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[Basil]

I have had a few issues with dropped connections and fairly slow speed to my long term ISP, Zen Internet. I put it down to be out in the sticks on aluminium cabling to a an elderly, small exchange (Prees in north Shropshire). Thanks to this site I myself found a dodgy connection from the BT ADSL socket and things became a little better. The other day Zen rang to say they were performing a speed increase on the line and this was not a user choice, all customers on my type of ADSL line would get it. I had this "bad feeling".... The e-mails came saying the speed increase was about to occur and I need do nothing at my end. Well, initially my routerstats showed a change in the noise margin from an average of about 5 dB to about 20 dB and speed did increase. But within a day things had deteriorated to the level where 10 e-mails took maybe 2 minutes to download, and video like YouTube was all but unusable, even the YouTube home page taking ten minutes to come up. I rang Zen and they said their logs showed I had been suffering drop outs for many months, (which I knew), and that I needed to plug the router in the master socket, do a quiet line test, blah blah. I have had the router in the master socket and it made no difference. The line test showed no audible noise. They then suggested my May 2005 sourced Netgear DG834v2 router was known to not be compatible with the new line changes and I should buy a new Thompson one off them. I fear I am en route to a frustrating and expensive wild goose chase and am seriously contemplating binning a BT line connection and investigating a satellite based ISP link. I use the net a lot for pleasure and business, and being out in the sticks I use it more than most for shopping and Ebay. Ebay is particularly galling as when you are about to make a last minute bid you can be sure the line will either drop or be on go slow! I just don't have time or inclination to go on a self funded experimental journey buying new this and that with no guarantee of a positive result.

I am sure I am not alone in such connection experiences, and I am after advice as to whether satellite is a viable alternative, and whether a new router is likely to be the magic elixir to getting things working properly again.

I am quite pragmatic about all this, I just need a reliable, if not blisteringly fast connection. Years ago when I lived in south Manchester I took part in a small trial of fibre optic broadband, long before it was mainstream, sharing a huge pipe with maybe 50 other houses. It was an eye opening experience, but I realise I forego that sort of thing to live amongst woods and green fields, in peace and quiet. Trouble is, Internet wise, it's too damned quiet here, right now Help! Thanks.

[Black Sheep]

I have had a few issues with dropped connections and fairly slow speed to my long term ISP, Zen Internet. I put it down to be out in the sticks on aluminium cabling to a an elderly, small exchange (Prees in north Shropshire). Thanks to this site I myself found a dodgy connection from the BT ADSL socket and things became a little better. The other day Zen rang to say they were performing a speed increase on the line and this was not a user choice, all customers on my type of ADSL line would get it. I had this "bad feeling".... The e-mails came saying the speed increase was about to occur and I need do nothing at my end. Well, initially my routerstats showed a change in the noise margin from an average of about 5 dB to about 20 dB and speed did increase. But within a day things had deteriorated to the level where 10 e-mails took maybe 2 minutes to download, and video like YouTube was all but unusable, even the YouTube home page taking ten minutes to come up. I rang Zen and they said their logs showed I had been suffering drop outs for many months, (which I knew), and that I needed to plug the router in the master socket, do a quiet line test, blah blah. I have had the router in the master socket and it made no difference. The line test showed no audible noise. They then suggested my May 2005 sourced Netgear DG834v2 router was known to not be compatible with the new line changes and I should buy a new Thompson one off them. I fear I am en route to a frustrating and expensive wild goose chase and am seriously contemplating binning a BT line connection and investigating a satellite based ISP link. I use the net a lot for pleasure and business, and being out in the sticks I use it more than most for shopping and Ebay. Ebay is particularly galling as when you are about to make a last minute bid you can be sure the line will either drop or be on go slow! I just don't have time or inclination to go on a self funded experimental journey buying new this and that with no guarantee of a positive result.

I am sure I am not alone in such connection experiences, and I am after advice as to whether satellite is a viable alternative, and whether a new router is likely to be the magic elixir to getting things working properly again.

I am quite pragmatic about all this, I just need a reliable, if not blisteringly fast connection. Years ago when I lived in south Manchester I took part in a small trial of fibre optic broadband, long before it was mainstream, sharing a huge pipe with maybe 50 other houses. It was an eye opening experience, but I realise I forego that sort of thing to live amongst woods and green fields, in peace and quiet. Trouble is, Internet wise, it's too damned quiet here, right now Help! Thanks.

Hi. The sentence I've highlighted doesn't make sense ?? The higher the Margin the less the speed.
I'm wondering if your ISP are upgrading their equipment from 20CN to 21CN, which shouldn't really affect you as an EU ??

I say this quite often on here, until I'm blue in the face tbh, but request your ISP arrange a 'Broadband SFI' engineering visit. They've already admitted that your circuit drops frequently. It's a flip of a coin whether its the router or not, just as it's a flip of a coin as to whether you've got a network fault or not ??
No amount of debate will bottom this out if you've run your tests at the master sockets test jack, and done the obvious eliminatory checks such as new filter, dsl lead etc ?

