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[Weaver]

Some weeks back I got some rather upsetting emails from A & A about the problem I was having with my then HCD-inflicted line 2. Line 2 has since recovered on its own and is now perfect. Instead, line 4 has now caught extremely bad HCD and is almost permanently down now, but when it’s up it’s unusable, with so many errors and such a slow downstream rate that it needs to be disabled. In respect of line 2 AA said something that was a bit confusing but it sounded as if possibly AA had run into big trouble with either BTW and/or Openreach and one or the other was I assume refusing to fix the fault but I couldn’t make it out. Anyway, AA said they had reached the end of the road and couldn’t fix line 2. Today’s email, surprisingly, and disappointingly seems to extend this to line 4 and they’re refusing to fix line 4’s HCD either. Perhaps I’m supposed to be grateful that they haven’t just killed the line 4, or worse killed all of my DSL lines.

I realise that AA isn’t even remotely in control of this and are always reliant on this dog’s breakfast of BTW and Openreach presumably passing the buck back and forth between one another. I also realise that there’s only so much AA can do. Nevertheless, I’m not happy at all. AA has offered to give me some help setting up L2TP should I need it.

When Janet and I are both feeling a little better (ie somewhat less ill both) I intend to proceed with my 4G investigations, which our very own kitizen meritez has helped me with. Later this week if we’re both up to it, I’d like to research the possibility of getting FTTP installed sooner rather than later, and without spending approx £10⁵ to do it.

Does anyone know what generally happens regarding the politics behind the scenes when an ISP gets stuck trying to deal with BTW or Openreach regarding diagnosing or fixing a challenging line?

[Black Sheep]

Some weeks back I got some rather upsetting emails from A & A about the problem I was having with my then HCD-inflicted line 2. Line 2 has since recovered on its own and is now perfect. Instead, line 4 has now caught extremely bad HCD and is almost permanently down now, but when it’s up it’s unusable, with so many errors and such a slow downstream rate that it needs to be disabled. In respect of line 2 AA said something that was a bit confusing but it sounded as if possibly AA had run into big trouble with either BTW and/or Openreach and one or the other was I assume refusing to fix the fault but I couldn’t make it out. Anyway, AA said they had reached the end of the road and couldn’t fix line 2. Today’s email, surprisingly, and disappointingly seems to extend this to line 4 and they’re refusing to fix line 4’s HCD either. Perhaps I’m supposed to be grateful that they haven’t just killed the line 4, or worse killed all of my DSL lines.

I realise that AA isn’t even remotely in control of this and are always reliant on this dog’s breakfast of BTW and Openreach presumably passing the buck back and forth between one another. I also realise that there’s only so much AA can do. Nevertheless, I’m not happy at all. AA has offered to give me some help setting up L2TP should I need it.

When Janet and I are both feeling a little better (ie somewhat less ill both) I intend to proceed with my 4G investigations, which our very own kitizen meritez has helped me with. Later this week if we’re both up to it, I’d like to research the possibility of getting FTTP installed sooner rather than later, and without spending approx £10⁵ to do it.

Does anyone know what generally happens regarding the politics behind the scenes when an ISP gets stuck trying to deal with BTW or Openreach regarding diagnosing or fixing a challenging line?

Could you not quote exactly what was said please Weaver, rather than what you perceive it to have said .... especially if you're under the weather and maybe not seeing this as you would do, when you're at full strength ?? I think it has a massive bearing as to whether AA are refusing to accept your fault tickets, or BTw/OR.

You know me well enough by now and I wont bull-sh1t you mate ... but as I have mentioned time and again, there is a 'cone of acceptance' that all circuits have, and if L2 and L4 are showing as being in that cone, then it's always going to be a battle.

I will reiterate again for the trolls, I am on your side Weaver, I'm just trying to be realistic with your predicament.

I seem to recall there are other premises near to you, surely they too would be reporting issues as they are on the same extremely long cable run ??

[Weaver]

I realise that I didn’t explain the level of severity, cone of acceptance thing, so let me rectify that. Line 2 is now perfect, that was the earlier killer problem referred to in the earlier emails from AA. It mysteriously fixed itself.

