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[cadcad4]

Hi,

I have an ADSL connection. For years I've had a stable speed of 4Mbps. For a few weeks: crackly line, dropouts, speed down to 1Mbps and lower. It then reduced to 0.3, etc.

Openreach came. Might be an HR Dis. Pair Quality failed. Was at 90 (I think). Another engineer came and fixed it: cleared "in joint", due to "wear and tear". For a few days, back to normal. Then, speed reduced to 1Mpbs again. Banding? Attenuation 59, Noise Margin 8.

I assume the cable is degraded.

I'm 1.8km from the cabinet, rural.

FTTC is available. My question is: if FTTC still relies on copper from cabinet to property, if I asked my ISP to switch me to a fibre deal (I'm 6mths into an 12mth contract with John Lewis), am I still going to have trouble, because of the line?

Attached is the BT Broadband Checker with FTTC speeds for my property.

Any advice gratefully received.

[g3uiss]

Almost certainly the issues will be the same or potential worse.

 At your distance FTTC might be worse than ADSL.

[tiffy]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm 1.8km from the cabinet, rural.

From your previous ADSL speeds, pre fault, you are obviously on a long line, of course on ADSL service it's total line length to exchange which will determine your max attainable speed.

From the BTw BB checker data you have provided it looks very much like your residence is also a long way from the DSLAM (fibre cabinet) judging from the relativly low DS/US speed predictions for VDSL (FTTC) service.

Regarding any possible, still existing line faults, I would have thought that the line from PCP cabinet (your local connection point) to your residence would be more likely to be suspect than the line from PCP to exchange, this of course would still be a major factor regarding VDSL service, very likely more so than with ADSL service due to the higher frequencies used should you decide to migrate to VDSL provision.

I believe John Lewis BB provision is under Plusnet?
Not sure what modem/router John Lewis currently provide?
If this is a Broadcom chip based device such as ZyXEL is there a possibility of obtaining any line stat's for analysis?
Various method to achieve this are readily available on many areas of this forum and there are many very knowledgable patrons here who can advise on the modem stat's produced.

If/when the line fault is sorted you should achieve much better line speeds than ADSL with FTTC VDSL service, of course, due to line length, there is no expectation of your line ever achieving close to the max FTTC 80/20 standard.

As "g3uiss" has posted, a very bad and/or very long line can certainly produce worse results on VDSL than ADSL, every line is unique, for my money I would give it a try if/when the fault/s are sorted and you are back to stable ADSL service.       

[j0hn]

Almost certainly the issues will be the same or potential worse.

 At your distance FTTC might be worse than ADSL.

I'd go with the complete opposite to this.

FTTC removes a part of the copper circuit (between the cabinet and exchange). Any issues in that part of the current circuit will be gone.

FTTC is generally much more reliable, particularly Huawei cabinets.

The FTTC estimates are between 13-21Mb so should be considerably faster than the current sync rate on ADSL.

[cadcad4]

Thanks for the welcome and taking the time to reply.

I have a Netgear router. The stats are Attenuation 59dB, Noise Margin 8, and DL 1151kbps.

Openreach came out last week: "Engineer has resolved the fault located at the D-side including aerial cables / lead-in / block terminal. There was a fault outside the end customer's curtilage caused by general wear and tear. The fault was fixed by clearing in join"

For 4 days it was fine, then back to this.

[tiffy]

I have a Netgear router. The stats are Attenuation 59dB, Noise Margin 8, and DL 1151kbps.

From stat's provided, assume that the 59dB is DS line attenuation?
Certainly indicative of a long residence to exchange line.
Assume "noise margin 8" is DS SNRM?
Assume "DL 1151 Kbps." is DS synch. speed?

More detailed modem stat's over a reasonable period of time would certainly help to diagnose any existing issues on your line.

Don't know the model of your Netgear modem/router.
"DSLStats" is certainly the prefered monitoring utility if compatable with your modem.
When my line was on ADSL service I used a number of Netgear modem/routers and "RouterStats" monitoring utility, "DSLStats" had issues with some Netgear models and "RouterStats" was more reliable with this particular brand.
http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm

[gt94sss2]

I would be tempted to go down the FTTC route on the basis that the cost of both ADSL/FTTC will be similar.

According to the BT checker, you would get faster speeds on FTTC and as John says, it takes a lot of copper out of equation.

Also, if the speeds you get are poor/less than the handback threshold then you could always downgrade again (though ask for a Boost visit or first or whatever its called now)

[aesmith]

I have a different solution to the ADSL errors and banding problem.  Our ADSL line suffers sufficiently high error rates that left to its own devices it would progressively slow down to a crawl.  The solution was for the ISP (Andrews and Arnold) to completely disable DLM and nail the line up to a 6dB target.  They may have applied a band as well, the AA guy said he was "going to try a few profiles".

I don't know if any other ISPs can do the same.

For comparison our line is 5300m, DS attenuation is 53dB and DS synch is typically between 4250 and 4750.   Almost all our faults are on the last 900m or so from the DP to our house.

In your case it sounds like your problems are generally between the cabinet and your house, exactly the bit of the copper path that would be used by FTTC.

[meritez]

Please take FTTC asap, I have three connections at twice this distance comfortable syncing at 8 down and 2 up on FTTC.

[cadcad4]

Hello, I posted this a few weeks ago. My problem is now fixed. I thought I'd let you know what happened.

A third Openreach engineer visited. He spent over 2hrs working on the problem - and was really thorough. There was a major line fault at one of the cabinets, and then numerous others faults. He cleared them all. He talked about "uplift". Whether he did a Lift & Shift I don't know. Since then, not a single disconnect and my line is clear.

I asked him about VDSL. He said he's been called out twice to a neighbour, who has VDSL and is on the same cabinet. He said the speed they get is about 10Mb. He was careful what he said - but basically if you're over a certain distance from the cabinet you're just going to have connectivity issues with VDSL, particularly if you overwhelm the connection with numerous devices and smart TVs, etc.

I said I'd rather have a stable line/connection at a lower speed, like I've had for years, which is fine for light internet use, and he nodded.

So, my 2 conclusions are:

1. Openreach are great if you get a good engineer who is willing to take the time to work on the fault and do the job properly. The contrast between the 3rd engineer I had and the first (who actually misdiagnosed the fault, and spent less than 10mins on it) was worlds apart.

2. If you are a distance away from the cabinet and want to try VDSL, go for it but only on condition you can go straight back to ADSL if you then have problems. If you're a light internet user and don't game or stream, I'd stick to a stable ADSL. The increase in speed isn't that much if you are a distance away from the cabinet, and there's nothing worse than dealing with your ISP and booking engineer visits. I'm going to stay with my ADSL connection - because it's been no trouble for me in all the years I've been here.


All the best.

[gt94sss2]

The engineer might appreciate if you fill in the form at https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/thank-an-engineer-form to recognise the effort he put in to resolving your fault