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Author Topic: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB  (Read 2077 times)

mpmc

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Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« on: July 13, 2021, 10:52:47 AM »

Hi everyone.

After a number of years with Plusnet I decided enough was enough and switched provider. This time to Pulse8/TalkTalk Business (line switched at ~1am this morning). I'm actually in shock at how much better the connection is. It's making me wonder why our connection with both BT and (finally) Plusnet was so bad.

The PPPoE link would drop randomly while the line remained up with no increasing errors, the only change on reconnection was the gateway.

DNS would sometimes fail, pages would only half load, in pieces or not at all, requiring a number of page refreshes. Services such as Youtube, Netflix and Sky Go were terrible. Youtube and Netflix unbearable, random buffering, took ages to start and at lowest bitrate. I'd often change the quality to HD or whatever, it buffered but it would eventually work, for a while at least & then revert back and buffer when it felt like it.

I assumed it was the router (HH5A on Openwrt) with DNS-TLS, maybe that was struggling or the line was screwing up again. I often did try to find out the cause of this but due to other things I never really found out what the problem was.

I do remember doing mtr tests at various times on my debian desktop to various places like BBC.co.uk and seeing very high loss percentages on IPs. I also got a friend on Talktalk retail to do the same, and he had no losses whatsoever.

Now we're on a TTB connection, none of the above appears to be happening, although time will tell. But so far, pages, Youtube, Netflix and Sky Go load fast with no buffering or things missing!

It's just baffling how much different it is, it's still the same crappy aluminum line but it honestly feels so much faster. I have no idea why and thought I'd post here and get some insights from you wonderful people!

Code: [Select]
Line State: UP [0x0]
Line Mode: G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Line Uptime: 3h 8m 35s <- I rebooted to enter pulse8 PPPoE info for static ip but that hasn't applied yet.
Annex: B
Profile: 17a
Data Rate: 17.976 Mb/s / 3.462 Mb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR): 20.390 Mb/s / 3.462 Mb/s
Latency: 0.14 ms / 0.0 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN): 27.3 dB / 30.9 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN): 23.6 dB / 30.7 dB
Noise Margin (SNR): 7.3 dB / 6.1 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP): 6.7 dB / 11.3 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 0 / 0
Errored seconds (ES): 0 / 21
Severely Errored Seconds (SES): 0 / 1
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS): 0 / 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS): 53 / 53
Header Error Code Errors (HEC): 0 / 0
Non Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRC_P): 0 / 0
Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRCP_P): 0 / 0
ATU-C System Vendor ID: Broadcom 193.144
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized
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hushcoden

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2021, 03:07:02 PM »

I'm with Pulse8/G.fast and can't complain

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mpmc

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2021, 04:31:26 PM »

I'm with Pulse8/G.fast and can't complain



Lucky, I wish we could get those kind of speeds!

Virgin Media finally extended their cabling & now reach us, ironically not long after I'd ordered Pulse8! We were with vm before at our old place and the network was terrible, latency & slow-downs were insane. Hopefully they've improved but I very much doubt the connection is as responsive as pulse8/ttb fftc is for us right now.

When our contract with sky ends (oct) we'll more than likely see if they can match or better sky for TV, if they throw in broadband with that too that'll be a bonus. But for now we'll be sticking as we are.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2021, 06:03:23 PM »

Lucky, I wish we could get those kind of speeds!

Virgin Media finally extended their cabling & now reach us, ironically not long after I'd ordered Pulse8! We were with vm before at our old place and the network was terrible, latency & slow-downs were insane. Hopefully they've improved but I very much doubt the connection is as responsive as pulse8/ttb fftc is for us right now.

When our contract with sky ends (oct) we'll more than likely see if they can match or better sky for TV, if they throw in broadband with that too that'll be a bonus. But for now we'll be sticking as we are.

Virgin are very hit and miss depending on your area.  My friend has Virgin and its ALWAYS been faster than anything I've had, though he doesn't game so not really tested real-world latency.
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mpmc

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2021, 08:53:24 AM »

So as it's been a while I thought I'd post a little update for those interested  :D.

