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Author Topic: improving upload on long rural line  (Read 6771 times)

outoftownie

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improving upload on long rural line
« on: September 12, 2019, 09:37:41 AM »


Firstly... thank you for this site and forum, I've learned a lot, and already taken steps to improve my FTTC speed and collect better data about what is going on...



So... I have recently moved from the city with the choice of both FTTC and cable, to "the sticks", and am trying to make my BT FTTC line perform somewhere near the BT DSL checker prediction:
VDSL Range A (Clean) 32.1   20   6.7   4.3   16.5 
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 31.2   17.3   6.6   4   13.1 

Here's the actuals:
Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps)   25.42               
Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps)   2.38   
            
I've had the line live since last Friday. Previously it was only ever used for ADSL. Since installation, downstream has slowly risen from 20Mbps, I can manage with where it is now.... However, I could do with a couple of megs more upstream as I work from home including videoconferencing frequently.

The physical environment is 1 to 1.4km to the cabinet (I'm not quite sure of the route) which is a mix of underground and overhead, the DP is on a pole around 50m away, from there my drop wire runs through some trees, is attached to an electricity pole, then goes through another set of tree branches, before reaching the eaves of my house. There's a crappy small brown plastic BT box on the wall by the eaves, then about 20m of what looks like quite new drop wire, with a new OR master socket and MK4 faceplate. No extension wiring connected. I think I have a spare pair on the drop from the DP. Modem is now a HG612 (based on the recommendations here), and the router is an Ubiquiti ER-X. 

DSLstats results below and graphs here https://imgur.com/a/pfRNI2i. (note the ES graph covers more than the period I have been monitoring so far - there's always some error seconds on the upstream while I've been monitoring, and it seems to be typically 20 ES/hour)
xdslcmd info --stats
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:   0
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:   Upstream rate = 2348 Kbps, Downstream rate = 24884 Kbps
Bearer:   0, Upstream rate = 2389 Kbps, Downstream rate = 25420 Kbps
Bearer:   1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State:   L0
Mode:         VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile:      Profile 17a
TPS-TC:         PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis:      U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:      No Defect
Training Status:   Showtime
      Down      Up
SNR (dB):    6.1       5.8
Attn(dB):    26.0       0.0
Pwr(dBm):    11.3       7.3

xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:   0
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:   Upstream rate = 2358 Kbps, Downstream rate = 24752 Kbps
Bearer:   0, Upstream rate = 2389 Kbps, Downstream rate = 25420 Kbps
Bearer:   1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1606)
     VDSL Port Details        Upstream        Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate:        2358 kbps          24752 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:          7.3 dBm           11.3 dBm
====================================================================================
  VDSL Band Status   U0   U1   U2   U3   U4   D1   D2   D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):   11.5   60.1   75.7   N/A   N/A   23.2   73.0   N/A
Signal Attenuation(dB):   11.5   59.6   N/A   N/A   N/A   37.9   73.5   N/A
        SNR Margin(dB):   5.9   6.0   N/A   N/A   N/A   5.9   6.0   N/A
         TX Power(dBm):   0.7   6.1   N/A   N/A   N/A   10.2   5.0   N/A

I am guessing U2 is just bad enough that I can't get the additional upstream band to give me that bit more upload speed?

Would there be any mileage in getting OpenReach out? Ideas I have

- try the other pair on the drop wire, or a different pair back to the cabinet
- re-route the drop wire so it doesn't go through trees - there is a direct route from the pole that avoids the trees, it would overhang a neighbours garden though which might not make me popular :-)
- get them to rejoint in the little brown box on my wall

Any other thoughts much appreciated! (or if you would like any more data please shout)

Many thanks!
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Weaver

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2019, 11:51:50 AM »

You can certainly do a BT OR ‘change point of entry’ via your ISP. That might produce some benefit from cleaning up the incoming path. Nothing guaranteed tho. Trying a different modem might produce a bigger result.

