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[snadge]

Hi everyone,

Hope your all well and staying safe

my friend is suffering really bad issues with high errors, up & down speeds and packet loss on Sky, intermittent too, also the BT wholesale checker says he should get 70Mbps but he only gets 40Mbps (which once tested as low as 1Mbps, but most of the time it hits the 40), he is about 100-150m away from the cab (Huawei - so its a Broadcom chipset) and uses a sky Q router (which I think is also Broadcom), a BT Openreach engineer this morning says he has to get an underground engineer tomorrow to see if it can be moved? but says his issue is "that there are 17 people on the same line, and nowhere else he can put it", so advised a move to G.FAST because of his close proximity to the cab ..so, he could go onto G.Fast, which I don't know much about other than it uses 106Mhz spectrum to attain 150-300Mbps speeds...so could anyone help please and answer some of my questions so that I may educate myself and advise him too...

1) Is it from the cab or pole?
2) If it is from the cab, how is it different from FTTpole if it's not that? can someone explain the difference, please?
3) Do Sky routers support G.FAST, the engineer said he would get a new router?
4) I'm guessing it's a higher tier he has to upgrade to?
5) Will this stop his packet loss and speeds going up and down which looked like congestion to me?, but then also possibly UTP cabling (see below)?

NOTE:  he used to have the ancient Telecoms NTE, a Sky "rep-in-a-car" changed it to an NTE5C+MK4 FFP, also his cabling into the home looked strange with 7 wires and a thread and it didn't look like Twisted Pair, so he stripped it back a bit and still no twists, yet the engineer said it IS TP cable....hmm, we couldn't see any at all and could he be saying that just to get out of replacing it?  as we all know BT OR remit is to be in and out as fast as poss - even a manager told me that "I would be no go good at the job cos I would be with customers too long" and both he and the engineer that were in my flat laughed their heads off...

Im still suspicious about the cable into his home TBH, but I have only seen photos (below) so couldn't be 100% certain - but if it IS it could possibly explain why he is only getting 40Mb instead of 70Mb and high errors/packet loss - because when I had a 'SPLIT PAIR' I had my 18Mb ADSL2+ drop to 9Mb and super high errors ..exactly like his problems... and if anyone remembers my issue with Sky many moons ago, around 2011/2012 possibly when it took 3 months, 7 engineer visits with COOP from Sky broadband engineers to fix it, QLN showed 2 local radio stations eating into my signal because of it and one of you guys even nailed that and which stations they were from the frequency lol ... so, again Im sus about that cabling, could THAT be the problem?? as you know the twists help reflect interference and also equalize noise on both legs so noise cancellation can work better..when a SPLIT PAIR happens you get these issues...i know from experience.

EDIT: We have established that it is the drop wire going directly into the port and the twists wouldn't be noticed at 50 per meter, so just the help about G.FAST etc

any and all advice greatly appreciated and thanks in advance

[Alex Atkin UK]

Looks like a standard drop wire to me,  the yellow wires are the steel support wires to prevent the copper from stretching under the weight.

From a quick Googling it seems BT CW1308 wiring only has about 50 twists per metre, so you wont be able to see them from such a tiny section of cable.

[snadge]

Are the yellow wires steel rather than copper?  If so its probably a standard drop wire, they are the support for when its hanging from a pole so the copper doesn't stretch.

unsure but thanks for the reply...i could ask him to check?..it's more if his VDSL legs are Twisted or not? and answers to questions

thanks

I was able to see twists in mine when I checked, could see that it was going around another wire on all of them, might be different cable is mines from a JB in the house which the JB is connected to the Drop Wire...so...

also isn't drop wire different twist pitch (twists per meter) for wires than CW1308 which is designed for the interconnect between the drop wire and NTE5, see here: https://www.elandcables.com/media/38292/cw1308-internal-telecom-cable.pdf

either way we have established its the DROP WIRE going directly into the NTE - rather than the usual way of into a JB in the loft or top of the house then CW1308 cabling from it to NTE5 which I could certainly see twists in all of my properties that were setup like this, I've never had the cable from the pole go directly to my socket, always into a JB at entry point then CW1308 (white) cable is used and is designed for this purpose...so it would seem anyway...

[Moderator edited to merge three successive posts into one.]

