Also something I have noticed is that between the poles there is only 3 lines followed by a thicker cable is this normal/sufficient if everyone had FTTC.
What i'm thinking is could these three lines support 20ish houses all on VDSL that is the poles backhaul?
May be a stupid question but I am curious on how three lines plus the thicker one can support potentially 1.6Gbit/s, or is it a particularity high contention situation?
Its normal. VDSL2 is capable of carrying 80Mbps over a single copper pair.
As far as contention goes, it doesn't happen at all on the copper side of things, which in effect is a dedicated end to end point between your property and the cab.
Contention and congestion occurs on the fibre backhaul where numerous (many 100's) of users are sharing the same bandwidth on the fibre optic cable. The usual points of congestion are between the exchange and the RAS - commonly known in old money as the VP. With FTTC the backhaul would be the point between the Head End Exchange and the point you enter the main core is known as a SVLAN. There is also another place where its possible that local contention could occur and thats the CVLAN - ie the fibre from the cab to the head end exchange. Its supposedly not meant to occur here, but thats not to say it couldnt at some point.
Here's an old diagram that I did many years ago which clearly shows where contention can occur and the VPs (Virtual Paths). It was done in the early days of adsl so bandwidth was far less, but the theory is the same.
A more updated version for 21CN is
here - where you see the clouds thats part of the SVLAN and where congestion can occur. Just now we are talking of 100's of users with much higher speeds and multiple Gb's on the backhauls.
Whilst there's no contention on the copper pair - unlike fibre - copper suffers badly with
attenuation. The longer the length of copper then the more the signal fades. xDSL is a digital signal carried over copper wire - the shorter the length of copper the clearer the signal which means it can carry more frequencies.. and
higher frequencies mean more bandwidth. Its also susceptible noise. Noise from various sources such as EMI or crosstalk (or even a worn cable/oxydised joint) can introduce noise which will further drown out the signal. Signal strength to Noise (
SNR) is an important indicator of what speed can be carried over copper.
The HH isn't very good at linestats, although depending on which model you may be able to log your SNR Margin using routerstats. TBH if the line is problematic then a decent modem/router with proper linestats may tell you far more about the physical condition of your line. Whilst perhaps not the most elegant of solutions and because you wish to retain the HH5 because of BT TV, have you thought about putting a HG612 in front of the HH5?
But a cheeky £10 is always available for noble causes.
Thank you very much.
