Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Telephony Wiring + Equipment => Topic started by: keithiopia on April 13, 2009, 05:08:32 PM
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Hello!
I've just been looking through the information about BT sockets etc. but couldn't find my block terminal connector on the list.
After a quick google I've discovered I've got a GPO BT20/4 made of bakelite which date back to the mid-50s. Are these bad for adsl connections?
Thanks!
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Hi keithiopia and welcome,
I think you already know the answer ! No only should you get a new NTE5 master socket fitted but probably much of the phone wiring as well - especially if the drop wire is a flat twin pair.
Kind regards,
Walter
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The connector itself is probably made of much higher quality materials than any modern unit, so provided the contacts are clean probably wouldn't pose a problem. The ageing non-twisted wiring likely to be associated with it is another matter however. :'(
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Hello!
Thanks for your quick responses.
Strangely I do have a NTE5 master socket, but the wire running between it and the block terminal is a thin brown braided one, i'm not sure if that's what you call a flat twin pair.
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Hi again keithiopia,
I expect Ezzer will say that BT do not normally supply screened (braided) cable, and that if they had, they would probably have replaced the terminal block with an NTE5 Master Socket first.
This suggests that the wiring is your own rather than BT's. However that in itself isn't necessarily a problem.
The drop wire - i.e. the cable from the outside of your house to the Terminal block could be more of a problem.
A flat twin cable is precisely that and used to be installed in the days of the GPO. It consists of two cores joined together but running in parallel along the whole length of the cable.
More modern cables normally have a circular sheath, have much smaller diameter coloured cores and are twisted to ballance out induced noise. This is important to get higher speed broadband connections.
If you can tell us the make and model number of your modem together with your ISP we can give you instructions on how to examine the line statistics of your modem which in turn will determine if rewiring speed benefits might be possible.
Kind regards,
Walter
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Hello!
I could try and get some photos of the drop wire and of the wiring between the NTE5 and block terminal if you like, my description is probably way off. If that wire isn't BT's then it must have been put in quite a while ago, we've never changed it and moved in around 14 years ago.
I've got my WAG354G line stats here:
Item Value
ADSL Line Type GDMT
ADSL Line Coding INTERLEAVED
Line Attenuation (Down):13 (Up):7
Noise Margin (Down):10 (Up):16
Total Output Power (Down):0 (Up):0
Current State DownStr: 8160(K) UpStr: 448(K)
undefined UP
FEC(FAST) (Near):0 (Far):0
FEC(INTERL) (Near):19652 (Far):240258
CRC(FAST) (Near):0 (Far):0
undefined (Near):252 (Far):6787
HEC(FAST) (Near):0 (Far):0
HEC(FAST) (Near):0 (Far):0
Showtime last(sec) 9562
ADSL FW Version 0.52
ADSL Board Type Annex A
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Hi yet again keithiopia,
I wonder if you actually live in the telephone exchange ? !!!!!!!!
The figures you've provided are first class unless you are with an ISP who provides ADSL2 speeds potentially up to around 18,000 kbps.
I.e. there seems very little point in doing anything at all unless the latter case is correct.
Kind regards,
Walter
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your stats look good. the block terminal you Mention wi;; probably be the type with big chunky fuses inside, no probs for broadband in fact due to the size of all the conductors it's possibly a tiny benifit.
Drop wire 3 which is the old 2 wire type in a grey insulator is usualy replaced if working on that part of the line as the overhead bit can in time suffer from uv degridation and start to crack and lead to corrsion which would affect your normal telephony at the same time, noisy line and the like.
there are other more resiliant types of old dropwire, with black insulation, or even with blue (normaly used in the vicinity of high voltage lines, very large diameter copper, which broke my fave pair of cutters once :()
Drop wire 10 is very resiliant and the more common type now found, has 2 pairs of wires, 3 steel canteneries for mechanical support and a strong thick layer of outer insulation.
Some times looking at drop wires off a pole you can easly see the difference between dropwire 3 and 10 from the ground quite easly
Bear in mind just because you might have dropwire3 feeding your property dosnt mean you have a broadband issue here
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Your stats are good :)
In fact they're similar to my own, so you should get near maximum speeds on adsl2+. In fact that looks like an LLU'd line (possibly Tiscali) from the sync speed.
It doesnt look like you have any problems with the physical line.
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Well that's reassuring, I'll not touch my wires then.
Even though it's almost 2am, the Namesco speed test says i'm getting
Download Speed: 4746 kbps (593.3 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 376 kbps (47 KB/sec )
and the thinkbroadband test says
Speed Down: 4542.60 Kbps ( 4.4 Mbps ) Speed Up:373.75 Kbps ( 0.4 Mbps )
That download speed can be halved even if it's 10 or 11pm.
I'm around 490m away from my exchange in a straight line, but it is via Eclipse, not LLU
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Theres basically 2 sorts of speeds
Sync speed - which is the speed at which you connect to the exchange at. From this we can deduce the condition of your line - and along with other line stats - the condition of your line.