[burakkucat]

Looks like a standard drop wire to me,  the yellow wires are the steel support wires to prevent the copper from stretching under the weight.

From a quick Googling it seems BT CW1308 wiring only has about 50 twists per metre, . . .

That is aerial drop cable 10 (constructed to BT CW1411 specification).

[RealAleMadrid]

There is something seriously wrong with the connection if it is only 40Mbps at 100-150 metres to the cab, it should  be full 80/20 sync at that distance.

If it is this poor on VDSL there is no hope of getting any improvement on G.Fast it uses exactly the same copper cable pair from the cabinet. You need to be at or close to maximum VDSL sync speeds to expect any benefit from G.Fast.

I don't understand why it was suggested as a way to improve the speed.  It is not a fibre service, perhaps there is some confusion here, if FTTP was available that would greatly improve the speed but with G.Fast no chance.

[Alex Atkin UK]

That is aerial drop cable 10 (constructed to BT CW1411 specification).

Duly noted, but presumably the twists are the same?

[burakkucat]

. . . presumably the twists are the same?

I have checked in all the documents that I have available and not one of them mentions that physical characteristic. 

I have a vague memory of something that Ezzer mentioned, many years ago. The number of twists per unit length for pair one (the orange & white wires) is greater than that for pair two (the green & black wires).

[re0]

I am a bit late to the party. Anyway...

1) Is it from the cab or pole?
2) If it is from the cab, how is it different from FTTpole if it's not that? can someone explain the difference, please?
3) Do Sky routers support G.FAST, the engineer said he would get a new router?
4) I'm guessing it's a higher tier he has to upgrade to?
5) Will this stop his packet loss and speeds going up and down which looked like congestion to me?, but then also possibly UTP cabling (see below)?

1) Cabinet.
2) It is the same principle as VDSL, which is FTTC. It is deployed as a pod on an existing PCP and receives power from the VDSL cabinet.
3) The latest Q hub does, apparently.
4) Yes.
5) If the problem is related to a line fault, then it could possibly get worse with the increased frequency spectrum. There are few exceptions - for example, it is a faulty line card (which would be resolved to a move to G.fast) or if the problem is with the ISP (though it may not make a difference if upgrading on the same ISP).

The upgrade to G.fast may have been ill-advised. Perhaps you have seen the line stats of your friend's line to check whether it is an issue with the DSL itself? What did the engineer say about the state of the line?

[GigabitEthernet]

I don't know anyone who has got G.Fast and not had issues, if you've got issues now it's going to be a lot worse on G.Fast.

[snadge]

he was told by engineer 1 that his line has too many on it and G.FAST would put him on a different frequency and away from all others on VDSL OR downgrade to ADSL....!!  and nowhere to move him on the pole to get him away from the 17 others, but that engineer arrange to get an underground guy to check underground section, but he sat in his van most of the time then buggered off..he basically just reset the connection with fastpath ON and he is getting up to 80% packet loss...the router rebooted this morning in the afternoon with fastpath OFF n barely any packet loss, n then rebooted a few hours later with it back ON and packet loss 40-80% according to TBB monitor..and he has the raised sync and lower minimum ping indicating FASTPATH being turned on...on a problematic line too...

he also has a 5C and MK4 installed and me and others have found these to be "iffy" with their metal PCB - my upstream error and noise margin where all over with it at two addresses, I've got 2 spare cos of persistent engineers, I use NTE5A+MK3

so he has a worse connection now, told him to get on the fone n demand to be put through to Sky Network Services to COOP with BTo... as this was the only way I got my similar problem with sky resolved 10 years back ...and help from you guys

edit: he gets thousands of errors according to sky, I cant see his router he lives far away so cant just "go around" and look at the stats, but we know he gets 4000+ errors that's what sky "rep-in-a-car" said

edit2: and I'm assuming that's over 4000 CRC errors too judging from the packet loss on the TBB monitor

edit3: going back to the twists per metre at 50 per meter = 1 per 2cm so you SHOULD be able to see A twist at least if you shave back an inch or two

this is best pic he gave me


cheers

[re0]

I don't know anyone who has got G.Fast and not had issues, if you've got issues now it's going to be a lot worse on G.Fast.