The connection is still great compared to what we had on Plusnet. Still no packet loss or weird things with pages etc.

Sadly the "PPPoE link dropping while the line remained up" issue reared it's ugly head again, however it was nowhere near as bad. But like before, drops at random times, every few hours to a few days. The exact same thing happened with an unmodified PN hub one that was used a while back, so I blamed the line/provider.

Most here know I've been running Openwrt for a good few years (on a modified PN hub one) with the old and new provider, with the same issue as mentioned above. But last week I decided to dig a bit further, took a look around here for solutions and saw a few posts mentioning firmware revisions with various links to more info on the Openwrt forums.

[TLDR / The result so far] In the end; the default openwrt image for the HH5A/PN H1 uses an older firmware for the vdsl modem, so decided I had nothing to lose and plonked a newer firmware revision on the box, so far (touch wood) the PPPoE link has remained up!

---

I still have my doubts but things look promising! Could most of the drops have been caused by an older firmware?!  :shrug2:

TBF: I do remember the OR modems (remember those?) doing the same thing as well. I had both the ECI and Huawei (well until I showed an 'engineer' the debug page after unlocking the huawei and he replaced (cough, stole) it with an ECI  :rain:)
« Last Edit: July 28, 2021, 08:55:51 AM by mpmc »
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meritez

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2021, 09:15:21 AM »

@mpmc,
The default openwrt lantiq dsl firmware does not support vectoring due to licensing issues.

What version are you using now?
« Last Edit: July 28, 2021, 05:13:53 PM by meritez »
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2021, 10:32:39 AM »

@mpmc,
The default openwrt lantiq dsl firmware does not support G.INP or ReTX due to licensing issues.

What version are you using now?

It most definitely does work with G.INP.
BT Home Hub 5A  OpenWrt 19.07.7 r11306-c4a6851c72

Code: [Select]
Chipset: Lantiq™ XWAY™ VRX268
Firmware Version: 5.7.9.9.0.6
API Version: 4.17.18.6
MEI Version: 1.5.17.6
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized
Line State: UP [0x801: showtime_tc_sync]
Line Uptime: 7d 10h 6m 32s
Resyncs: 2
DSLAM/MSAN VID:
XTSE Capabilities: 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x2
Annex: B
Line Mode: G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Profile: 17a
Trellis: D: ON / U: ON
Bitswap: D: ON / U: ON
G.INP: D: Enabled / U: Not Enabled
Virtual Noise Support: D: Not Supported / U: Not Supported
Attain Data Rate: 76.667 Mb/s / 18.431 Mb/s
Actual Data Rate: 73.909 Mb/s / 18.700 Mb/s
Impulse Noise Prot: 43.6 sym / 0.0 sym
Interleave Delay: 0.17 ms / 0.0 ms
NFEC: 32 / 255
RFEC: 16 / 16
LSYMB: 16 / 5014
Interleave Depth: 1 / 1
Interleave Block: 32 / 255
LPATH: 0 / 0
Line Attenuation: 11.5dB / 12.4dB
Signal Attenuation: 11.5dB / 12.2dB
Noise Margin: 3.2dB / 6.0dB
Transmit power: 15.0dBm / 2.4dBm
FECS: 0 / 880626994
ES: 1047 / 5237
SES: 13 / 51
LOSS: 0 / 0
UAS: 58 / 58
HEC: 0 / 0
CRC_P: 0 / 0
CRCP_P: 0 / 0
15m Code Violations: 0 / 0
15m FEC Errors: 0 / 0
1d Code Violations: 5 / 40
1d FEC Errors: 0 / 214
« Last Edit: July 28, 2021, 10:36:46 AM by Alex Atkin UK »
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mpmc

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2021, 04:14:19 PM »

Alex my
Code: [Select]
/etc/init.d/dsl_control status looks different to yours!

