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Author Topic: Advice on a "Pair Prove"  (Read 8230 times)

WWWombat

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Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« on: January 19, 2015, 10:07:55 PM »

Hi all,

I'm not sure that this is an FTTC issue - but it sure is stopping me from getting a fibre connection...

We moved back in October, and despite a nice early order, and an apparent DSL check result showing we were connected to the cabinet outside ... we still don't have a fibre connection, though we finally got a voice connection, and eventually sidestepped fibre by putting a temporary ADSL connection in place.

We'll put aside all the earlier problems, and no-shows etc. Right now, the problem is that the survey done as a result of the order created routing records for the wrong cab - cab 21. Unfortunately, the new place already had cabling, and was wired to a different DP, which itself is wired back to cab 20. Instead of a 10m copper run, we now have a 100m copper run.

As a consequence, while the routing records have the wrong PCP identity, the job built to install fibre obviously allocates a port in the wrong DSLAM. When the engineer attends, there is nothing he can do to get the fibre connection working ... so has to leave.

But for some reason, we cannot get the routing records changed. The original engineer, and then the one who managed to get us a working voice connection, both confirmed the connection back to cab 20. Another engineer was sent on the 1st December, with the sole task of checking the connection routing... which he did, and he even gave me a copy of the connection details at MDF, PCP and DP. At the time, I wasn't given the technical term of what he was up to ... but it doesn't half sound like a "pair prove" to me.

An engineer attended last week to finally install the fibre connection, as the first installation attempt since 1st December, but still had the wrong details. He was a Quinn's contractor, and was around for less than 5 minutes once we established that he was indeed told the old cab 21.

Obviously my ISP is getting rather shirty with BTW and BTO by now, and has escalated the matter within BTO. But what he was told today doesn't make sense to me. He was told that the process to adjust the routing records requires a "pair prove" to take place. Further, he was told that the engineer who attended last week did this "pair prove".

This last part confuses me. Could a Quinn's engineer perform a "pair prove"? Could he do that without a tone generator on the line? Could he do that in 5 minutes without access to the house, and without looking like he traced the cable back to the DP?

Confused... just what does a "pair prove" entail?

... oh, and gutted that stuff with G.INP seems to be happening without being able to see it first-hand!
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Ixel

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2015, 11:48:10 PM »

What a baffling situation, hopefully there's a solution to it in the end.

Yeah, I'm waiting for DLM to relieve the traditional interleaving as I'm definitely green ILQ at the moment with only a few error seconds each day (just have a high caution counter I guess). I'm still wondering whether the new fastpath for those not on an open profile (when DLM next intervenes) is fastpath with G.INP enabled, while those still on an open profile or not intervened by DLM on fastpath will remain without G.INP. I'm expecting once interleaving is dropped on my connection that G.INP will be enabled with fastpath.
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2015, 10:33:14 AM »

That's interesting...

<off-topic>
I was responding to someone yesterday, on the Plusnet forum, where they are currently interleaved (regular DLM intervention, with INP=3, delay=8). The connection has been up for 70 days, and they've averaged only 40 ES's per day. By that measure, they ought to be ILQ green, easily. With a total of under 2800 ES's over the 70 days, they can't have had one single day above the red threshold.

However, their FEC count is horrendous: around 2 million per day, or 26 per second.

That FEC count tells us that intervention is absolutely required, but the ES count tells us the chosen intervention is working almost flawlessly.

70 days without a change to DLM suggests that more than the caution counter is in play here. I recall that SIN 498 requires the modem to support a parameter known as FECS (derived from FEC events in the same way that ES is derived from CRC events); I wonder if there is some sort of MTBE for FEC's that prevents DLM de-intervention.

I suspect that, for this line, FEC+Interleaving is a better solution than G.INP would be.
</off-topic>
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boost

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2015, 12:44:23 PM »

You may find it easier to order a new line or something.

I was involved with one of these routing records cockups once and no one seemed to be able to resolve it. It was completely and utterly bizarre.
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2015, 12:52:00 PM »

Interesting thought. I might pursue that idea with Plusnet.

