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[Dave2150]

Hi there,

For the last two and a half years, I've been on Sky's 40/10 FTTC package, where I enjoyed a 33Mbit download connection speed. I was using a Kelly Engineer supplied HG612 modem and the Sky Hub (SR101).

I moved from Sky to BT Infinity option 1 on the 27th of January. They supplied a BT Home Hub 5B. I was excited at the chance to remove one device and only have the combined modem/router in order to supply my connection. I was aware this would prevent me from viewing my detailed line stats, but as my connection was so stable/reliable I didn't feel the need to constantly monitor them. I'd literally sync at 33Mbit down 7Mbit every single day, with very little deviation.

The day my BT service went live, I lost sync with my Sky equipment and so disconnected the HG612 modem/SR101 router and proceeded to connect my HH5B. I did a speed test and got the following: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5046140366. I then did some searching and found that migrating to another FTTC service would completely reset my DLM - so I assume at this point my line was experiencing many errors, dropped packets etc.

The next day speeds settled, and I found that I had a 27mbit downstream sync. Speed tests were showing my full connection speed. I was also heavily interleaved, resulting in pings of 40ms to bbc, for example.

A few days later the interleaving was reduced further, resulting in pings of 21ms to bbc.co.uk, which is very similar to my pings on Sky.

I'm wondering why my connection speeds haven't returned to what they were with my Sky service? It's been almost two weeks now, and my line hasn't resynced itself since the first day.

I decided to reconnect my HG612 around a week ago, in order to view the detailed line stats. I've now setup monitoring on the 'Mydslwebstats' service (excellent service btw!), where my data can be found under the username 'Dave2150'.

I'd appreciate any feedback as to why my connection seems to have been locked to 27mbit with a 8DB SNR. The attainable rates look identical to what I was getting for the last few years with Sky.

I'd also appreciate any feedback about the general 'health' of my line. My next door neighbour ordered a FTTC service the same time as I did, when our cabinet (ECI) went live in 2013. He enjoys a 55mbit downstream/11mbit upstream connection, which I always found odd, as we're literally a few meters apart, and are both around 600M from our cabinet (following the cables along the road). Both houses were part of a small Cul-de-sac built around 10 years ago. We have underground ducting from our houses for around 30M, where the cables emerge from the ground then climb a BT pole (erected the same time as the houses were built) which then feeds onto a combined electricity/BT pole which also feeds the older houses in the area, so I assumed our line routing would be very similar?

Many thanks for any help

[Bald_Eagle1]

Do you have any stats from when you were on a Sky connection for comparison purposes?

Your current DS Interleaving depth is quite high at 877, so following a period of (hopefully) continued stability, DLM may relent & reduce Interleaving depth & thus increase sync speeds.

Your current sync speed does appear to be currently capped at one of the familiar speeds (27.4 Mbps).


Regards your other stats, they actually suggest that you could be more than 600m from the cabinet as they look rather similar to mine.
However, I am 1100m or so from my cabinet.

I've attached my snapshot montage for reference.
As you are also using HG612 Modem Stats, could you attach yours for comparison?

[Dave2150]

Thanks for the reply.

I've attached my current stats below. I did have my previous line stats on Sky uploaded on Imgur, but the links have sadly expired now I'm looking through some data backups, perhaps I'll be able to find them.

I'm not sure I fully understand you - does having a interleaving value of 877 mean that this is "using" up potential download sync speed?

When I was on Sky, I had very similar pings to what I have now, whilst having the usual 33mbit sync. I'm hoping for my connection to return to how it was, how likely do you think this will happen?

Our stats do look quite similar, though I notice my seems to load bits at a little higher frequency tone than yours does.

[Bald_Eagle1]

I'm not sure I fully understand you - does having a interleaving value of 877 mean that this is "using" up potential download sync speed?

Yes it does.
When Interleaving is on, it also artificially increases attainable rates as well as decreasing actual sync speeds.

Our stats do look quite similar, though I notice my seems to load bits at a little higher frequency tone than yours does.

