Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Telephony Wiring + Equipment => Topic started by: grav412 on April 13, 2021, 11:05:31 AM
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My knowledge of telecoms is virtually nonexistent so some of this might be a load of rubbish - but I would be grateful for some help.
I was expecting to have G.fast installed. It is available at the exchange and there is capacity for us to have it. On foot, the exchange is under 200m from the house. I recognise that the cabling is not necessarily along that route though. The house is a former commercial premises with a BT Revelation board and various telephone sockets mounted on the wall directly in front of where the line seems to come into the house. This board might not be in use - but I am unsure of how to find out whether it is. The cabling then goes from the area where the line comes in/this Revelation board is and goes around the edge of the house quite some distance to the master socket. There is then an extension socket of the master socket in another place again - and this is where we have the router/the OR engineer tried to install the G.fast socket.
The OR engineer said that the socket is too far from the exchange to make G.fast work. The place he tried to install it in is seemingly the furthest socket from where the line enters.
Is it theoretically possible that if a new master socket was installed, at the closest point to the line entering the house, we might be able to get G.fast through it? BT have said there is no way, full stop, without any real explanation.
The other question I have is - the engineer said that he was unable to get any signal at all from the exchange when he installed the G.fast socket - because the socket is too far away from the exchange. I would understand if the speed was very low because we were too far away - but to get absolutely nothing? Does this sound right?
If we can't get G.fast, I am happy to accept that. I recognise the limits of the technology. But it feels like there are other options still to be tried/potentially something else going on due to some unconventional wiring. No one at BT really seems to understand the point I am making - it's just a flat out 'no'.
Any help at all much appreciated! I might have completely misunderstood what is going on...
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The location of the exchange is pretty irrelevant.
G.Fast comes from the local green telephone cabinet that serves your property.
In some cases the green cabinet is right outside the exchange (sometimes within the exchange grounds).
It never comes from inside an exchange.
G.Fast has a very limited range and the short distance of internal wiring is unlikely to make much difference.
What estimates do you get for G.Fast if you enter your address on the Broadband Availability Checker.
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
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Right - the green cabinet is directly in front of the exchange.
Estimates are:
G.fast Range A (Clean) 171.8 138.6 23.4 9 118.3 Green Green --
G.fast Range B (Impacted) 133.3 86.4 14.9 6.8 79.4 Green Green --
Presumably there could still be some benefit from obtaining G.fast at these speeds?
The engineer said the socket was 364m of cabling from the cabinet. Where all of the cabling that supplies this socket goes is unclear - but if there was in excess of 50m of perhaps 'unnecessary' cabling, I would not be surprised considering how much is around the edge of the house and the fact that it seems to go through the roof.
I suppose I am trying to establish whether making the cabling route to the master socket much more direct would be of benefit. Obviously, the issue might be outside the bounds of my property and it might be that cabling taking an indirect route to get to my house. There doesn't seem to be an easy method of finding out where the cables actually go. I am not discounting the issue being internal considering the state of some of the other phone/electrical installation work carried out by the previous owners.
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Welcome @grav412
If the line is syncing under a certain threshold, Openreach will not install G.Fast.
So, as G.Fast has two products, 160/30 and 330/50 the minimum threshold for 160/30 is 100 from what I recall, the G.fast Range B (Impacted) shows the issue.
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if there was in excess of 50m of perhaps 'unnecessary' cabling, I would not be surprised considering how much is around the edge of the house and the fact that it seems to go through the roof.
That would have to be some excess, my house is only 7m long, but if indeed there was 50m excess then yeah that would definitely impact the speed.
Generally it would be the route from the cabinet that adds excess and there's nothing you can do about that, sadly.
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@meritez - Thank you. I do wish someone at BT/the engineer had just said that to me. Funny that they sold it in the first place though, considering they obviously had this information too...
Presumably there is little that can be done at my end to enhance the line coming into the property?
@Alex Atkin UK - that makes sense, thanks. It seems impossible to establish how much of the issue comes from the route from the cabinet and how much is internal. I wish there was an accessible cable map available! I'm considering getting someone to put a new master socket in as close as possible to where the cabling enters the property. Presumably that might have the effect of increasing the speed. Probably not enough though?
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Welcome to the Kitz forum. :)
The house is a former commercial premises with a BT Revelation board and various telephone sockets mounted on the wall directly in front of where the line seems to come into the house. This board might not be in use - but I am unsure of how to find out whether it is. The cabling then goes from the area where the line comes in/this Revelation board is and goes around the edge of the house quite some distance to the master socket. There is then an extension socket of the master socket in another place again - and this is where we have the router/the OR engineer tried to install the G.fast socket.