Incidentally, I've tried raising this issue as a complaint, via email, with the BT Group CEO - I tend to advise that step to people where the issue is low down within Openreach, but their ISP's support staff seem too uninterested to get involved properly. I think I have the right staff in Plusnet working on this, but BTW seems to be the issue here.

And I've heard nothing whatsoever.

I've also tried raising it as an issue with the Openreach high-level complaints. Again, no response whatsoever.
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boost

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2015, 01:28:01 PM »

I believe there's an OR document entitled 'Fixing Suspect Data Integrity Issues' that may help too but escalation paths are not my strong point :)
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Black Sheep

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2015, 08:58:49 PM »

Just noticed this.

I feel your pain as I (and many others) know the difficulties involved when it comes down to 'routing & records'. All I can say is that it is automatically routed using the robotic tool 'ROSE'. It obviously needs manual intervention to rectify ROSE continually mapping you to the wrong Cab. Good luck.  ::) :)

For clarity ...... a 'Pair Prove' is simply ensuring the pair of wires get from A to B (IE: Exchange to DP), and are fault free. When we were run as a proper business (IMHO), our foreman/boss would keep abreast of upcoming multi-line business installs and would send a couple of lads to pre-emptive 'Pair Prove' thus ensuring no dramas on the installation date.
The same scenario would also be applied to residential premises if they were on a known 'Bad cable' run. This was when you had your own patch, had immense pride in it and the managers were old sweats who had done their time on the spanners.

Rightly or wrongly, none of that exists anymore.  :-X Bit political ........ but I think 'Pair Proves' were well worth the investment in engineers time back in the day.  :) Doesn't help you though, I'm afraid.   
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2015, 10:43:43 PM »

Thanks BS. I think the December engineer did precisely that. I have a Q165 reference for the MDF, E165 and Dsomething references for the PCP, and a pair reference for the DP. I suspect the November engineer had done exactly the same thing, though he only told me the D and E references in the PCP.

In December, the apparent process was that the engineer would confirm the routing, and send the data back to Leeds, IIRC. The new data would be put into the system, but wouldn't get attached to the existing order. If that were left in place, it would keep the old data.

Plusnet were supposed to cancel the order, and put a new one in ... which would automatically inherit the new routing data.

Unfortunately, that new order, when expedited, came out with a 10 day delay initially. 2 days later, that was cancelled and put back another 2 weeks. At that, we gave up, placed an ADSL order, which expedited to the next working day. Since then, the new, new fibre order has gone to pot...
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burakkucat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2015, 10:49:06 PM »

I've also tried raising it as an issue with the Openreach high-level complaints. Again, no response whatsoever.

Via joe.garner@openreach.co.uk?

I am surprised to know that there was no response. In that case, you should raise it with the biggest cheese of them all, gavin.e.patterson@bt.com.
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2015, 11:05:18 PM »

I did the big cheese first, then with no response, I found a reference to the Openreach HLC complaints at http://phonebt.com/bt-complaints/
The DSO reference made me think these people acted somewhat accountably.

With the stories of people getting good responses from there, I'm very surprised to hear nothing whatsoever. My mail server shows the SMTP session delivered just fine...

Is the universe telling me I have to go with Virgin  >:D ? Surely not...
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Black Sheep

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2015, 07:29:37 AM »

'Is the universe telling me I have to go with Virgin  >:D ? Surely not...'

 :lol: Don't do it Wombat ..... big bucks for little return. Only last night I had 2, yes 2 friends, contact me asking about going to BT FTTC from VM due to the prices.  Obviously, I mentioned the other ISP's as well, as they both thought only BTr did FTTC.

I would certainly pursue it vehemently, even quoting the routing that the engineers have mentioned to you. For info, the Q165 is what we officially term the Bar/Pair, (IE: The fuse on the Exchange MDF that the pair of wires providing the Dial Tone would be connected to). This Bar/Pair will only go to one dedicated Cab. This pair appears in that particular Cab on the E-side cable mapping E165, as stated by the engineers.

From here, there will be a range of dedicated D-side pairs routed to your DP. it all depends on the size of the DP (not height, as in the number of premises it serves), as to how many pairs are dedicated ?? All we do is ensure the entire route is fault-free and cross connect the E-side pair to the D-side pair in the Cab to ensure Dial Tone gets to the DP.