Code: [Select]
root@OpenWrt:~# /etc/init.d/dsl_control status
ATU-C Vendor ID:                          Broadcom 193.144
ATU-C System Vendor ID:                   Broadcom
Chipset:                                  Lantiq-VRX200
Firmware Version:                         5.9.1.4.0.7
API Version:                              4.17.18.6
XTSE Capabilities:                        0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x2
Annex:                                    B
Line Mode:                                G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Profile:                                  17a
Line State:                               UP [0x801: showtime_tc_sync]
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS):  Near: 0 / Far: 51934
Errored seconds (ES):                     Near: 35 / Far: 2403
Severely Errored Seconds (SES):           Near: 2 / Far: 1
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS):            Near: 0 / Far: 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS):                Near: 66 / Far: 66
Header Error Code Errors (HEC):           Near: 0 / Far: 0
Non Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRC_P):        Near: 80 / Far: 0
Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRCP_P):           Near: 0 / Far: 0
Power Management Mode:                    L0 - Synchronized
Latency [Interleave Delay]:               0.13 ms [Fast]   0.0 ms [Fast]
Data Rate:                                Down: 23.470 Mb/s / Up: 3.378 Mb/s
Line Attenuation (LATN):                  Down: 27.5 dB / Up: 31.1 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN):                Down: 23.6 dB / Up: 30.8 dB
Noise Margin (SNR):                       Down: 4.2 dB / Up: 6.1 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP):        Down: 7.5 dB / Up: 12.5 dB
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR):       Down: 26.722 Mb/s / Up: 3.377 Mb/s
Line Uptime Seconds:                      302037
Line Uptime:                              3d 11h 53m 57s
root@OpenWrt:~#
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2021, 09:50:51 PM »

I use a modded version of dsl_control that I only use to probe more detailed stats, it is not used by the OS for anything so does not change the default behaviour of OpenWRT.

The stock one shows:
Code: [Select]
ATU-C Vendor ID:                          Infineon 208.134
ATU-C System Vendor ID:                   43,45,20,49,65,74,65,6C
Chipset:                                  Lantiq-VRX200
Firmware Version:                         5.7.9.9.0.6
API Version:                              4.17.18.6
XTSE Capabilities:                        0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x2
Annex:                                    B
Line Mode:                                G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Profile:                                  17a
Line State:                               UP [0x801: showtime_tc_sync]
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS):  Near: 0 / Far: 880630373
Errored seconds (ES):                     Near: 1095 / Far: 5294
Severely Errored Seconds (SES):           Near: 13 / Far: 51
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS):            Near: 0 / Far: 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS):                Near: 58 / Far: 58
Header Error Code Errors (HEC):           Near: 0 / Far: 0
Non Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRC_P):        Near: 70 / Far: 0
Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRCP_P):           Near: 0 / Far: 0
Power Management Mode:                    L0 - Synchronized
Latency [Interleave Delay]:               0.17 ms [Fast]   0.0 ms [Fast]
Data Rate:                                Down: 73.909 Mb/s / Up: 18.700 Mb/s
Line Attenuation (LATN):                  Down: 11.5 dB / Up: 12.4 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN):                Down: 11.5 dB / Up: 12.2 dB
Noise Margin (SNR):                       Down: 3.2 dB / Up: 6.0 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP):        Down: 2.4 dB / Up: 15.0 dB
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR):       Down: 76.683 Mb/s / Up: 18.315 Mb/s
Line Uptime Seconds:                      680787
Line Uptime:                              7d 21h 6m 27s

I believe the small interleave delay on downstream is what indicates G.INP is active as fastpath on its own has zero delay.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2021, 10:11:11 PM by Alex Atkin UK »
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Chrysalis

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Re: Plusnet -> Pulse8/TTB
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2021, 02:49:15 AM »

In terms of ppp outages, and maybe someone like kitz can verify, but BTw use a mesh network vs the likes of ttb and sky using networks that are more prone to outages when maintenance is carried out.

Its not unusual to get occasional ppp outages on ttb in my experience. :(  On the aaisp maintenance page which shows on my control panel, I usually see ttb maintenance with a planned outage on that on average 1 or 2 times a month.  Plus the unplanned outages.
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