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[Weaver]

All four lines are spiking downstream SNRM values, and d/s target SNRMs shot up to 9-17dB reducing d/s sync rates to a fraction of what they should be.

I have fought to get the target SNRMs something sensible, at 6dB, or 3dB if possible, but am still getting packet loss (CQM visible dripping blood) after rate resets.

Live sync rates:
  #1: down 2483 kbps, up 525 kbps
  #2: down 2468 kbps, up 496 kbps
  #3: down 2553 kbps, up 248 kbps
  #4: down 2821 kbps, up 449 kbps

These numbers don’t look too bad, but that’s because they are running at 6 dB d/s where necessary not 3dB and (ii) there are crazy error rates visible in CQM now causing real packet loss.

[Weaver]

I’ve been so ill over the past few days, stomach cramps, diarrhoea, shaking, nausea, pain - all to do with problems with the fentanyl that I am on, causing constipation then swinging to the opposite. Added an extra small fentanyl patch from the hospital late at night because I felt so ill and we had run out of patches, and the patch I was using ran out too soon, perhaps something to do with the diarrhoea. Then today the pharmacy screwed up the fentanyl order or lost it or something but Janet got there in the end.

Anyway, all lines are going crazy. New fb2900 doesn’t appear to work for some reason. I have got a new 4G usb ‘dongle’ nic too, and when Janet plugged in fb2900 plus 4G NIC without telling me, everything went haywire. Total chaos and I was completely overwhelmed with confusion as just nothing seemed to work, couldn’t access the new Firebrick (sometimes). So went straight back to fb2700 plus 3G NIC as I’m too ill to work out what’s happening. All this bad stuff at once.

I need to get the lines sorted out first, throw that problem at AA.

The fact that four lines have gone bad simultaneously, to different groups degrees - what does that mean? A lorry ran over the cable perhaps?

This is the month for morons pulling off the roadsides and getting stuck because they simply can’t drive. Evidenced by crazy pictures seen on the web, such as one from Trondairnis, in a picturesque glen - I forget exactly where - near Uige, and on the west coast of the Island, in Gleann Bhreatail. So it does make me wonder if a bit of off-roading might be the answer. Weather has been mild and a bit damp at times so the ground will be soft. Rocks under the cable as well on the high moor.

[Weaver]

Live sync rates:
  #1: down 938 kbps, up 522 kbps
  #2: down 1493 kbps, up 458 kbps
  #3: down 1308 kbps, up 248 kbps
  #4: down 1831 kbps, up 449 kbps

Couldn’t sustain the relatively normal d/s sync rates, not even at a respectable 6dB d/s so the d/s sync rates dropped to the above values.

[burakkucat]

The fact that four lines have gone bad simultaneously, to different groups degrees - what does that mean? A lorry ran over the cable perhaps?

Yes, something like that would do it. 

Do you have an idea of the approximate number of premises in Heasta? I'm trying to gauge: (1) the total number of pairs required (2) how many cables are actually used from the Broadford TE to Heasta.

[Weaver]

I’m guessing about 20 premises now but there has been such a huge lot of house building very recently that I am likely to be out of date. I am the first house as you know, so if it affects me it is likely to affect others so I should perhaps ask Janet to ask around, see if anyone else is unhappy.

[burakkucat]

An e-mail message carrying the snapshot plots for your four lines has now been sent on its way to you. 

As for the cable sizing, I'm tempted to assume two of fifty pair cables have been run from the Broadford TE to Heasta.

[Weaver]

And amazingly the 3G link was down tonight, but came back up on its own, before going down again, so truly cursed. Hardly an MSO but the equivalent for me myself. Links are all up, but just with horrible performance. Below fault tolerance rate.

[burakkucat]

If one link stays up long enough for you to "get word out" to A&A that will, at least, be the first hurdle overcome.

[Weaver]

All links are always up, and I have two other lots of independent 3G and 4G, on three - another link from Three on my iPad and Janet’s too and Janet’s iPhone speaks EE 4G. I also have a Solwise model something or other 4G wireless modem-router ready configured, if I can find it, as yet another backup.