If you really want some serious speed though, bond two or more lines together using a suitable router and ISP. If done right, this would double (or more) your transfer speeds in both directions even on single TCP transfers; that is, you don’t necessarily have to have two downloads/uploads going on at the same time to get the full benefit. I have four slow ADSL lines and I do indeed get full four times download speed even in single transfers (without needing multiple downloads in progress). See https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23790.0.html for details

The upload situation is very weird for me though; I used to get full 90% * 4 times upstream throughput but at the moment I’m only getting very roughly 75% of the upstream performance I got a couple of months back, and this drop / rise has happened repeatedly. Anyway even when things are ‘bad’ I get ‘times-three’ speed upstream on a single upload with four lines.

To get multi-speed upload, my Firebrick router is doing the business. To get multi-speed download my ISP, aa.net.uk is routing traffic down multiple lines and it is targeted in to a single address range; A machine on my LAN does not have multiple IP addresses one per dsl-line. Machines put on the internet have no idea about the existence of multiple lines; they just send stuff to my LAN and the ISP sorts it out according to the fraction of speed that each line can handle, and everything even just works if lines have different speeds downstream. If lines have different upstream speeds, my router is configured per-line to send the right amount of traffic up each link; the router copes with links of mismatched speeds and splits the upstream traffic in the right fraction. It’s a nuisance having to do correctly configure upstream true link speeds.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2019, 11:54:57 AM by Weaver »
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ktz392837

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2019, 12:31:56 PM »

ECI cabinet?

If on Huawei cabinet perhaps if Ginp/3db is enabled you will gain some speed but I'm not sure if either applies on upload?

Could have been dreaming but I think some modems now allow you to adjust the db down to get some more speed not sure which though?  Perhaps worth more research especially if your current errors are low and could handle a lower db.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2019, 12:35:23 PM by ktz392837 »
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tubaman

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2019, 02:10:11 PM »

ECI cabinet?

If on Huawei cabinet perhaps if Ginp/3db is enabled you will gain some speed but I'm not sure if either applies on upload?

Could have been dreaming but I think some modems now allow you to adjust the db down to get some more speed not sure which though?  Perhaps worth more research especially if your current errors are low and could handle a lower db.

G.INP only seems to get applied to the upload side rarely, so I wouldn't get hopeful on getting speed that way. It may well improve your download speed if you are on a Huawei cabinet.
Your upload speed is however a lot lower than the dslchecker suggests you should be getting, so it can't do any harm to raise it as an issue with your ISP. I don't know what happens in these situations as the handback speed only seems to apply to download and as that side is within the clean limits it'll certainly be higher than that.
 :)
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BT FTTC 55/10 Huawei Cab - Zyxel VMG8924-B10A

outoftownie

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2019, 02:27:11 PM »

Thanks all for the replies.

Yes, it's a Huawei cab.

DLM works on both upstream and downstream together, right? So that I have no Error Seconds downstream might not help DLM drop the downstream SNR towards 3db because I have 300+ ES/day upstream - based on my understanding of the DLM bands that puts me somewhere between a "good" and "ok" line...

Maybe I should be a bit more patient and see if G.IMP kicks in downstream, the line has only been active 6 days so far...

I will also investigate modems where I can tweak the SNR myself... VMG-1312-B10A seems to be one, also Drayteks, but as I have a Huawei cab I should maybe stick to Broadcom...

Thanks for the idea of bonding. I could try a second line on a short-term contract with AAISP and see how what sync speeds I get before going all-in with a bonding solution. Alternatively I might experiment with a directional 4G antenna to offload non-critical upload - in one or two places in the garden I may, just, have line of sight to a 4G mast 3km away.
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tubaman

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2019, 02:41:51 PM »

If you have only been live for 6 days you may well have to wait a bit longer for the G.INP fairies to visit you.
 :)

Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way. It's a very friendly and informative place - enjoy!
 ;D
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BT FTTC 55/10 Huawei Cab - Zyxel VMG8924-B10A

boozy

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2019, 02:44:41 PM »

Hi Outoftownie,

It would be worth posting the qln and HLog stats just to rule out a line problem before spending on a second line.
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ktz392837

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2019, 02:58:26 PM »

Not sure but I don't think the Zyxels can tweak it to under 6db only tweak to making slower by increasing the db.  No knowledge at all of Drayteks.

Pity Ginp/3db even on Huawei cabinets is not really a thing.