Now the current problem line, line 4, is either not syncing 95%, and that is over of the time, or very occasionally it comes up and syncs at 288-400kbps downstream with a ridiculous error rate. So it’s not remotely ‘marginal’ at all, the nice clearcult case that an engineer might like because there’s no doubt about it? Line 4 is effectively simply completely knackered: either dead, or worse. Note that I forced the downstream target SNRM up to 15 dB to try and keep the CRC / ES rate down to something tolerable, but even that SNRM that wasn’t enough to control the errors.

I’m now keeping line 4 disconnected so it can’t pollute the rest of the bonded set with all its CRC errors. Today AA said the only thing to do is to cease it and they didn’t offer to book an engineer.

Direct quotes from three earlier emails, as requested. Cut down for reasons of privacy and relevance / brevity. First email:

We have been trying for years to resolve this, and so far have failed to do so.

We don't admit defeat lightly, but I think it may be time to throw in the towel.

I think it's been clear for a while now that neither AAISP or BTW will be able to do any more than has already been done. This is of course not the outcome we wanted, and I'm sure neither did you, but we don't see a way forward.

Second email, excerpt:

[…]It's also worth mentioning, […], that any more fault reports will likely end in deadlock with BTW.[…]

Today’s email, which was extremely brief anyway, excerpt:

Line four is back up but in a very poor condition all we can suggest it to cease this line now.

A lot more detail would have been welcome in the first email, but maybe there are reasons why AA can only tell me so much.

A point about the other premises thing. Unfortunately I have no idea as I’m completely isolated. I never see anyone. I would have to ask Janet about neighbours’ experiences with copper lines. I don’t know how many neighbours use Openreach copper. It’s extremely dependent on which line you get. You either get a good line or a bad one. My line 3 is fantastic: 3.1 Mbps downstream sync rate and around 0.6 Mbps upstream.

Many recent HCD faults in the past were simply fixed by turning up and doing nothing other that running tests. Other faults were fixed by remaking joints, and this happened many many times. That seems to be the difference between a good line and a bad line: the joints you get.

For well over ten years with AA, or over fifteen years with DSL, my copper lines were reasonably reliable, with - I’m totally guessing, would have to many many review old posts - one to two faults per line per year. It looks like I get a lot of faults, but that happens when you have four times as many lines as everyone else. Now for reasons unknown - was there a lightning strike ? - at the start of 2020, the storm of HCD faults began, and no one ever got to the bottom of it. The HCD faults were not confined to one line either.

So we had a good decade and a half and then three years of madness.

[Weaver]

Here’s a picture of line 4’s performance over the last 20 hours or so taken from clueless.aa.net.uk, with the usual AA CQM graphing:



Notice the ‘dripping blood’ in the graph.That’s what made line 4 truly unusable, even at a forced downstream target SNRM of ~15 dB. When line 4 was rarely up, I wished that it wasn’t, as it was ruining TCP performance. I assume that Zoom video conferencing wouldn’t work properly with uncorrected CRC like that, based on my speculative, dodgy theory that the likes of Zoom doesn’t use TCP or a similar retransmitting error-correcting transport layer protocol. (I have no idea whether or not that’s correct.)

[Black Sheep]

It very much sounds like the 'bottom line' has now been breached, and it's no longer viable to provide you with a DSL service on L4.

Of course, it's all guess work on our behalf, as we're not involved with it personally. But I would imagine the amount of fault tickets raised against faults found are probably in the extreme ??
Not judging here, just (as always) pointing out the suite of tests that OR have to follow once a fault ticket has been raised ... you'll know them like the back of your hand now ... and the action to be taken based upon those results. If, the cone of acceptance (CoA) is achieved on all tests then ... you know the rest.

The tests have all been agreed with the ISP's. The tests are all logged. The tests can all be viewed by the ISP.

I've also mentioned a very powerful tool that has been available to engineers recently (and I would imagine the 'high repeat report triage team'), that can look at ALL broadband circuits and can be drilled down to single DP's (poles etc), or a number of same locality DP's, to check on how each circuit is performing in relation to the others.
When I say the engineer can go down to a granular level, I'm totally under-stating it ..... it is a fantastic tool for highlighting REIN and can even pull of a PSD mask of each circuit.