Ring them asap and get the visit in place. You pay line rental for this very reason.   

[roseway]

Just to add one point to the above, when you said that you had plugged the router into the master socket and it made no difference, did you actually plug it into the test socket (the socket which is exposed when the faceplate is removed from the master socket)? This is important, but if you haven't got an NTE5 type of master socket then you won't unfortunately be able to do this test.

[Basil]

No, I do not have a lead that will mate with the router at one end and whatever the "inside" socket is inside the master socket. The master socket internal connector appears neither what I naively call a phone plug socket, or an RG-11 socket. So I have been connecting into the router socket of the faceplate, at the master socket.

May I take this chance to ask another naive question? Does ADSL use a a different and separate incoming cable pair to the phone line, or is the data passed on the same cable pair as the phone line? I ask because our bungalow was built about 20 years ago and the owner at the time insisted the mains and BT service cables come underground, and not over head. On the outside wall of the hose is a grey BT logo'd terminal box where the underground phone cable comes in. Inside are 4 gel filled crimps, seemingly bringing 2 pairs of several cables emanating from underground, into the house. Other pairs are not used and seemingly redundant.

I have never been clear if ADSL uses a separate cable pair or shares the phone pair...

Thanks. I also misunderstood the noise measurement graph. I was assuming the higher figure was the signal tonoise ration, so say 20 dB was a signal 20 dB higher than the noise floor....

To clarify I have routerstats lite running while downloading a file. Here are 2 screen shots taken during the download of a 12.04 Megs file that took 13:06 minutes to download.
 http://www.chriswilson.tv/stats1.jpg

and at  http://www.chriswilson.tv/stats2.jpg

Thanks for the replies!

[kitz]

>>> I'm wondering if your ISP are upgrading their equipment from 20CN to 21CN, which shouldn't really affect you as an EU ??

I agree it shouldnt...  but wondering if its now having to go through the trials of the DLM to find the best profile?  Of so things may be bumpy for a while until the DLM settles down.

--------

Basil...  could you provide some linestats please.....   

The reason I ask, is that we may (or may not) be able to spot something obvious...

..... and secondly if its a long line and now on adsl2+, then perhaps we can see if we think that putting it on adsl2 may be more beneficial.   
Its pretty well known that some long lines dont perhaps perform too good on adsl2+ but setting it to adsl2 via the router may help.

[kitz]

Our posts crossed

>> if ADSL uses a separate cable pair or shares the phone pair

It shares... hence the importance of adsl filters.


>>> so say 20 dB
   
hmmmm   I notice your connection speed from routerstats is showing 576.....  I wonder...  "max fixed rate profile 500" ?

A large jump like that to 20db shows that your line conditions suddenly got a heck of a lot better.  I would need to know though if your sync speed changed at that time.

Also... does routerstats routinely show large jumps like that..  particularly at around the same time each day?

[Basil]

Hi kitz!

Thanks for the reply. They only commissioned the "upgrade" the other day, so I have had little chance to get a meaningful set of graphs. I have to do some work now, but I can leave either routerstats or routerstats lite running on this PC. Before the upgrade I could almost set my watch by when the connection would become all but unusable. About 3.300 PM when the kids left school. I just had to abandon anything line intensive until late in the evening on many occasions. Now it's all but unusable all the time.... I have also just downloaded ADSL graphing scripts V 1.5, but when run (and I have put my password in the text file) it says "unable to create pipe a few times and the graphs and log file are blank. It may be this app is unsuited to my connection, I don't know. Tell me what's best to leave running and I will do so. I am actually a radio ham (2E0ILY is my call sign, see www.qrz.com), but know sod all about Telecoms. Thanks for your help again.

[rbz5416]

If Zen are raising question marks over your router, ask them to loan you another to test. I've successfully done this before. They even supplied it pre-configured for my line. Although if they're suggesting the TG582n, there's loads cheap on Ebay. I picked one up yesterday to test an issue I'm having for £5.99 delivered.

It sounds a bit strange that you were "upgraded" regardless as assuming this is an exchange upgrade to 21CN, they recommend NOT regrading to ADSL2+ unless you already have a good speed. Off the top of my head I think it was 4Mbps but there's a document on their site it you want to search for it. So it would be worth ascertaining exactly what has gone on & what service you are on currently.

It may also help to remove the redundant ring wire from the master socket.

If you can get rid of the line drops then ask Zen to reset your line as if it were a new connection. That will clear any constraints due to the drops.

I'd also see if you can get BT to upgrade your master socket FOC so that you can isolate internal extensions.

[Basil]

If Zen are raising question marks over your router, ask them to loan you another to test. I've successfully done this before. They even supplied it pre-configured for my line. Although if they're suggesting the TG582n, there's loads cheap on Ebay. I picked one up yesterday to test an issue I'm having for £5.99 delivered.

It sounds a bit strange that you were "upgraded" regardless as assuming this is an exchange upgrade to 21CN, they recommend NOT regrading to ADSL2+ unless you already have a good speed. Off the top of my head I think it was 4Mbps but there's a document on their site it you want to search for it. So it would be worth ascertaining exactly what has gone on & what service you are on currently.