That's because your attenuation (Hlog graph), QLN & thus SNR are a little better than mine.

It's odd that your neighbour achieves better speeds though.
Maybe your line goes a longer way round the cul-de-sac, although your description doesn't actually confirm that.

Is your modem connected directly at the master socket's SSFP or through a microfilter?
Also, do you have an internal extension cable from the master socket to the modem?

I did try a 'different' 2m patch lead from my master socket to my modem at one point & achieved a sync speed that was quite a bit lower than when using the standard flat patch lead that came with the modem.
Reinstating the original patch lead restored the higher sync speed.

[Dave2150]

I'm not sure I fully understand you - does having a interleaving value of 877 mean that this is "using" up potential download sync speed?

Yes it does.
When Interleaving is on, it also artificially increases attainable rates as well as decreasing actual sync speeds.

Our stats do look quite similar, though I notice my seems to load bits at a little higher frequency tone than yours does.

That's because your attenuation (Hlog graph), QLN & thus SNR are a little better than mine.

It's odd that your neighbour achieves better speeds though.
Maybe your line goes a longer way round the cul-de-sac, although your description doesn't actually confirm that.

Is your modem connected directly at the master socket's SSFP or through a microfilter?
Also, do you have an internal extension cable from the master socket to the modem?

I did try a 'different' 2m patch lead from my master socket to my modem at one point & achieved a sync speed that was quite a bit lower than when using the standard flat patch lead that came with the modem.
Reinstating the original patch lead restored the higher sync speed.

My modem is connected via a 1M twisted pair RJ11 to a MK3 VDSL SSFP directly to the mastersocket. The master socket is located right where the underground ducting conduit enters my house. Behind my mastersocket, there is a thick black cable which seems to contain 4 pairs of wires, one pair of which is wired to the mastersocket. The other 3 pairs (spare pairs I assume?) are folded up in the cavity behind the master socket. I have two extensions which are wired up to the front part of the NTE.

My neighbours line definitely takes the same route as mine to the second BT pole - as there's one one cable bundle emerging from the ducting at the top of the street going up the BT pole. I suppose the pair that mine connects to from there must take a longer route back to the cabinet, or perhaps his line is copper. When we originally had our telephone line connected 10 years ago, the engineer said the area around here was mostly aluminium cables, so most likely mine is aluminium.

I don't suppose there's a method of getting BT to try and swap a customer onto a copper pair, instead of an aluminium one? Assuming there are some copper pairs spare.

[KIAB]

My neighbours line definitely takes the same route as mine to the second BT pole - as there's one one cable bundle emerging from the ducting at the top of the street going up the BT pole. I suppose the pair that mine connects to from there must take a longer route back to the cabinet, or perhaps his line is copper. When we originally had our telephone line connected 10 years ago, the engineer said the area around here was mostly aluminium cables, so most likely mine is aluminium.

I don't suppose there's a method of getting BT to try and swap a customer onto a copper pair, instead of an aluminium one? Assuming there are some copper pairs spare.

Had terrible problems here with continue dropped connections, & low speed due to being on aluminium cable,I was getting about 30Mb, which dropped to 14Mb sometimes lower, compared to 70Mb for neighbour, I made myself unpopular complaining to CEO's BT & OR, after many months of complaining,a little bit of network rearrangement  was agreed & I was moved over to copper & now getting 70/17.

[Weaver]

@Kiab  - good result!

[Chrysalis]

Dave, I had a quick look.

Your snrm drops to around 6db at night, so I expect if you were to manually resync during the day you would sync higher, so thats a thing I would try.  It doesnt look like its due to banding.
Regarding your neighbour its the lottery of xDSL, The most likely reason your neighbour has higher speeds is they are suffering less crosstalk interference, but there is also a possibility you have some kind of fault such as a poor joint somewhere.

