainly with normal DSL, BT uses something called SSB to ensure that the dsl side of things connect to the right ISP. During a migration period it is not unusual to be able to connect to both the gaining and loosing SP for a short period of time (couple of days) as long as DSL traffic is going out over the same VP.
I would need to look more into this area to be certain, but I know Openreach do use both C-VLANs (Customer-VLAN) and S-VLANs (Service-VLAN) to control (vdsl) routing from the OLT/L2S and on to the correct SP backhaul. I'm not sure how Openreach assign their VLANs other than they use VLAN tagging. It is possible when using VLAN tags to assign multiple tags, so in theory I suppose it could be possible to do the equivalent of SSB using C-VLANs and S-VLANs.
On reflection they must do something similar to the above to ensure SIM provides & migrations go through smoothly. The frames engineer once he's done his rewiring on the MDF doesn't phone up or press a button to change routing at the L2S. Its the other way round in that once the VLAN side has been set up, then the frames engineer gets instructions to do the re-jumpering on the MDF.
Same new new FTTC provision the VLAN is set up and already in place before the fttc engineer is told that they can go attach the new tie pair at the cab. Any [old adsl] jumpers on the MDF can be left in place because once the engineer rewires to the cab, then its down the the SVLAN and CVLAN tags how your traffic is routed via the L2S at the headend exchange.
Quote
It is very rare I see 'Shared' (SMPF) circuits these days.
SMPF is incompatible with FTTC. Equivalent product would be GEA FTTC & WLR so as far as the Frames guys are concerned its same jumpering on the MDF as bog standard WLR.
The VDSL feed comes straight from the OLT/L2S No need for MSAN or HDF.
I'm sure I have a doc somewhere which shows the different wiring configurations on the MDF for various set ups. I'll see if I can dig it out later if anyone is interested.
I suspect that in this case something went wrong with the SIM migration. What that could be I've no idea and I will bow to your much greater knowledge of working in the field. I'm totally guessing but I wonder if the SP mucked up the migration by not passing it through correctly as a SIM order. If the SP only did the line order and passed dsl separate, then it could be a reason why the MDF jumpering was done and then the dsl bit was picked up as new needing a move at the cab to get the correct VLAN? God knows it doesnt quite make sense. Vodafone wont switch off their dsl side until theyve been informed by OR of sucessful migration.
Post by: kitz on February 15, 2018, 03:16:44 PM
That was aimed at the part about ISP's renting set numbers of ports, and not that he re-jumpered your line.
I completely disagree with the dumbing it down part. The engineer has simply told a whopper. Either that or they are very misinformed and actually think that's how it works.
Agreed.
@ rbz The ISPs have absolutely nothing to do with ports, they can purchase GEA cablelinks at the head end exchange which to dumb down is basically a big fat network cable that connects their backhaul to the L2switch.
My diagram below shows the set up for one line & one ISP... but you see that L2Switch at the bottom... it will have several GEA cablelinks going to various SP backhauls. Orange lines are copper, Red is fibre. Both of these are owned by Openreach. Anything green can be owned by the SP (or BTw).
btw the L2S is not necessarily a separate device. These are incorporated into the OLT device as a card on the backplane.
So dumbed down again... Think of a much grander version of how a router incorporates a network switch and you can plug in network cables to connect various PCs.
The ISP buys a fibre cable-link to be able to connect their equipment to one of those ports.
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kitz.co.uk%2Fadsl%2Fimages%2FFTTC.png&hash=1942ae9aa28e8a373dc2d5cfeb48191523afbd59)
Post by: Black Sheep on February 15, 2018, 05:27:10 PM
Bit late to the party on this one.
There shouldn't need to be any work done at the cab at all. Any jumpering will be on the MDF in the exchange. The fact that your phone had gone over to BT suggests this part has been done correctly.
As far as the DSL side of things then AIUI, once the FTTC tie pair is installed, any port mapping at the cab is supposed to be done remotely. Change of ISP does not require a visit to the cab as the port mapping is a software configuration so that it goes to the correct GEA cablelink service from the OLT using VLANs.
In most circumstances, yes. Not in this OP's case though ..... and as mooted above, I have first-hand experience of having to perform Cab work moving the EU from one set of FTTC tie-pairs, to another.
Clearly, this was the case with the OP's circuit as well. :)
Post by: kitz on February 15, 2018, 05:55:46 PM
The theory is that you shouldn't have to now though.
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/productdevelopment/latestempenhancements/latestempenhancements/R1800_downloads/Improvements%20to%20FTTC%20double%20migration%20scenarios.pdf
Quote
We do recommend that you place the FTTC Provide part of the SIM provide order before the MPF/WLR Provide order to make sure that the migration of both the FTTC and the underlying WLR/MPF are matched together.
Obviously, we all want to avoid the end user being without broadband service for several days
(which can happen if the two migration orders fail to be matched within Openreach’s systems).
As my post above, I suspect something may have gone wrong with how the SIM migration was placed.
Quote from: kitz
I'm totally guessing but I wonder if the SP mucked up the migration by not passing it through correctly as a SIM order. If the SP only did the line order and passed dsl separate, then it could be a reason why the MDF jumpering was done and then the dsl bit was picked up as new needing a move at the cab to get the correct VLAN?
If it wasn't matched, then the VLAN info allocated to a different (new) port on the cab, rather than the existing port ... and hence you guys having to go do it the hard way.
