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[patters]

I've been served by an ECI cabinet since first getting FTTC in 2013, but the speed has declined gradually since then. I started on around 38-39Mb I think and recently it's settled at 31.5Mb. Apparently my line is already meant to be enabled for super fast (i.e. 80Mb) but it doesn't stand any chance of exceeding 40Mb.

Anyhow, on Friday night the whole locality lost broadband connectivity (all ISPs) and the OpenReach fault which was reported on the Sky checker was that a switch had failed. Since BT was rumoured to be considering replacing ECI kit - does anyone know whether a dead ECI switch would be replaced like-for-like or would it be replaced by a Huawei? Or is it more complicated than that - does a switch have to match the vendor of the entire physical cabinet? I noticed that my downstream sync just gained 1.3Mb since the fault was repaired. However, I don't think G.INP is enabled, since my ping is still 15ms, far from the 5ms or so which people seem to report with G.INP enabled.

I'm toying with buying an HG612 modem to find out the answer definitively. I knew I would regret getting rid of the original one I had at the start...

[burakkucat]

Welcome to the kitz forum. 

. . . on Friday night the whole locality lost broadband connectivity (all ISPs) and the OpenReach fault which was reported on the Sky checker was that a switch had failed.

I suspect that it was the failure of a Layer 2 Switch (L2S), one feeding the Optical Line Terminal (OLT), at the head-end exchange and nothing as local to you as the ECI equipped cabiinet.

[Alex Atkin UK]

If the fix involved a resync of your line then gaining/losing 1.3Mbit is not at all unusual and completely unrelated.

I gained 1Mbit recently by forcing a resync during the cold weather when the SNRm had increased due to less attenuation on the line thanks to the temperature.  Depending on how your line is fed, colder weather = lower resistance in the copper line = faster sync.

[patters]

Thanks for the answers.

Each time I've had a new Sky router over the years the downstream sync has worsened incrementally by about 1Mb. And it wasn't a resync of the line doing it, because in each case reverting to the older hardware would revert the speed back to what it had been. Each time, there were compelling reasons to go with the new hardware and accept the performance hit (e.g. consolidation of equipment, 802.11g 2.4GHz wifi, 802.11ac wifi, gigabit ports, faster 802.11ac wifi with more antennae, etc.

The problem is that these marginal degradations have all added up to roughly a 6Mb loss now, reducing me to approx 31-32Mb from 38-39Mb.

I'm watching a few Huwaei HG612 modems on eBay - the model I had right at the start of having FTTC. One of these will provide me with good info about what the modem hardware is doing once unlocked, but can I expect better sync rates? Is it likely I'll get say 35Mb (allowing for some degradation from increased crosstalk over the years, and a lack of G.INP since I'm on an ECI cabinet)?

Thanks

[j0hn]

FTTC/VDSL2 as it has been deployed in the UK is a technology that will decrease from day 1.
There's very little you can do about that.

If you hunted out your oldest Sky Hub I very much doubt it will connect at the original speed you had.
Part of that speed loss is crosstalk, neighbouring lines taking an FTTC service.

The ECI FTTC equipment will never be replaced with another Vendors kit.
It will be overbuilt with FTTP making it redundant.

[bogof]

It will be overbuilt with FTTP making it redundant.

How does that work in practice - do they actually force migration to FTTP when they want to to retire a cabinet?

[meritez]

Thanks for the answers.

I'm watching a few Huwaei HG612 modems on eBay - the model I had right at the start of having FTTC. One of these will provide me with good info about what the modem hardware is doing once unlocked, but can I expect better sync rates? Is it likely I'll get say 35Mb (allowing for some degradation from increased crosstalk over the years, and a lack of G.INP since I'm on an ECI cabinet)?

Thanks

A Zyxel VMG may be cheaper and there is plenty of support for those on Kitz

[j0hn]

How does that work in practice - do they actually force migration to FTTP when they want to to retire a cabinet?

That won't be done until the exchange becomes part of OpenReach's copper switch off programme.

They get to around 75% FTTP coverage at which point they can start the gradual process that will retire copper.
They will enforce a "no go back" policy so anyone on FTTP cannot go back to FTTC.
They then do a stop sell on copper (ADSL/FTTC/G.Fast) only allowing FTTP orders. They will give 12 months notice of this stop sell.
Then eventually they will force a move to FTTP.
ISPReview say they target under 2 years from build starting to hitting 75% coverage.

They can only turn off an FTTC cabinet once all the above has happened and every property on the cabinet has FTTP.
It's years away.

Any ECI cabinets that breaks in the mean time is replaced like for like.

On top of that they have FTTP from ECI OLT's but that only affects around 50,000 homes.
They may migrate these to Huawei OLT's in the exchange outwith the above timescales.

Edit: worded things a little different above

[Alex Atkin UK]

A Zyxel VMG may be cheaper and there is plenty of support for those on Kitz

I'd second that, purely as the HG612 might need recapping/refurbishing at this point.  As I mentioned in an older post, my Openreach ECI needed recapping when I retired it.  I'd have sold it by now but I find it really hard to part with anything with OpenWRT on it.

If I weren't isolating I would probably have given away my HG612s by now, maybe recapped them first.  Suppose I could always use Hermes  .

[bogof]

That won't be done until the exchange becomes part of OpenReach's copper switch off programme.
...

Thanks for the details