[Dave2150]

My neighbours line definitely takes the same route as mine to the second BT pole - as there's one one cable bundle emerging from the ducting at the top of the street going up the BT pole. I suppose the pair that mine connects to from there must take a longer route back to the cabinet, or perhaps his line is copper. When we originally had our telephone line connected 10 years ago, the engineer said the area around here was mostly aluminium cables, so most likely mine is aluminium.

I don't suppose there's a method of getting BT to try and swap a customer onto a copper pair, instead of an aluminium one? Assuming there are some copper pairs spare.

Had terrible problems here with continue dropped connections, & low speed due to being on aluminium cable,I was getting about 30Mb, which dropped to 14Mb sometimes lower, compared to 70Mb for neighbour, I made myself unpopular complaining to CEO's BT & OR, after many months of complaining,a little bit of network rearrangement  was agreed & I was moved over to copper & now getting 70/17.

This sounds encouraging, perhaps I'll try emailing the CEO also

[Dave2150]

Dave, I had a quick look.

Your snrm drops to around 6db at night, so I expect if you were to manually resync during the day you would sync higher, so thats a thing I would try.  It doesnt look like its due to banding.
Regarding your neighbour its the lottery of xDSL, The most likely reason your neighbour has higher speeds is they are suffering less crosstalk interference, but there is also a possibility you have some kind of fault such as a poor joint somewhere.

Looking at my graphs on mydslwebstats, my downstream SNR varies only between 8.4DB and 8.1DB SNR. It hasn't been below 8.1DB yet on the graphs. Upstream SNR seems stuck at 6DB.

I resynced today at 15:00, still locked at 27Mbit. Attainable data rate is now 38272 Kbps and SNR is now 8.8DB - note that yesterday it was extremely windy and raining heavily all day (South Wales), so my stats were slightly worse than usual.

I know for a fact that my line was completely stable at 6DB SNR on the downstream,  which allowed me to sync at 33mbit. I'm just concerned that my line seems to now be locked or 'banded' at 27mbit, despite clearly having enough margin to do more, and having successfully done so for  over 2 years when I was with Sky.

If I'd known my line's DLM would be completely reset and that I'd loose 5mbit sync speed, I'd have stuck with Sky. Perhaps I can use this line in my argument with BT, if DLM doesn't unlock my line within the next week?

[KIAB]

Dave2150:  I started with Sir Michael Rake, Chairman of BT, very good, had phone called within 24 hours from him, followed by a letter, but could only do so much, then I was passed to OR former CEO Joe Garner, he really got things moving, appointed someone to look at my case in detail.
It took several weeks, & a broadband technician appeared,it took another 5 engineers to sort the problem,No 4 moved my line from front pole to to a rear pole,put a new drop to the house, but it didn't solve the low speed & dropped connections, No5 turned up & the connection went down & never recovered while he was testing line, he then spent 2 days resoliving all the problems & faults found, also replace cable along whole length of lane,&  did the network rearrangement moving me from aluminum to copper.

[Black Sheep]

I'm not decrying KIAB's persistence and the obvious end result. I just want to add a precautionary note, as I feel KIAB's experience is unusual, and is more likely down to a completely faulty length of aluminium cable that was eventually replaced for copper cable.

Points of note are, we will not change out legacy Aluminium cable if it tests electrically sound and/or has spare capacity with which to migrate a faulty circuit over to. Even if a faulty length has been identified, our remit is to pin-point the exact location of the faults and have just that section replaced (UG box-to-box).

Every scenario is different, KIAB's will certainly be different to yours .............. therefore yes, by all means complain as high as you wish to go up the OR ladder, but don't expect after 5,10,15 .... visits, that a big truck will turn up with 2km of shiny 0.9 Cu cable.

As I said, each and every situation is different and will require different fixes to resolve the situation. Don't shoot the messenger, just putting it out there because there WILL be people reading this, that think a quick letter to Mr Rake will solve all their problems (A SNR fluctuation of 0.02dB, or a loss of connection once ...... 13 months ago). #pedantalert 

[Dave2150]

I'm not decrying KIAB's persistence and the obvious end result. I just want to add a precautionary note, as I feel KIAB's experience is unusual, and is more likely down to a completely faulty length of aluminium cable that was eventually replaced for copper cable.