[Moderator edited to fix a typo.]
Post by: Deathstar on February 15, 2018, 07:24:17 PM
If it's someone with a bit of a clue, or shows an interest, I'll run through graphs, charts, REIN the whole kit and caboodle and start chatting SNR, attenuation and similar terminology with them. If it's an elderly person who genuinely wants to know what I've done, but you can clearly see confusion, I will 'dumb it down' for them and put it into laymans terms.
I had a great engineer up in the North West show me all the graphs last year when he was onsite whilst helping me with a noise issue creating millions of CRC errors.
He was able to show me all the details that the DLM was reporting, and with this we were able to isolate the problem and put it to bed.
Plug in Adapters were the culprit, creating REIN
.I did have three issues, bad cable and a bad port that required a L&S + the REIN issue. Took 15 visits to resolve in the end though.......
Great guy he was!
Post by: Black Sheep on February 15, 2018, 07:31:16 PM
Post by: Deathstar on February 15, 2018, 07:33:21 PM
Hmmm ?? North West you say .... do you mind saying which part ?? ;) :)PM Sent.
Post by: Black Sheep on February 15, 2018, 07:40:09 PM
PM Sent.
Feeling smug at the accolade from Deathstar ...... t'was indeed myself. :-)
Post by: Westie on February 15, 2018, 09:32:44 PM
Post by: Black Sheep on February 15, 2018, 09:48:01 PM
Post by: burakkucat on February 15, 2018, 10:13:44 PM
Feeling smug at the accolade from Deathstar ...... t'was indeed myself. :-)
:thumbs: :dance:
Post by: j0hn on February 15, 2018, 10:25:52 PM
I had a great engineer up in the North West show me all the graphs last year when he was onsite whilst helping me with a noise issue creating millions of CRC errors.
He was able to show me all the details that the DLM was reporting, and with this we were able to isolate the problem and put it to bed.
Plug in Adapters were the culprit, creating REIN
I did have three issues, bad cable and a bad port that required a L&S + the REIN issue. Took 15 visits to resolve in the end though.......
Great guy he was!
That's a fantastic positive review of an OpenReach visit so I must say a hats off :hat: to Black Sheep.
Post by: jaydub on February 16, 2018, 12:45:59 AM
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 07:25:43 AM
Sorry jaydub, that would indeed 'be telling'. :) :)
Post by: renluop on February 16, 2018, 08:51:04 AM
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 09:25:02 AM
Are engineers generally allocated to more than one exchange group in an area, or perhaps just one or more exchanges?
I've read that a few times now and it's not going in.
However, I think I know what you're asking ............ basically, (and this is in general terms as major cities and extreme rural areas will differ), there will be an 'Operational Manager' (OM) patch. This will cover a number of Exchanges usually in the region of 5 or 6.
There will generally be about 8 or 9 OM's, reporting back to the Senior Operational Manager (SOM).
Mostly, the engineer will work on his own OM patch, but can sometimes slip either side into a neighbouring OM Patch dependant upon the workstacks, skill-set shortage, failing appointments etc .....
Engineers can be required 'on loan' .... which will mean they will be working in another OM or SOM patch for the full day. It used to be that if you were 'On loan' within your own SOM patch, it was business as usual ..... an 'on loan' to a totally different SOM patch meant they had to pay for your time out of their budget. Not sure if this is still the case, and it pure semantics anyway.
Hope this answers your question ?
Post by: renluop on February 16, 2018, 09:32:35 AM
Post by: kitz on February 16, 2018, 10:46:12 AM
Feeling smug at the accolade from Deathstar ...... t'was indeed myself. :-)
Well done Mr BS ;D
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 11:01:35 AM
Well done Mr BS ;D
Thank you, Leader. :blush:
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 11:04:00 AM
@BS indeed it does. :) About my muddled post. :-[
Hey no worries, ren ..... in a way, it kind of supports part of what this thread is about .... you knew exactly what you meant, I struggled a little ..... no one's fault, it's all in the interpretation. :)
Post by: renluop on February 16, 2018, 11:17:59 AM
Code: [Select]
Locations using 01425 numbers include:
Bransgore
Burley
Fordingbridge
Highcliffe
New Milton
Ringwood
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 12:48:11 PM
BS's remark about number of exchanges under OM is in line with my area codeCode: [Select]Locations using 01425 numbers include:
Bransgore
Burley
Fordingbridge
Highcliffe
New Milton
Ringwood
Alas, it's not as straightforward as that anymore, Ren
Many, many, many 're-orgs', have seen Exchanges with the same STD code be split up across different OM Teams, but actually (if the Exchange is close to a county border), moved to a completely different GM (General Manager - quite high up post) patch.
Purely by way of an example, you could have 2 Exchanges with the same STD code split across 2 different GM patches ... Hampshire and Dorset .... if the geography of the Exchanges was deemed 'a fit' when going through a 're-org' ??. :-)
Post by: renluop on February 16, 2018, 12:58:20 PM
I'll stop diverting the thread before the boss gives me a slap!:'
Post by: Black Sheep on February 16, 2018, 03:18:59 PM
Post by: rbz5416 on August 16, 2018, 02:49:12 PM
I was supposed to migrate from BT to Plusnet today & exactly the same thing has happened. Plusnet have confirmed the switch is complete but I can't connect with their credentials. But I am still connected to BT. So it looks like whatever the "fix" was last time may have been a bodge. >:(