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[CARLSBERG]

Can someone help me, please?

I have had a very slow speed issue since mid January, for no apparent reason my AOL just came almost to a halt on a regular basis. They then fiddled with my speed setting me at 1mb.
They sent 2 BT engineers round, both said my line is fine!

SO, i switched to BT broadband thinking it was an AOl problem.

But, i am having a slow speed problem with BT too. At present my download speed is 160kbps.
And has been fluctuating.

I am about 900m from the exchange.

I did a test and the resuslts are as below. I have been advised to check my speed in 3 days, as they have done something about "Interleaving" and i should have 2.3mb in 3 days. They said my line should take 6.5 - 8mb.

Can anyone offeer any advice please!

DSL Connection  

Link Information
    
 
Uptime: 5 days, 19:45:34
 
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
 
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 160
 
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 57.10 / 341.44
 
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 12.5
 
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 36.0
 
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 18.0 / 27.0
 
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
 
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 9 / 0
 
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
 
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 3,372 / 0
 
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
 
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 8,586
 
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,328
 
 
Thanks!

[roseway]

Hi Carlsberg, welcome to the forum.

On the face of it, those figures are ridiculous: you have a downstream connection speed of only 160 kbps and a very high noise margin of 27 dB. You should be getting well over 6 Mbps. The most likely explanation is an intermittent line fault, unless there's something wrong with your internal telephone wiring.

If there's audible noise on the telephone then you may have a faulty filter, so disconnect every phone/fax/Sky box except one, and try different filters on the remaining one to see if the noise goes away. If it doesn't then you may have a line fault or defective internal wiring.

If your master socket is an NTE5 type (the lower half of the cover is separately removable) then take it off, plug a filter into the test socket inside, and connect your router to that. If you need the phone you can plug one in as well, but it would be worth trying different filters in case you have a faulty one. Leave this for as long as you can, and check the router stats periodically. If you still get the same problem, then it's probably a line fault and you will have to persuade your ISP to get it sorted.

Eric

[kitz]

>> Uptime: 5 days, 19:45:34
>> Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 160
>> Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 36.0
>> SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 18.0 / 27.0

Im in agreement with roseway - looks like an intermittant fault or noise spikes. Your line stats as shown should give you near the full 8Mb so follow his advice above.

But also reboot your router now.  Its been up about 6 days and its holding the last sync speed of 160 all that time despite your Margin being fine now.

Until you reboot and get a decent sync speed then the DLM isnt going to know that all is now ok, and therefore wont be able to increase your IP profile.

What happens is that at some points something is occuring on your line, which is causing your  SNR Margin to drop and your sync speed is reducing.  Once your SNR Margin increases again then, you have to manually reboot to get the higher sync speeds.

[CARLSBERG]

Thanks for your replies, its appreciated.
I got BT broadband to reset something their end, sorry not sure what but they said my speed would increase in
2-3 days. Well it did to about 600kbps, then we got a power cut and i guess my router restarted. Now the speed has come back down to 160kbps again, BT are faffing about with their usual routine of passing about their departments and on to BT Openplan. Then they MAY send me an engineer, which was actaully booked a few weeks back. I waited in and no-one came, they forgot to tell me they changed their mind and cancelled the appt.!

My latest stats are:
DSL Connection  

Link Information
    
 
Uptime: 1 day, 0:51:26
 
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
 
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 160
 
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 4.29 / 6.51
 
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 12.5
 
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 36.0
 
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 30.5
 
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
 
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 5 / 0
 
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
 
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 2,860 / 0
 
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
 
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 14
 
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
 
 
I was not sure what CRC nd HEC errors are, they were also present on my original stats above.
I did highlight to them about the line noise, she noted it.

The router has been connected to the test socket for nearly 3 weeks now.

See what happens next.

[kitz]

>> Uptime: 1 day, 0:51:26
>> SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 30.5

Reboot your router..
 - That Margin should support higher speeds which you wont get until you reboot.  See my post above for reasons why.

[CARLSBERG]

>> Uptime: 1 day, 0:51:26
>> SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 30.5

Reboot your router..
 - That Margin should support higher speeds which you wont get until you reboot.  See my post above for reasons why.

Thanks.
I rebooted and the speed went to around 2600. Gradually it has come down again over say 3 days.
I am showing a speed of 544, BT say they are showing 160kbps.
Whichever is appaling anyway.

They are going to send in a "special investigation team" (I tried not to laugh at this load of bull***t) to the exchange.
On bank holiday monday! Of course they will.
Sorry to sound pessamistic.

They will call me in 24hrs, i.e. Monday evening with an update.

The best bit, was when they ran a line test and told me there was a fault. I thought maybe they have found something useful, so i asked what the fault was and you guessed it....slow speed.

See what happens next, i should not need to reboot the router every 2/3 days surely. And even the 2600 i got is less than the 6-8mb i should be receiving?