Points of note are, we will not change out legacy Aluminium cable if it tests electrically sound and/or has spare capacity with which to migrate a faulty circuit over to. Even if a faulty length has been identified, our remit is to pin-point the exact location of the faults and have just that section replaced (UG box-to-box).

Every scenario is different, KIAB's will certainly be different to yours .............. therefore yes, by all means complain as high as you wish to go up the OR ladder, but don't expect after 5,10,15 .... visits, that a big truck will turn up with 2km of shiny 0.9 Cu cable.

As I said, each and every situation is different and will require different fixes to resolve the situation. Don't shoot the messenger, just putting it out there because there WILL be people reading this, that think a quick letter to Mr Rake will solve all their problems (A SNR fluctuation of 0.02dB, or a loss of connection once ...... 13 months ago). #pedantalert 

I understand it's unlikely to happen at all, since (unfortunately) the line is perfectly sound on the telephone side of things. Plus I've been happy with connection since it was installed in July 2013.

I'm simply a bit dissapointed/frustrated that a simple change from Sky to BT would result in this persistant speed capping, which has lost me 5Mbit downstream sync. As I said previously, if I'd have known this would have happened, I would have remained with Sky.

[KIAB]

I'm not decrying KIAB's persistence and the obvious end result. I just want to add a precautionary note, as I feel KIAB's experience is unusual, and is more likely down to a completely faulty length of aluminium cable that was eventually replaced for copper cable.

Points of note are, we will not change out legacy Aluminium cable if it tests electrically sound and/or has spare capacity with which to migrate a faulty circuit over to. Even if a faulty length has been identified, our remit is to pin-point the exact location of the faults and have just that section replaced (UG box-to-box).

Every scenario is different, KIAB's will certainly be different to yours .............. therefore yes, by all means complain as high as you wish to go up the OR ladder, but don't expect after 5,10,15 .... visits, that a big truck will turn up with 2km of shiny 0.9 Cu cable.

As I said, each and every situation is different and will require different fixes to resolve the situation. Don't shoot the messenger, just putting it out there because there WILL be people reading this, that think a quick letter to Mr Rake will solve all their problems (A SNR fluctuation of 0.02dB, or a loss of connection once ...... 13 months ago). #pedantalert 

Quite agree BS, penning a letter to Mr Rake isn't a solution to everyone's problem, & every problem has a different solution, but when I moved here 5 years ago, BT Checker quoted a fairly good figure around 60-65Mb, but in reality it was way out only got 30Mb & this gradually decreased to 20Mb or less.
Then what rattled my cage was a neighbour a short distance away got put on the rear pole, despite spare pairs available on front pole, both poles use same cab.
As far as I know they never replaced the aluminum cable up the High Street,despite pavement being marked up by OR, but engineer No5 found a copper cable with a spare pair in same duct.

It took about 12 months of complaining to get a result, which could have been avoided, if someone had read engineer No2 report & actioned his recommendation to replace a 400-500mtr section of aluminum cable.

[Black Sheep]

You absolutely got a great result, and quite lucky that there was also a Copper cable running through to the same UG box, and same UG joint as your DP. The chances of that happening are quite low.

This is not meant as derogatory in any way, but you've more chance of joining Tim Peake than getting 400-500mtrs of cable replacing. As mooted, we have to get it down to as small a distance as possible for the 'Planners' to go ahead with the cable renewal. If the faults are in a 40mtr section, there's no point in renewing the whole 500mtrs.

On the odd-occasion, and usually on 1970/80's built UG (Armoured cable) fed estates, we do get faults in multiple places along the cable length, and the whole shebang will need renewing .............. but this is as rare as hen's teeth.

My input was really for Dave (and other folk who may be unawares), that a lot of time could be spent for no return on a loss of 6Meg after transferring ISP's. I understand Dave's frustration, just didn't want his hopes built up.