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[b4dger]

After running for many many months sync'd around 4800 things had been pretty stable and I was happy with my connection (51db attenuation) - BUT it looks as if it's broken 

Last Saturday when starting up in the morning things were very peculiar - in a bad way...
RouterStats showed that I had sync'd at 2112 for some reason - I tried restarting the router but the sync was the same with *LOADS* of errors. I tried running from the test socket which gave the same results. I ran all day like this (low sync zillions of errors) and with the SNRM running around 9.5db.  Then at exactly 5.30pm the SNRM shot up to 21db.

I tried a resync and got 4672 But after 10 mins or so the errors started flooding in and I started losing sync - each time connecting at a lower speed - when it got down to the 2xxx I gave up for the day and switched everything off 


Sunday - here we go - started up and got a normal sync 4928
Happy days, even my IP Profile completely recovered within an hour
I ran all day like this - and put Saturday's problems down to "something going on somewhere down the line".

Things were running good all week until Thursday (yesterday) - back to the same state of play as on Saturday and the line stopped resyncing when it reached 2112 

Contacted my EntaNet reseller Freeola who got BT to do a line check - no problems found and left my with the choice of an engineer at £160+VAT if it's my equipment.

In the mean time I had been out and found that EDF were working in the road between me and the exchange. They were using some heavy duty equipment - a large 'mole' Thunderbirds style putting pipes under a roundabout. I'm guessing this wouldn't be helping me! They could have been 'at it' on the Saturday - I don't know as I didn't go out that way.

Yesterday evening when they had finished for the day even though there are holes and pipes everywhere - my line was still in the same trouble. I was hoping the noise margin would jump if it was RFI from the mole. God knows what could go on underground - the pipes are around 10" in diameter and there are about 6 of them - all rammed 75m along the road!!

Started up today (Friday) and synced at 2688 with bucket loads of errors 

I'm going to try some more router swaps today when I get a chance but things aren't looking good.

Hope I haven't bored people too much. Any advice etc. all gratefully received. I'm hoping if it is EDF they take their foot off my line and put me back to normal - but I don't know if my luck runs that way.
If anything should change I'll come back with an update...

[roseway]

This suggests either an intermittent line fault or serious intermittent interference. Either of these could be associated with the EDF work, but needn't necessarily be. If you're not using a filtered master socket faceplate, you really ought to connect your router to the test socket just to make sure that the problem isn't in your own wiring.

What does the routerstats graph look like when your connection is in the noisy state? This might give an indication of the cause. Does using the phone have any effect on the connection?

[b4dger]

Hi roseway,

I do use an Adslnation filtered face plate - and as I mentioned, I have also tried direct from the test socket.
Using the phone doesn't change the situation.
RouterStats shows a steady SNRM of 9.5/10db - it's just the sync and errors that are borked.

[roseway]

So it's probably not REIN then, and probably not a high resistance line fault. Either of these would make the routerstats graph jump up and down. It looks like straightforward steady interference, and perhaps EDF are responsible for that. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.

(Sorry that I failed to notice that you already tried the test socket. )

[Ezzer]

Could be REIN, either very local or the EDF stuff. With the errors suddenly popping up like that your speed would cetainly be affected.

Treat errors rather like snrm, just that errors show up small clusters of snrm which may be to intermitent and sudden to register on the snrm to any or some degree.

Other wise trying the test socket which in turn would mean trying another filter is the right way of checking your end, trying aother router (remember if you do there's no need to reset the borrowed router to your username,password,ip addresses etc, your just looking for sync and the stats displayed in relation to this so the borrowed router can be plugged straight back in its intended line and work as it always has onthat service)

[b4dger]

Thanks for the replies.

Since posting I've swapped my normal 585v6 for a 2Wire 2700. This continuously dropped sync and reported:
"Impulse Noise Comp. Tones: 119 Suspicious - impulse noise detected"
Which looks like it's way of saying too many errors.

I've also gone into the loft where my master socket is and tried a brand new 585 directly into the test socket (no filter).
Still reports attenuation of 50 but only sync'd at 2528, SNRM of 10db with loads of errors being continuously logged

Freeola are still offering to arrange a BT engineer - I'm asking them if they could turn round and say no fault found you've now got a 2mb line instead of a 4.8mb - and then bill me!

Any thoughts on this?

I've taken some photos of the EDF work - they really are big pipes they've 'moled' under the road! I'll post them later.
Obviously there's nothing actually in them at the moment so if this work was the cause then it's due to them physically disturbing services underground.  Obviously no one is going to dig the road up for me to have a look!

Oh dear, I'm not having a very good day 

[kitz]

>> 4672 --> 2112

>> RouterStats shows a steady SNRM of 9.5/10db - it's just the sync and errors that are borked.