My own feelings are that there are probably a number of things coming together that dictate it is nobody's interests at all to maintain L4, financially of course.

I've seen it before probably 12yrs plus ago now, whereby I had a geezer who was like our very own Max on here ... there were engineers visiting site almost daily and nothing was ever found to be faulty. It took about a year, but eventually faults were refused to be taken against the gentleman, unless a definite line condition was found on the remote RAT test.

You may be a victim of your own scrutiny here, there were obviously times where a hard fault existed on the circuit, but there may have been many more where an intermittent burst of errors were also seeing a fault ticket being raised ??.

As I said above, I'm not involved in this in any way, shape or form ... I can only surmise this to be the case. I wish you all the luck with it, but more luck on getting FTTP. You are never going to have an error-free circuit on DSL where you are, mate.

[Weaver]

Well that’s the thing. My line 3 for example is perfect, it is the error-free example. Quite literally, there are zero CRC errors either upstream or downstream and that’s even at 3 dB downstream target SNRM. So my lines are extremely good, thanks to the very very low noise environment because of the lack of human electrical interference near the cable, and because the copper is very thick, if I remember you correctly.

Just to clarify, I don’t ever call OR out trying to ‘perfect’ a line. If a line is a bit sub-par I ask AA what they think and then whether or not to do anything about it is up to them. So quite honestly, I never abuse the system trying to get the moon on a stick. With the recent rash of HCD faults, which are all extremely clear, I’ve even shown the HCD SNR-vs-tones graphs to engineers where I can, and the fault report is always because of ridiculously low downstream sync rate. I haven’t called OR in because the downstream rate is a bit slow; I’ve always waited until the problem is at its very worst, so that engineers can clearly see it, without any doubt and no cone of acceptance thing, because we’re down to (very roughly) 20% of the typical downstream sync rate say, and way way below the FTR. So there’s never been any doubt or disagreement about whether a line is ok or not.

So many times in the spate of recent HCD problems, though I can measure a problem, not just showing up in HCD depth but in appalling downstream low sync rate, and AA can see it too, but by the time an engineer appears, the problem has vanished and there’s nothing at all to see. This may or may not be due to something mysterious that the engineer has done themselves inadvertently. That is the very great mystery of the past few years. Yet on the other hand there have been very many instances where the engineer has found the cause of the HCD problem, usually some bad joint and has mended it quickly, with no trouble.

[burakkucat]

. . . the copper is very thick, if I remember you correctly.

0.9 mm diameter copper (cores of the) pairs is my recollection.

[Weaver]

‘Tis mine too.

Anyway, as my parents would say, “I’m a bit done in”.

[Black Sheep]

It is indeed the 0.9mm Cu feeding your premises, well remembered.

My sole aim here, is trying to understand why the refusal to fault one of your lines has been agreed ??
There has to be validity to it, as I suppose you could flag this up to Ofcom and they (knowing this) would have to provide some kind of supporting evidence as to why services have been withdrawn ??

They can't simply turn round and say 'He's a nuisance'

Just to cover old ground again here, probably 5'ish years ago, a 'High Repeat Report' team were established to cover exactly your kind of issues.
Having been involved with broadband from the very start, I can tell you that in the first few years the training was woeful and the engineering support was too. I myself hold this very forum on a pedestal, as a massive aid to my own personal development in this arena.

So, please believe me when I say that the 'HRR' team that was set-up, was manned by very knowledgeable individuals who could scrutinise circuits along with the best. Coupled with access to other systems mentioned earlier in this thread ... they were found to be a fantastic asset as the time consuming hard-work had all been done, by the time the engineer had picked the fault up.

What I'm trying to imply I suppose is my guess is that somebody of that ilk has done a whole lot of cross-referencing of previous fault reports, outcomes of said reports, general stability of the circuit, performance in relation to other nearby circuits etc etc ...... and decided to draw a line under it.