It may also help to remove the redundant ring wire from the master socket.

If you can get rid of the line drops then ask Zen to reset your line as if it were a new connection. That will clear any constraints due to the drops.

I'd also see if you can get BT to upgrade your master socket FOC so that you can isolate internal extensions.

The router Zen mentioned was very new and RouterStats didn't seem to list it as compatible, (yet).  They were talking about £30 for it. It's not so much the dosh, but not wanting to waste time experimenting with something that has already proved to be fickle, long term. I'll see if they'll loan me one, good idea, thanks! The ring wire is history already.

They did mention something about resetting the line, but said if there were issues at my end they couldn't reset again for a week or more. I'll try and get some photos of the mess that the master socket and associated wiring is, I always felt it was a right abortion when they installed it years ago! Cheers

[rbz5416]

It's not so much the dosh, but not wanting to waste time experimenting with something that has already proved to be fickle, long term.

I know where you're coming from as it can be a right royal PITA but unfortunately, a process of elimination is the only way forward.

Is there anything timed to switch on around 3:30PM? Central heating/hot water perhaps?

[Basil]

It's not so much the dosh, but not wanting to waste time experimenting with something that has already proved to be fickle, long term.

I know where you're coming from as it can be a right royal PITA but unfortunately, a process of elimination is the only way forward.

Is there anything timed to switch on around 3:30PM? Central heating/hot water perhaps?

Central heating? In July? <LOL> I can hear my wife laughing already, you obviously haven't heard of my well known parsimony, have you? <LOL>

No, seriosly though, I did have a ferret about and had a sudden gush of excitement when I remembered the de-humidifier is on a hygrostat, but it wasn't that. Tried turning the immersion heater off in case the `stat contacts were arcing, but no joy, either. Being into HF band ham radio I am pretty aware of RF noises, but this is a remarkably quiet locale in general, and electrically the house isn't too noisy. We still have CRT (proper... <G>) TV's! No plasma or LCD and no stylised lighting or too many switched mode PSU's. If I had to guess I would say the drops seem either loading related in so far as late afternoons and evenings and weekends are pretty dire, or just random. But that doesn't explain drops at 3 or 4 AM, unless locals are rather prone to insomnia. I have Router Stats with Telnet running now.

There are a couple of pretty big chicken farms nearby, one opposite, and they will have huge 3 phase blowers to keep Tesco's best chickens from pre cooking in their cages, presumably on temperature monitors. Not sure if mains borne glitches would affect this sort of  Telecoms though? Thanks for the ideas, appreciated.

[kitz]

>>> About 3.300 PM when the kids left school.

and then at midnightish your SNRM shoots way back up... hmmmm

I must admit I raised an eyebrow when you said radio ham, because that is a common cause of EMI/REIN if you have one in the area, but it seems you are aware of the problems associated with this.


>>> We still have CRT (proper... <G>) TV's!

You will be surprised what has been found to be the cause of REIN on this forum.  CRT TVs and monitors are not immune to being the cause of EMI.

>>> Not sure if mains borne glitches would affect this sort of  Telecoms though?

Unfortunately they can,  there are so many possible causes of REIN - which is exactly why its often so hard to track it down the offending cause

Have a read of this:-  REIN

[Basil]

I do have a biggish electric fence, but it's been here for years. I will try turning it off for a few hours. I can also turn off ALL power to the house and run off a battery for the router and laptop.

What sort of cable termination goes into the inside socket on the main ADSL box, the "master socket"? I don't have anything made up to go between router and this socket. I can terminate to RG-11 and many other types, if I know what the damned thing is

If posting statistics, what file is best to link to or post? Should ADSL-Stats work with this DG834v2 router and ADSL line, and will it convey anything more than routerstats with Telnet actuated? I'll give it my best shot, but am effectively without a truly workable internet connection now, and I need to address it even if it means doing something fairly radical I greatly appreciate the help and knowledge here, a wealth of info and expertise! Thank you.

[Basil]

I have made something of a small discovery. If I disconnect all the house phones at the master socket sync speed increases dramatically and noise falls dramatically. However, if I attempt a YouTube video watching session it still freezes after a few seconds, or is appallingly slow and unwatchable. Sync and noise seem to be unchanged during this session. I have a slight idea that as we have only 2 phone points in the house and both have nothing plugged in it casts suspicion on the auto dialler for the house alarm, which is hard wired. There is also an elderly outside bell for the phones, which was here when we came. there's a slide switch in the hall to turn it off, and it's always been turned off since we came here 13 years or so ago. Does the ADSL connection need time to "do anything" now the sync speed is back up from around or under 500 to 3600? The noise has changed from  about 22 to about 12.

[burakkucat]

Just a brief comment from The Cattery. Upon reading all the preceding posts to this thread, I started to get a funny sensation in the whiskers . . .

After a quick check, I found Basil's previous thread entitled Should the master socket be moved? It seems that the local wiring is even more confusing than I had assumed in that previous thread.