Your SNR has taken a hammering to get such a decrease in sync speed.  The fact that "it came back ("Then at exactly 5.30pm the SNRM shot up to 21db") would seem to indicate that something somewhere mades your SNR drop like a brick to a much lower value.

>> RouterStats shows a steady SNRM of 9.5/10db

Thats weird - you wouldnt normally expect errors to accrue at that SNRM.  However routerstats only captures a snapshot in time over x period, but even if it was impulse noise then you would expect routerstats to capture at least one blip if you keep it running for say over a day

>>> "Impulse Noise Comp. Tones: 119 Suspicious - impulse noise detected"

oooh just seen that as Im commenting reading through your whole thread..  Nice one 2wire.

What a nice piece of reporting..  one of the things that enamoured me to one of my old router was some of the reporting features - including one that told me if the VP was congested and packets were being lost at the  VP.

>> Freeola are still offering to arrange a BT engineer - I'm asking them if they could turn round and say no fault found you've now got a 2mb line instead of a 4.8mb - and then bill me!

Ask Freeola what your Fault Threshold Rate is set at.  If youve had previous syncs at around 4500 - this should give you a FTR of around 3Mbps.  Obviously though it will depend on what your speeds were like during the training period.  But if your FTR is more than the current speeds you are seeing then you can raise a fault.

Get together any proof that you have of how your line also performs ie proof/screen caps/routerstat graphs etc etc whatever you can to show that your line has been stable at the higher speeds.

[Ezzer]

The other possibility (although the time it takes to go through the red tape to arrange a dig makes me mainly doubtfull) Is maby EDF are about to repair something which is causing the snr/error issue.

Although we recently had a chap who turned up to the yard who was convinced that a recently installed aerial cable in his area must be causing the interference where no remote key fob would work in order to lock any vehicle around his property.

Bit like REIN but not effecting telephony but something completely different, he ended up going via ofcom (this apparently isn't handled by the post office any more) who had a specialist turn up.

(a couple of chaps from the yard went up in order to disconnect the new bt cable just in case, and from what I heard he's got a £10,000 version of our 444b tester and mw radio combination, can I have one please  make my job easyer)

The chap was adamant it was definately our plant cusing the problem, he's tried switching all the power in his property, nothing else left on. The radio chap still stated it's on your property, in fact it's comming from your camper van. A forgoton about trickle heater was found switched on inside drawing a small current from the 12v battery, when switched off every ones keys would suddenly work

(cost the poor chap £317.00  , good job the bt side wasn't charge able as no fault was reported and our guys turned up half out of curiosity if any thing)

Just goes to show you need to keep an open mind as to what the cause of any potental inteference is. Almost every time I've tried to locate REIN some one somewhere starts to suspect one thing and it seems naturaly difficult to accept any thing else could be the cause That is if REIN is the problem.

[kitz]

>> I heard he's got a £10,000 version of our 444b tester and mw radio combination, can I have one please

Gawd at the price!...  I bet I know a few people that would like one of those  (looks at Ezzer)

>> Just goes to show you need to keep an open mind as to what the cause of any potental inteference is

Indeed.. weve seen a few examples on this forum over the past year or so,  when its turned out to be something unexpected.

[Ezzer]

Just thought of another exsample yesterday had a fault, slow downloads.

from the nte test socket 45.5db loss, 10.5snrm, 0 errors sync 4.550mb sync
from the lju by the router 46db loss,10.5snrm, 8500rs errors in 5 mins, 2.2mb sync

As the apts test shows the error count real time i could see the errors comming in bursts, clear for a few seconds then another burst of a few hundred.

Good exsample of how just attenuation and snrm isn't all of the picture

[b4dger]

Thanks for the replies.
For those interested here are some photos of the EDF pipe work. The larger pipes are at least 10" in diameter!
www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/freeola-adsl-problems.shtml

I'm trying to find out if my neighbours are experiencing similar problems - trouble is most people don't monitor their connection. The one's I've asked have said things have been slow this week but haven't a clue what their connection speed is now or normally! I haven't got many neighbours (live up a single track lane off the main road in the photos) so don't hold out too much hope getting any useful info.

As you can see the pipes aren't 'live' yet so if they did cause my problem it's down to physically disturbing something not the electricity that's running in them - when they come to connect them up and turn the power on god knows where I'll be!

If the pipe work has caused this then I guess the likely hood of getting anything fixed is about 'zero' 

My secret hope is that the work has upset some kit at the exchange - which is now 'flapping' about. Once an error threshold is met BT will reset things and I'll be all back to normal.  /dream!

