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[sotonsam]

Hi All,

I've raised this as a fault with my ISP, but I just wanted to get an understanding of how this could be impacting my FTTC. I have the 80/20 product with Vodafone.

I had a Kelly's tech install my line last week (Well, reactivate a dormant one). My FTTC sync'd at around 44M down and 12M up which compared to my FTTC experience 2/3 years ago (in the same house) is down about 25M sync downstream and 7M upstream, as I used to comfortably get 65-70M/15-18M here. So I wasn't happy with that to start with. I was told to raise it with my ISP as it will be router settings, so the Kellys guy said. It's also re-syncing around 3-4 times a day, I never had any issues like that 2 years ago.

I won't use my line with a phone, which oddly the Kelly's guy asked me if I would be. He admitted that he wasn't happy with the readings of the 'E' side, he thought he'd crimped it wrong in the PCP. He said this wouldn't impact my FTTC and if he got a chance he'd go back to the PCP to tidy that up. He seemingly didn't go back to the PCP, as I've just plugged a phone into my masterr socket (test socket) and all I hear is hum, nothing else...you can kind of make out a dial tone if you listen hard enough, but mainly it's just a deep hum. Is that going to impact my FTTC - and is that potentially a contributing factor as to why my sync is 25M lower than it was 2 years ago at the same house/same socket?

I just wanted to check on here as the Kelly's guy was adamant that whatever he'd done wrong 'E' side will not influence my FTTC connection quality/speed. It could be another issue at play impacting my FTTC speed.

Cheers

[meritez]

As far as I understand, E side is between the telephone exchange and the street cabinet/PCP.
D side is between the street cabinet/PCP and your property.

Exchange side and Distribution side respectively.

What were your estimates when you signed up with Vodafone?

[g3uiss]

I think that fall over the 2/3 years could well be just cross talk. The lack of dial tone indicates a fault and should be rectified by reporting as a phone fault. Then you will know if it was responsible for the speed reduction.

[Black Sheep]

For many years, I too believed an E-side fault could not affect an FTTC circuit's performance. I remember asking the font of all knowledge (burrakucat) for his thoughts on it and from memory, he couldn't make a judgement call either way.

However, only a couple of years ago there was some form of communique from the hierarchy stating that it can indeed introduce a fault. I shall endeavour to try and find the full explanation that was given, ie: the science behind it.
Unsure where I read it though from our many, many different sources of information ??

[sotonsam]

As far as I understand, E side is between the telephone exchange and the street cabinet/PCP.
D side is between the street cabinet/PCP and your property.

Exchange side and Distribution side respectively.

What were your estimates when you signed up with Vodafone?

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

My estimate was mid 50's as min, and mid 60's as max - which I think is a fair range that could also take into account the crosstalk etc. I certainly wasn't expecting up wards of 70M at all, but I certainly didn't expect to see 40's. It's to the point where I might as well be on the 38/10 tariff to be honest.

It's pretty dreadful though either way for Kelly's to leave the 'E' side the way it is. He did some checks before he left and said he wasn't happy with the E Side, but he said FTTC looked fine and he only saw a 'couple of CRC' errors which is fine - but is it fair to say he shouldn't be picking up any CRC errors on those sort of tests and that should have required further investigation?

It was a final slot of the day job, so he clearly wanted to be in and out. I did used to have two lines to this house, so I have a terminal box on the soffits - one of the lines was cut a year or so back, but the other one was still there and fed to it's original location via the terminal box (Apologies if that's not the right terminology, but it's a black rectangular box and two lines come out of it). I did say to him would it be best to remove the old dormant line and the terminal box but he said as it was another copper pair anyway it wouldn't impact the line he'd reactivated, so he wouldn't do anything with that.

[g3uiss]

I think there must always be some CRC errors.

Have you requested another engineer to fix the phone fault ?

[sotonsam]

I think there must always be some CRC errors.

Have you requested another engineer to fix the phone fault ?

Yeah, it's been raised with Vodafone and they're escalating it upwards - I fully expect Openreach to come back on the back of it, Vodafone have said they've detected a HR Joint fault whatever that means.

[g3uiss]

That will likely be the phone fault and cause speed loss as the FTTC can run on one leg but at reduced speed.
A HR fault often shows first as a reduced US speed

[burakkucat]

. . . I've just plugged a phone into my masterr socket (test socket) and all I hear is hum, nothing else...you can kind of make out a dial tone if you listen hard enough, but mainly it's just a deep hum. Is that going to impact my FTTC - and is that potentially a contributing factor as to why my sync is 25M lower than it was 2 years ago at the same house/same socket?

That reads as if there is an earth contact fault on the pair. As it is virtually obliterating the dial-tone, it must be significant. Hence, in this case, I would expect there to be some degradation of the VDSL2 service. (Pair imbalance, via the low-pass filter, maybe.)

[sotonsam]

That reads as if there is an earth contact fault on the pair. As it is virtually obliterating the dial-tone, it must be significant. Hence, in this case, I would expect there to be some degradation of the VDSL2 service. (Pair imbalance, via the low-pass filter, maybe.)

How you described it is very close to how the Kelly's guy described it.  ''There wasn't good contact on the pair, as it didn't fully punch down''. Why he bothered to explain that and then didn't fix it is beyond me, and even more why he knew that was the state of it and left it! Never mind, I should get it fixed soon all being well.

[Alex Atkin UK]

How you described it is very close to how the Kelly's guy described it.  ''There wasn't good contact on the pair, as it didn't fully punch down''. Why he bothered to explain that and then didn't fix it is beyond me, and even more why he knew that was the state of it and left it! Never mind, I should get it fixed soon all being well.

So basically he said "I've done a really shoddy job in the cabinet and I MIGHT fix it but frankly don't think I can be bothered!".

Well, at least he was honest.   

[j0hn]

They are paid per job. The chances of him returning to fix it are certainly lower than if it were an Openreach employee.

I don't think a poorly terminated joint in the E-Side could make any difference to the FTTC circuit though.
I would only expect some kind of fault involving irregular voltage would be likely to have an impact. Perhaps a battery contact fault? It's outside my knowledge.

[burakkucat]

Perhaps a battery contact fault? It's outside my knowledge.

A (50 Hz) hum is indicative of an earth contact fault on the pair.

[meritez]

They are paid per job. The chances of him returning to fix it are certainly lower than if it were an Openreach employee.

I think their jargon is wrong though, I think they meant PCP when they stated E side.
Yes an Openreach engineer would have swapped the pair at the PCP.
Kelly contractors can be good as gold though, especially when I've been on site for the installation and they tell my end user to contact the communication provider so the end user calls me over. 
You can't imagine how quickly colour drains from their face.

Technically this is an ELF, as it's new to Vodafone and becomes an early life fault, so hopefully will be resolved quickly.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I don't think a poorly terminated joint in the E-Side could make any difference to the FTTC circuit though.
I would only expect some kind of fault involving irregular voltage would be likely to have an impact. Perhaps a battery contact fault? It's outside my knowledge.

I'd kinda assume that not all E side faults will be entirely isolated by the filters in the DSLAM if it causes some sort of imbalance in the cabling.  Or if the noise intensity is so high that it somehow leaks through.  I wouldn't think any filter is 100% perfect in that regard.