Throughput speed - which is the 'realtime' speed that you see when downloading. Theres various factors that can affect this, but slower throughput can be down to congestion either at the ISP level or at the exchange.
You can check for BTw based exchange contention here (http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/).
>> but it is via Eclipse, not LLU
It was your sync speed of 8160 that led me to believe that you may be LLU'd.
BT wholesale maximum sync speed is 8128... and for an interleaved line it is usually 7616 (but a very good line can under certain circumstances still see up to 8128).
Eclipse have been stealthily transferring users over to Tiscali LLU for a couple of years now and sometimes wont even admit to the customer that their line is LLU'd.
Best way of checking is either seeing if you can log into the BTw performance tester (http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/).. LLU connections wont be able to connect.
or another test is that the Tiscali MSANs arent configured to accept LLC-Based settings in your router and will only connect using VC-Mux Based.
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Thanks for explaining all of this to me.
It's interesting what you say about LLU, whenever I run the BTw performance tester I get this message: "The system is currently busy. Please try again shortly, however if this problem persists, raise the issue with your service provider."
Tiscali LLU is available at my exchange apparently.
The plusnet exchange checker says there are no known capacity problems on my exchange (virtual paths), is that the bit I'm meant to look at?
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>> The plusnet exchange checker says there are no known capacity problems on my exchange (virtual paths), is that the bit I'm meant to look at?
Yes - thats the one... but it only reports the status of BTWholesale based lines.
If tiscali LLU is available at your exchange, then there is a strong possibility that you are on Tiscali Wholesale rather then BT Wholesale.
iirc Eclipse started moving some lines over to Tiscali about 2 years ago, but one thing is certain and that is they kept very quiet about it and many customers arent aware they are now on LLU rather than BTIPStream.
If you are ok with changing settings in your router then there are a couple of other things that you could do to check for sure, and thats either attempting
1) a BT test login (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/bttest.htm). - You wont be able to connect to the bt network if youre on LLU. and/or
2) Changing the router setting from VC Mux Based to LLC Based. - BT will allow you to connect via LLC Based - the tiscali MSANs wont.
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Hello again,
I've actually just changed router because my linksys died. Now on a Netgear DG834PN. The stats from that are:
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8032 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 13.0 db 6.5 db
Noise Margin 15.3 db 20.0 db
I tried changing to LLC based multiplexing like you suggested, it won't connect to Eclipse, I just get message saying 'LCP is allowed to come up'. Interestingly my modem stats are still showing as the same when I do that.
I also tried the BT test login by changing my username to 'bt_test@startup_domain' but the router tells me that 'CHAP authentication failed'.
I guess this confirms that I am on LLU. Sneaky.
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not much gets past Kitz ;D
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>> I guess this confirms that I am on LLU.
I'm afraid it does. The 2 tests you did make it pretty conclusive that you are on LLU - and because eclipse tend to use Tiscali LLU, this is likely who is now providing the backhaul for your adsl.
Since your sync speed and linestats appear ok... your slow speeds are most likely to be at the ISP level. That is of course saying that youve checked the obvious and made sure that any wireless connections are secure and that no other traffic is being produced on your local network via malware etc.
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I am considering changing ISP, this is good reason to.
I'm very careful about securing the wireless connection and looking for malware so I don't think it's that.
I attached a picture of that wire for you!
[attachment deleted by admin]
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>> I'm very careful about securing the wireless connection and looking for malware so I don't think it's that.
From your earlier posts I didnt think it would be, but I had to state the obvious just for the sake of elimination :)
Thanks for the pic... although the wiring is old.. in your particular case I dont think its actually causing any problems for you. Your sync is fine. The only thing Im not sure about is
undefined (Near):252 (Far):6787
At a guess these are RS uncorrected errors (CRCs INTERL), if so you could be picking up a small amount of interference but these could come from anywhere and could be a noise burst when someone turns something on (EMI).
Your router also isnt providing your output power levels... but Im guessing here that since your attenuation is so low, that there will be some sort of power cut back occurring (there was on my own line)... even so that means nothing much since if you were ever to go full adsl2+ full power mode would kick in anyhow.
If you are being power cut back, then this will result in your SNRM not showing the true figure or capability.. and its one of the reasons why I dont ask for SNRM figures in my max speed calculator as this could skew the result.
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ADSL2+ is on the cards if I switch to o2 or similar, hopefully that would be a bit more promising.
Would that EMI be aggravated by the ringer wire?
I did a Namesco speed test 5 minutes ago because I couldn't get iplayer to run smoothly (as per usual) clocked in at 570kbps down and 379 up.
I thought I'd check out the line stats when plugged into the test jack, as you might have been able to see in that photo. They change very little apart from the upstream noise ratio which increases by about 5dB. Doesn't seem removing the ringer wire for that does it?
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Changes in upstream are normally down to internal wiring as the culprit.
If the downstream doesnt change - then as you say not your internal wiring for that part.
As to if its worth it or not... depends on whom youre going to...
If its Be and youre considering Be Pro and Annex_M (up to 2.5Mb upstream) you may need it.