So have managed to send multiple ‘nano-MSO’ type emails successfully to AA, but it’s now after hours of course. Didn’t try irc as I was too exhausted from feeling ill. Managed to eat something, a sandwich, for the first time in a day or two, so that might help.

I emailed Andrew-AA -saying I need some serious help, so AA, if you’re out there? Right now some lines are down to 30% of their expected downstream sync rate.

It’s only the enormous target SNRM downstream currently that is preventing them from dropping the link.

A big lorry came the other day to load up fat lambs and take them away, I think. But that was too late; the timing was not consistent as I think the badness had started before that; can look back in the clueless.aa.net.uk CQM pictures.

[Weaver]

Picture from clueless. This image took so long to upload, it was like going back to dialup :

[Weaver]

That image looks really fuzzy to me, horrible. What should I be doing to easily upload an image to <somewhere> so that I can link to it in posts?

Update, with huge target SNRM d/s values in force:
Live sync rates:
  #1: down 938 kbps, up 522 kbps
  #2: down 1493 kbps, up 458 kbps
  #3: down 1308 kbps, up 248 kbps
  #4: down 1831 kbps, up 449 kbps

An Ookla speed test gives me a result of 4.7 Mbps downstream, 1.3 Mbps upstream. The reference standard AA speedtest2.aa.net.uk gives eg 4.92 / 1.27.

[Weaver]

OR engineer is working on a ticket to look at line 1 right now - out on the high moor in the rain.
One very confused man told Janet a load of rubbish because he got confused, thought that the internet line cwcc@a.1 822xxx is our voice line, but our published voice line number is 505xxx (which is AA voip redirected to Janet’s mobile. and he thought that the fact he was speaking to her at all proved that he had fixed things, except it meant nothing of the kind, he was talking to her mobile phone. This was possible because in addition Janet set up a redirect from 822470 to her mobile so that the old number would still work. And that really confused him. And she never told me about it, when she did that years back, which was not good, I only heard about it today.

He hasn’t finished the tests yet, but I presume he has done something.

[Weaver]

I went crazy and set up bt ‘enhanced care’ on all lines - priority maintenance, as I have a bad feeling about all of this.

AA tells me this means ‘Extra level of maintenance on broadband lines with a 20 hour target fix from when we report fault in to BT.’

This is a bit mad, and then some, because it is going to cost me £12 per line per month, not sure if that is inc cat for vat to be added on top. But I will just do it for a short while until things are cleared up and seem to be staying that way, and then I will turn it all off again (which will probably waste some more money as I bet there’s a charge for turning it off for all I know)

[Weaver]

Line 1 looking v. good now. AA amazingly efficient, got BT out really quickly. I delayed things myself by two days because I was so ill I couldn’t thin.

I suppose we just have to work through the other lines now. Groan.

Line 1 was the worst performer, lowest d/s sync of only 950k instead of 2800k d/s sync.

Am worried about what to do if the other lines don’t show up as ‘bad’ in some sort of bt official test sense. The target SNRM being ridiculously high is the only thing keeping them from dropping. But most significant is that the d/s rates of 2,3,4 are all FTB so I suppose that that’s officially broken, by definition? Being below the FTR, that is? (I see the FTR-breaching lines are listed in the sinners’ section at the top in clueless.aa.net.uk, which is a nice idea, as they stand out prominently as the lines that are problematic.)

There ought to be a BT FTR for upstream. It’s incredible that BT etc don’t seem to think upstream even matters. Amazing.

[Weaver]

Line 3 looks very good indeed now, as well as line 1. Line 2 still pretty awful and line 4 extremely awful.

Out very own johnson’s custom stats-graphing firmware in the ZyXel modems has been invaluable during this. Many thanks to him!

Janet tells me that there has been a mini digger working right by the PCP that was used to supply cwcc@a.2 last summer and an FTTC cab -not sure which is which, I forget now, as the two green boxen are pretty close together on opposite sides of the main road roughly. Which box was which ?

Janet is wondering if that mini digger has disturbed things. The digger is by the box on the south side of the road. Anyway, the Heasta-bound links will be coming from around there on their route to/from the Broadford exchange. They are supposed to be EO lines, but I don’t think there’s any way that line 2 can be and that makes me doubt the others’ true EO status.