Cheers again

[soms]

If possible, try and get your hands on a BT Voyager 105 or Speedtouch 330 USB ADSL modem. From experience, these devices will sync as high as possible allowing for minimal SNR margins.

This would help allow to see if it is a general problem with the exchange regardless of equipment, or just bad luck on your part with your router. As kitz said, rebooting a router (especially after waiting 5 to 15 minutes) results in the router syncing at as gooder rate as possible allowing for a target SNR margin  (normally 6dB to 9dB).

It seems odd that the speed should decline as you state when your posted line stats looked good.

The reported BT speed of 160kbps might be something to do with IP profiling (though i dont think there is such a profile?) where as your 544 is sync rate. It is the sync rate that should increase on a reboot and then over a period of days the IP profile compensates giving you higher download rates.

Anyway, give it a go if you can. Soms.

[CARLSBERG]

If possible, try and get your hands on a BT Voyager 105 or Speedtouch 330 USB ADSL modem. From experience, these devices will sync as high as possible allowing for minimal SNR margins.

This would help allow to see if it is a general problem with the exchange regardless of equipment, or just bad luck on your part with your router. As kitz said, rebooting a router (especially after waiting 5 to 15 minutes) results in the router syncing at as gooder rate as possible allowing for a target SNR margin  (normally 6dB to 9dB).

It seems odd that the speed should decline as you state when your posted line stats looked good.

The reported BT speed of 160kbps might be something to do with IP profiling (though i dont think there is such a profile?) where as your 544 is sync rate. It is the sync rate that should increase on a reboot and then over a period of days the IP profile compensates giving you higher download rates.

Anyway, give it a go if you can. Soms.

Thanks.
I may have a 105 that AOL sent me before i cancelled them.
Just had a ruck with BT as they say an engineer may be needed, i asked for a saturday like when aol sent a bt chap round. BT say they do not do saturdays, despite the fact AOL managed to send one on a saturday.

I have noticed my stats have changed since the BT Hub rebooted due to power cut, and the IP profile has changed from 135kbps to 2000kbps. If that means anything!
DSL Connection  

Link Information
    
 
Uptime: 0 days, 5:54:21
 
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
 
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,720
 
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 2.29 / 16.35
 
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 18.5
 
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 36.0
 
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 23.0 / 14.5
 
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
 
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0
 
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
 
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 5 / 0
 
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
 
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 14,352
 
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 3,410
 
 
 
And speedtester.bt.com has:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    IP profile for your line is - 2000 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  2720 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1859 kbps

[soms]

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    IP profile for your line is - 2000 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  2720 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1859 kbps

Yes the IP profile rise is good. Your IP profile is what governs your download speed. This adjusts itself in bands to try and match your sync rate. So an increase from 135K to 2000K will result in you having much faster downloads.

This is proved by the BT speedtester, with 1859K being the achieved download speed during the test.

Your lines downstreama SNR margin still has more room for greater speeds. Perhaps given your probs your target margin has gone up. other members know more about this than I do!

[roseway]

Yes, it looks as though the target noise margin has been set at the maximum 15 dB, but even then I would have expected a higher sync speed than 2720. Maybe there's a serious noise source nearby (you haven't got a neighbour with an exercise treadmill, have you?). Maybe the BT investigation will reveal something. Still, 2000 is better than 160 I suppose.

Eric

[CARLSBERG]

Latest update as at 1st June:
At last i managed to get BT to send me an engineer. He spent 2 hours between my house and the exchange.
He said there was a fault between the box at the end of my road and the exchange. His test did not "sync" when he tried it in my property.

The latest stats are now:

DSL Connection 

Link Information
   
 
Uptime: 0 days, 6:22:15
 
Modulation: G.992.1 annex A
 
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 8,128
 
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 1.17 / 5.41
 
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 19.5
 
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 34.0
 
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 24.0 / 8.0
 
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB
 
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 6 / 0
 
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
 
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
 
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 2,893 / 0
 
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
 
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 672
 
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 490
 
 
I am hoping this will settle down in a few days as he says, and the throughput improves.
At the moment if i run speedtester i get:

IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - - 100 kbps

Any thoughts you guys?

Cheers

[Chris P Duck]

I can sympathise totally with how frustrated you must be feeling atm. People reckon that moving house, getting married etc is the most stressfull thing you can do in life. Obviously they havent tried to resolve dodgy broadband its even worse when you have a "ass n elbow" ISP like AOL or BT. I can only offer you my best wishes on this one and reassurance that things will get better ...

[roseway]

I'm not sure that sympathy is necessary now It looks as though the engineer has fixed the problem. The sync speed and other figures are good, and after three days the IP profile should automatically rise to 7150 it if stays at that level.

Eric

[kitz]

Congrats - those stats now look good.
Hopefully it looks like the engineers cured the problem. 

[Chris P Duck]

Id be interested to know if your IP profile improved over the last few days since your BT visit?