I'm on ECI so have no experience of Ginp apart from a brief few days when it was enabled and disabled a few years back.
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Weaver

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2019, 03:57:47 PM »

If you are interested in 4G, then AA has a horribly expensive 4G-over-Three service or you can use their L2TP service and then combine that with an all-you-can eat flat rate 4G deal directly from one of the mobile operators ( Three?, someone else too ? Have been discussing this a lot in recent threads over the past six months or so.) A Firebrick or similar router and L2TP into the ISP would allow you to split traffic between 4G and DSL in the upstream direction. L2TP into AA could split downstream traffic coming to you between 4G and DSL lines even if the 4G is with a different ISP.

I use 3G but for backup only; only if everything fails do I then switch over. I haven’t got 4G hardware configured properly yet, something I need help sorting out. My Firebrick router could be set up to send stuff via 4G all the time to massively boost the total upstream, but with my current AA-over-Three 4G SIM it would bankrupt me, since upstream as well as downstream is charged per byte on this AA 4G deal. AA ought to really resell one of the carrier’s flat rate deals too,
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burakkucat

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2019, 05:54:32 PM »

It would be worth posting the qln and HLog stats just to rule out a line problem before spending on a second line.

Both the QLN and Hlog plots are viewable from the link that OOT has provided in the initial post . . . but are somewhat small (for elderly eyes).

I can see that the Hlog plot is quite reasonable and there are no obvious signs of defects in the metallic pathway.

However the QLN plot does show a somewhat noisy environment. The US2 band is elevated by approximately 20 dBm/Hz thus ruling out its usage.

The bit-loading plot shows a very deep DSPBO notch in the DS1 band (hinting that the E-side length to the cabinet is of significant length) and, overall, the plot appears very much that of a VDSL2 circuit with a longish D-side.

The SNR plot is as expected (having considered the other three plots of the "snapshot" quartet).

Finally, the grumpy old kuro neko remembers to also say "Welcome to the kitz forum" (to OOT).
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outoftownie

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2019, 07:06:59 PM »

If you have only been live for 6 days you may well have to wait a bit longer for the G.INP fairies to visit you.
 :)

Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...

Code: [Select]
Downstream Upstream
General
rtx_tx          27401            0               
rtx_c            10260            0               
rtx_uc          1368            0               
LEFTRS          362              0               
minEFTR          25426            0               
errFreeBits      64013778        0               
Bearer 0
RxQueue          20              0               
TxQueue          10              0               
G.INP Framing    18              0               
G.INP Lookback  10              0               
RRC Bits        0                24             
Interleave depth 8                1               
INP              46.00            0.00           
INPRein          0.00            0.00           
Delay            0                0               
Bearer 1
Interleave depth 1                0               
INP              2.50            0.00           
INPRein          2.50            0.00           
Delay            0                0     

And thanks burakkucat for taking a look at my plots and confirming there's nothing terrible going on, just a long line... sorry they're a bit small, blame Imgur. Control-Plus to zoom. :-)

Quote
Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way. It's a very friendly and informative place - enjoy!
 ;D

Thank you all, you're all a fountain of knowledge! That you can't just plug in your router and get 80/20 is kind of new to me, but I suspect is a common issue for many of my new neighbours...!
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burakkucat

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2019, 08:54:21 PM »

Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...

Yes, you do seem to have the G.Inp goodness.
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Weaver

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #12 on: September 12, 2019, 09:02:30 PM »

And a welcome from me too.
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Ronski

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #13 on: September 13, 2019, 06:22:39 AM »

If you have deep pockets you could look into FTTP on demand, quotes for it have ranged from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Installation can take over a year as well, so it's not a quick fix. If you run a business from home there is a £2k voucher available.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2019, 07:57:30 AM by Ronski »
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tubaman

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Re: improving upload on long rural line
« Reply #14 on: September 13, 2019, 11:28:14 AM »

Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...
Hopefully it'll soon drop your SNR down from 6dB to give you a bit more download speed. Unfortunately that still doesn't help with the upload side of things.
 :)
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BT FTTC 55/10 Huawei Cab - Zyxel VMG8924-B10A
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