A few clear pictures, uploaded to a photo-sharing site, please, would help with the understanding of the above. I would be very surprised if it is all still active.
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I'm considering getting someone to put a new master socket in as close as possible to where the cabling enters the property. Presumably that might have the effect of increasing the speed. Probably not enough though?
It can't hurt but legally only your telco can do that and if its worth the cost is hard to guess.
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I would follow B*Cats advice and post pictures of where the cable enters the premises and how it navigates through/around the old Relevation system.
As mooted, it's probably not in use anymore but if your line is still connected via circuitry inside it, it may be stopping the G.Fast signal finishing its journey. As an aside, have you ever had DSL service of any kind at the premises ??
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Thank you for all of the advice so far.
On closer inspection, the Revelation is definitely not in use - there is no power going into it.
I am however now unsure of where the line actually enters the property. I thought it entered through this cable at the bottom:
https://ibb.co/KKKhbwf
Directly in front of this cable are these boxes, underneath the Revelation:
https://ibb.co/8dvmGzx
Perhaps they are not in use. Equally, this external cable might be nothing to do with the line - maybe TV aerial or something electrical. It definitely comes from underground though.
The line then seems to just appear at the top of an external wall, run over the roof and go into this box:
https://ibb.co/c8QZYPW
Then it goes round the edge of the house and into the first master socket.
So I do not actually know for certain where the line enters the property, frustratingly. There are no other entry points for cables anywhere else on the outside of the house, with the exception of that shown in the first image. Any ideas?
@Black Sheep - no, I have not had a DSL service while living there. The previous occupants might have though. Is there any way of telling?
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On closer inspection, the Revelation is definitely not in use - there is no power going into it.
Very interesting.
The line then seems to just appear at the top of an external wall, run over the roof and go into this box:
https://ibb.co/c8QZYPW
Then it goes round the edge of the house and into the first master socket.
I can identify that as a BT66.
I am however now unsure of where the line actually enters the property. I thought it entered through this cable at the bottom:
https://ibb.co/KKKhbwf
Those cables are definitely multi-pair. One appears from the pea-shingle and enters the building at the third strip of cladding from the ground. Then there is a second cable which exits the building through the fifth strip of cladding (from the ground) and is possibly the one that goes to the BT66.
Directly in front of this cable are these boxes, underneath the Revelation:
https://ibb.co/8dvmGzx
Perhaps they are not in use.
Distribution Point number 210 (DP210).
You really need to have all that redundant gubbins removed . . . but I'll let Black Sheep comment, as that gubbins is all part of his domain.
Edited to add: Will you let us know the serving telephony exchange for your home, please?
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https://ibb.co/8dvmGzx
What's directly above this?
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@burakkucat - thank you very much.
That cabling from the 5th cladding strip definitely goes to the BT66.
We are served by telephone exchange EASRM.
@Alex Atkin UK - the BT Revelation is directly above it.
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What's directly above this?
An obsolete BT Revelation (https://www.britishtelephones.com/revalat1.htm) main control unit.
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We are served by telephone exchange code EASRM, Stretham.
Ah, a fellow East Anglian. ("The Cattery" is served by EABSE.)
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Hmm, after a little searching EASRM was found tucked away at the end of Chapel Lane . . .
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So I do not actually know for certain where the line enters the property, frustratingly. There are no other entry points for cables anywhere else on the outside of the house, with the exception of that shown in the first image. Any ideas?
@Black Sheep - no, I have not had a DSL service while living there. The previous occupants might have though. Is there any way of telling?
My word - you almost have your own telephone exchange there, mate ... with all that wiring !!
We do have systems that would tell us if you're premises has had DSL service before but I wouldn't be comfortable accessing them, TBH. The service providers will have a record though, I'm sure of that ... perhaps j0hn (a member on here), might know ??
Without being on-site and/or having the benefit of seeing exactly what the G.Fast engineer did, or didn't do ... I do feel you've maybe be somewhat short-changed in the installation process. Of course, keyboard-warrior style it is very easy to draw conclusions that may be incorrect ??
But, I would be straight back onto your ISP requesting another visit to remove what could be an awful lot of star-wiring (extension socket tee-off's) in the DP, NTTP, BT66 or any elsewhere ??.