Not for one minute am I suggesting you don't have an actual fault condition on L$ (or whichever one it is ??), I'm trying (and maybe failing) to get the message over to any of the readership viewing this, that over-scrutiny and constant fault reporting can have an adverse effect if the perceived issue falls within the ISP agreed 'Cone of Acceptance'.

I reiterate, there has to be a valid reason as to why they have stopped raising fault tickets.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I still get an eye twitch every time you say "Cone of Acceptance" though, as how can any line failing to sync for hours at a time, and syncing with too many errors to be usable, be considered within it?

[j0hn]

Reading your posted quotes it sounds to me that A&A are throwing in the towel.
They are assuming that any more fault reports to OR/BTW "might" end in deadlock.

That should be your choice to make if you want to push the issue that far or they should be honest and say we personally are done with this line.

[Black Sheep]

I still get an eye twitch every time you say "Cone of Acceptance" though, as how can any line failing to sync for hours at a time, and syncing with too many errors to be usable, be considered within it?

It doesn't - like I have said above, it could be the other shed-loads of faults that have been raised that were probably within the CoA, or the tweaking of the DLM down to 3/4/5 dB, or whatever ........ that have all played a part with the end result being that on the whole, the circuits MPF is perfectly fine.

I've said it three times now - there HAS to be a reason why they've pulled the plug. Whether Weaver will ever get the real reason or not, who knows. But it reads to an outsider looking in, like AA/BTw/OR have got enough justification to do as they are.

[dee.jay]

It doesn't - like I have said above, it could be the other shed-loads of faults that have been raised that were probably within the CoA, or the tweaking of the DLM down to 3/4/5 dB, or whatever ........ that have all played a part with the end result being that on the whole, the circuits MPF is perfectly fine.

I've said it three times now - there HAS to be a reason why they've pulled the plug. Whether Weaver will ever get the real reason or not, who knows. But it reads to an outsider looking in, like AA/BTw/OR have got enough justification to do as they are.

And, suppose that *is* the case - that is really poor of whoever is to blame (I'm not going to call any specific party out on that one) - especially as Weaver, as I am sure he won't mind my saying - depends on decent internet and he isn't in a position to easily go find an alternative. Given how much an AA line is each, £35 and Weaver has, 3 now, I think? Not a small amout of money..

[Black Sheep]

And, suppose that *is* the case - that is really poor of whoever is to blame (I'm not going to call any specific party out on that one) - especially as Weaver, as I am sure he won't mind my saying - depends on decent internet and he isn't in a position to easily go find an alternative. Given how much an AA line is each, £35 and Weaver has, 3 now, I think? Not a small amout of money..

It's a tricky one for sure, as Weaver's been around this forum for quite a while and we all know his situation.

Trying to see the debate from all sides (as everyone should in any conversation), the 'suppliers' are running a business, they shouldn't be expected to run at a loss .... and it certainly looks to me at least ...  like one or all parties involved, have decided enough's enough.

Again, I feel Weaver may have been a victim of his own scrutiny/tweaking .... we don't know the facts, probably never will ... just people's opinions. But I would love to see if Weavers immediate neighbours circuits are batting along just fine, with minimal/no fault reports raised against them ??

Most folk just want the circuit to work, they won't have a clue that the DLM has nicked a bit of speed due to x,y,z reasons. They certainly won't be monitoring their error counts and laying with the DLM settings.
That is where the full picture would show ... if the neighbours are all content but Weaver is generating tens upon tens of fault reports, then it will eventually get looked into and this is where we are today.

You have to take sentiment out of this, harsh as that sounds, but it isn't AA Charity Comms, it isn't Openreach Gift Aid .... they are businesses. I'll say it a fourth time, there has to be some amount of data that one or the other (or both) have compiled to come to the conclusion that the MPF is good, ie: within the CoA.

I don't make the rules, Weaver doesn't make the rules .... OfCom, the ISP's and OR do.

[dee.jay]

Oh, and I hope I wasn't coming across as being critical of any one business. I totally understand where you are coming from on that one and am in total agreement with you. Ultimately - we are stuck with copper for a bit longer - and really we pushing the boundaries of what we can do when you consider the distances involved, plus the remote location where Weaver is.

It was never designed to send internet connectivity at high speeds over long distances...