Still trying to find out if BT can bill me as my line is working. Once I know where I stand I'll try getting them involved. Thanks for your comments Kitz.  Presumable my 'max reports' if that's what they are called, will also show that my line has been around 4800 previous to this?

I've noticed that the 'output power' (down) reported has changed from 19.5 (before my problems) to 17.5 - does this mean anything to anyone?

All for now...

NB. The photos will appear quicker on your screen than they do for me!

[kitz]

Interesting pics - have you any way of finding out where the phone cables lay?  If theyre UG look for green cabs and hopefully they should be in a straight line between the 2 points.. and at least it will give you an idea if its that side of the road that theyre on.


>> but haven't a clue what their connection speed is now or normally!

I know what you mean, I knocked on one of my neighbours doors earlier this year to see if they were having similar issues with their sync after a power outage.  They didnt have a clue either.. and despite them syncing at the full 8Mb.. their TT connection acheived around 400kbps which they thought was perfectly fine :0
Wont harm in offering to give them an "adsl health check" if they dont understand... and at least you can get to see how their line is performing.

>> Still trying to find out if BT can bill me as my line is working.

They shouldnt do if its fallen below the Fault Threshold Rate - hence why you need to see if you can get some figures from Freeola. 

>> 've noticed that the 'output power' (down) reported has changed from 19.5 (before my problems) to 17.5

Will cause a reduction in signal strength, which will likely cause a reduction in max sync speed.
However I dont know if theres a direct correlation in to how much reduction.  One important thing to mention is that different routers may report slightly different figures though.
Funny enough I was talking about this the other night with someone.. and one thing Ive noticed on my own line is that when I first got adsl2+ (annexM) my output power was close to maximum, yet over the past few months the power has gone down and obviously so has my sync speed.  The person I mentioned it to who is on the neighbouring exchange has also noticed the same thing.. and we mulled over the thought of power being turned down as more lines came on the MSAN and it became busier.

[b4dger]

Hi Kitz,
With the pipe work I think the bottom line is unless I'm on fire, then tough, no one's going to do anything 
I'm pretty sure neither EDF or BT will re-do the cables to get my adsl connection back to normal - this is assuming it's all connected with the work.

I did find the chap in charge of the moleing (spelling?!) operation - the contractor Murphy. I was as polite as can be - and straight away it didn't go down well!  I can't do the accent.

Him: "we haven't touched any services"
Me: "how can you be sure?"
Him: "tell me what services are 4m underground!"
Me: "but the pipes come to the surface in two places on route to 4m underground, oh never mind, thanks for your help"

Paint in the road "lost signal!" - looks like they really knew where they were...


My connection is completed stuffed - before I wrote this it was hardly moving. My BT speedtest results are between 295(!) and 1300 - even at my current low sync things are running poor because of the bucket loads of errors.
I've just rebooted and things have perked up a bit so at least I'm getting around 1mb. All this is something I've never had to do.

Video streaming and all the other adsl goodies are rather hard work since my troubles 
I've made a couple of comments here before when others have reported a collapse of service, sympathising with them as it's always been something I've dreaded!

As things are so bad - I'll have to bite the bullet and get BT involved (even at the risk they turn round as say "no fault found" - which is what their line test said) - another £180 I can't afford.

Do you know what data BT have in 'max reports'. As far as I'm aware it shows a history of sync and IP Profile?
If it does then they can see straight away how thing were/are.

If there are any BT reps around I would love to hear what they recommend I do and what's likely to happen.

Thanks again...

[kitz]

 

>> Do you know what data BT have in 'max reports'. As far as I'm aware it shows a history of sync and IP Profile?

A woosh xdsl check should show your ISP your FTR - Sample Woosh. 

As to the actual records kept I dont know Im afraid and that may be ISP dependant.  I know my old IPStream ISP had a record going back several weeks on mine.. and Im sure Ive seen one of the zen reps say they keep some records.

[b4dger]

Things have moved on this morning - for the better 

Right - last Saturday very low sync with errors, recovered on Sunday (high sync no errors).
Low sync and errors back for Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

This morning...   Sync'd at 4992 again and seeing normal error count (i.e. 1 CRC rather than 100,000!).
SNRM still running normally at 9db. All other stats still normal with Output Power back to 19.5.

Any ideas what could be going on?
I'm still hoping it's something like this (see 'dream' above') - EDF start pipework and introduce problems to the network - which recovers overnight. Then I ran normally and I could see that EDF had stopped their work. On Thursday problem comes back and I see EDF are at it again. This time the 'exchange' doesn't automatically recover when they stop OR some sort of recovery routine only runs on a Saturday night?

OR it's nothing at all to do with EDF and it's just a lose connection up a tree somewhere?

Still early days, but I'm a lot happier at the moment