Of course, when an FTTC order is received, we have to do a bit more jiggery-pokery at the Cab, but for now you need to flag it up exactly what the issue is regarding the routing issue. Can't be of much help I'm afraid as it's not my forte.
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KIAB

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2015, 10:09:32 AM »

'Is the universe telling me I have to go with Virgin  >:D ? Surely not...'

 :lol: Don't do it Wombat ..... big bucks for little return. Only last night I had 2, yes 2 friends, contact me asking about going to BT FTTC from VM due to the prices.  Obviously, I mentioned the other ISP's as well, as they both thought only BTr did FTTC.

I would certainly pursue it vehemently, even quoting the routing that the engineers have mentioned to you. For info, the Q165 is what we officially term the Bar/Pair, (IE: The fuse on the Exchange MDF that the pair of wires providing the Dial Tone would be connected to). This Bar/Pair will only go to one dedicated Cab. This pair appears in that particular Cab on the E-side cable mapping E165, as stated by the engineers.

From here, there will be a range of dedicated D-side pairs routed to your DP. it all depends on the size of the DP (not height, as in the number of premises it serves), as to how many pairs are dedicated ?? All we do is ensure the entire route is fault-free and cross connect the E-side pair to the D-side pair in the Cab to ensure Dial Tone gets to the DP.

Of course, when an FTTC order is received, we have to do a bit more jiggery-pokery at the Cab, but for now you need to flag it up exactly what the issue is regarding the routing issue. Can't be of much help I'm afraid as it's not my forte.

Waste of time writing to Patterson, been there done it, got nowhere with him or Openreach.

So, I went a bit higher  & wrote to  Sir Michael Rake, Chairman at BT Group plc, BT Centre, 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ.
Took about two weeks for things to start moving, had a case manager assigned, then a investigation, & finally a shiny new line.
Been fighting few several years without sucess, going to the top, got results in 6-8 weeks.


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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2015, 09:30:13 PM »

A quick question on this ROSE thingy...

If that system is going to get updated properly, as a result of an order, what should I expect?

a) Should I expect that ROSE gets updated early in the process, such that the new cab gets seen by the BTW-DSL-checker, well before the FTTC appointment date?

b) Or should I expect ROSE to be updated late, and possibly after the FTTC appointment date, such that the old cab continues to be shown by the BTW-DSL-checker?

If it is the former, then I can abort things before the appointment. If it is (b), then I have to wait until the appointment to find out whether the order has the new cab details.

Unfortunately, it looks like Plusnet have been told (b) by BTW, but that seems contrary to everything we know about the standard ordering systems, and the fact that the BTW-DSL-checker must be right first.

On the complaints:
Still no answer from Gavin Patterson, but I did hear back from Openreach HLC ... which was basically that I should respect the EoI layers, and leave it to the CP to sort out  :lol:

KIAB might be right...
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2015, 06:40:46 PM »

Maybe I can answer that one myself...

Plusnet inform me that BTW say the "pair prove" has been done, so we move on to the next installation attempt, on Tuesday. The imminence of that appointment is surprising, so I wonder if the complaint to Openreach has actually had an impact behind the scenes  :police:

Anyway, a couple of days on, the BTW checker still reports, using the full address, that we're connected via cab 21, but now reports, using the telephone number, that we're connected via cab 20. The result of a phone number check has always been the same as the address check, so that's something of an improvement!
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WWWombat

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Re: Advice on a "Pair Prove"
« Reply #14 on: January 27, 2015, 04:05:09 PM »

'Is the universe telling me I have to go with Virgin  >:D ? Surely not...'

 :lol: Don't do it Wombat ..... big bucks for little return. Only last night I had 2, yes 2 friends, contact me asking about going to BT FTTC from VM due to the prices.  Obviously, I mentioned the other ISP's as well, as they both thought only BTr did FTTC.

Had a VM cold-caller yesterday, trying to sell me on their "best and fastest" broadband and TV.

At first, he ignored me telling him that I wasn't interested, so I decided to play. After a while, he couldn't wait to leave   :angel:

Oh - and the DSL checker now reports, for the address, that we're on cab 20 as well. Definite progress...
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