In days of yore, pre-DSL frequencies, we'd use any means at our disposal to 'patch' through dial-tone using spare wires, teeing-in etc ..... your whole set-up needs looking at in detail, I'm afraid.
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@Black Sheep Thank you. The second the engineer said 'this should be a straightforward job' I knew we were in for some trouble... I certainly would not want to suggest that the engineer didn't do a proper/complete job. It is more the fact that he didn't look at any of this wiring/where the line came into the house and I didn't explain the situation properly to him either so he didn't have all the facts. It seems the set-up is much more complex than he or I thought.
OR are sending a line engineer on Friday to have a look at the set-up. I am hopeful that this might at least shed some more light on what is going on. I suppose whether or not they can/are permitted to rectify the situation is another matter entirely...
On a related note - I have noticed that the engineer left the G.fast faceplate on the socket he tried to install the G.fast into - even though we are now back on normal FTTC. Any idea if this is an issue please?
I am very grateful for the continued help of everyone on this forum.
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@grav412 The G.Fast faceplate will be fine for FTTC, it's not really any different. Just for interest do you know your sync speeds on FTTC, if you are not getting full 80/20 Mbps speeds you will struggle to get G.Fast. Of course your enormous amount of telephone wiring may be a big factor, let's hope the next engineer can improve things for you. :)
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@RealAleMadrid - thanks, that's good to hear.
Currently getting 74/14. Certainly not bad, but it will be interesting to see how much the current set-up is affecting the speed.
I am happy to accept not being able to get G.fast, especially as our distance from the cabinet seems to be borderline anyway, but I don't feel we've made all reasonable efforts to improve the line yet. Fingers crossed...
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@RealAleMadrid - thanks, that's good to hear.
Currently getting 74/14. Certainly not bad, but it will be interesting to see how much the current set-up is affecting the speed.
I am happy to accept not being able to get G.fast, especially as our distance from the cabinet seems to be borderline anyway, but I don't feel we've made all reasonable efforts to improve the line yet. Fingers crossed...
Hmmmm - so you HAVE got a DSL service at your premises then. By DSL, we mean any kind of broadband product available currently, or historically ... not simply G.Fast.
Apologies for not explaining the terminology better in previous replies.
If you are getting 74/14 on FTTC, then there won't be that much more affecting your service inside your premises, if at all anything. But, let's see what the Friday visit throws up for you ??
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@Black Sheep - apologies - completely misunderstood!
I suppose the other question is perhaps whether the DP210 and NTTP boxes/the BT66/something else on the line could have somehow prevented the G.fast from finishing its journey? The engineer did say that he was unable to get any signal from the cabinet when he installed the socket. On reflection, I took that to mean 'the speed is not fast enough due to being too far away' rather than there was actually no signal from the cabinet going to the socket whatsoever.
The only other sort of connection or box that I can see is this one - where the line enters the house:
https://ibb.co/vQLyHQ1
Is this conventional/a potential issue please?
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The only other sort of connection or box that I can see is this one - where the line enters the house:
https://ibb.co/vQLyHQ1
Is this conventional/a potential issue please?
That looks like a standard Block Terminal (https://telephonesuk.org.uk/connection-boxes/) which shouldn't be a problem. However I'm not sure if a BT80B RF3 (https://telephonesuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BT80B_RF3-1.jpg) would significantly affect a G.Fast service. :-\
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Presumably there could still be some benefit from obtaining G.fast at these speeds?
The engineer said the socket was 364m of cabling from the cabinet. Where all of the cabling that supplies this socket goes is unclear - but if there was in excess of 50m of perhaps 'unnecessary' cabling, I would not be surprised considering how much is around the edge of the house and the fact that it seems to go through the roof.
G.Fast has a maximum range around 350m (on a good clean line) but this can be quite a bit less on some lines.
Your estimates place you on the very edge of G.Fast range.
You don't get estimates much lower than that.
Properties a little further away just get no estimates at all.
With you being on the edge of potential availability OpenReach allow the product to be ordered and during installation if it doesn't meet a minimum threshold then install will be cancelled.
As above I believe that minimum is 100Mb.
It sounds like the engineer wasn't able to obtain a connection (sync) at all, which is not surprising at 364m long.
Even with improvements in the internal wiring you may be out of range.
If you do manage to get a G.Fast connection near the bottom end of your estimates it is very likely that any small increase in downstream will be accompanied by a drop in upstream speed.
Your current 74/14 might end up around 100/7.
Is more Downstream worth almost halving upstream?
I'd throw a wild guess that you're just out of range.