I wish I could confidently disagree, but my line is subject to bombardment of errors for a couple of days every few weeks, sometimes even disconnecting it. I am bored of raising the issue to Zen with OR telling me no issue. I don't need them for a solution because I have my own - move to (non-OR) FTTP! Anyway, I digress.

he was told by engineer 1 that his line has too many on it and G.FAST would put him on a different frequency and away from all others on VDSL OR downgrade to ADSL....!!

BS. Even if that was the solution, it would imply interference on the frequencies in use by VDSL2 - which could be someone with a rogue modem. Unlikely but not impossible. But then it would impact other users on the same cable.

Perhaps you could help him get a screenshot of the stats page? Send him to this post here. If he takes a look at the stats, while very minimal, he could see whether there are fluctuations in the SNRM and how often the speed is changing.

[SpyPunk]

Hey guys, thanx for all your help, so as my matey has mentioned, internet has been dropping for some time to the point at times nothing worked in the house either wifi (phones etc) or me connectid by ethernet playing online games. I t got so bad last week when nothing worked that my marra sought to help as you have all done.
so... had sky eng out who done the useral tests and was getting the req speed but i mentioned packet loss and that there may be congestion as mate said and so they ran further tests and found over 4 thousand errors on the line in 24hour period.
first openreach eng done thorough testing and found problems that required another eng to look see but did suggest GFAST as using a different fequency may help as going to normal adsl braodband as there are 20 people on the same as me at pole!?
second eng openreach fiddled on with the pole and his test equipment then buggered off for an hour, came back done the same and said he had sorted cables and was getting no errors, he never even went to the cabinet!!

this is latest graph
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/6286cba67ff4ec6f349ea1f4035d23df359cae33

this is what it was like yesterday before and after eng!
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/689de45c09854e46936789b20c3713e9b2f8f88d-12-05-2021

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1620417779650231255
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1620554134206608655

hope these work!! so..i havnt a clue whats happened it is faster speeds but still with the same lost packets as previously?

Thank you all for your help.

[Moderator edited to remove the "red glow" directives as the end result was almost impossible to read. (By those with poor eyesight.)]

[snadge]

I would just like to add, ive noticed (through your current live TBB graph and from what I've seen over the last few days...and knowing your speeds and ping personally previously) that since the 2nd engineer done his thing, it was all over the place, until you reset the router at my advice, since then it looks stable enough and still on fastpath as your ping is lower and speed is 51 instead of 44
 - we'll have to wait and see
hopefully its sorted, but get your sky router stats posted so the lads n lasses on here can check em out, n keep an eye on em for changes and report so on here:
Sync Rate
Line Attenuation
Noise Margin
Errors/Errored seconds
I think the sky router has a whole page you can just copy and paste into your web browser into this thread

[snadge]

That is aerial drop cable 10 (constructed to BT CW1411 specification).

Hi BK, long time no speak!

yeah I thought it wasn't CW1308 cos that's internal cable, and I can see it twisting in my CW1308 cable and even if the twist pitch was the same (every 2cm = 50 per metre) you would be able to tell from peeling the cable back an inch or more...at least see it being around the other wire to some degree??

anyway I've a feeling his problem MAY be sorted (hopefully) we will have to wait and see and he has a new router on the way, I cant see that helping much, maybe for G.FAST support that's all -  different router, slightly different sync rates most the time, some higher, some lower

he is connected to HUAWEI cab though...

he now gets 51MB where he should get 80/20, he is about 150m away from cab & BT checker says 70 but on "low" and "Impacted" its 50, and that's exactly what he has, so it would seem there so many on the line that crosstalk has brought him down to that...assumptions anyway

[burakkucat]

Hi BK, long time no speak!

b*cat waves a black paw, in friendly greeting!

yeah I thought it wasn't CW1308 cos that's internal cable, and I can see it twisting in my CW1308 cable and even if the twist pitch was the same (every 2cm = 50 per metre) you would be able to tell from peeling the cable back an inch or more...at least see it being around the other wire to some degree??

I wouldn't worry about that cable, there's nowt wrong with it . . . from what I can see. 

With CW1308 cable, and sensitive fingers (or paws), it is possible to feel the bulk orientation of the pairs through the outer sheath. However, with CW1411 cable (i.e. dropwire 10) "caressing" the cable will tell you nothing as it is significantly more rigid (and stronger) to cope with its intended installation environment.