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[coolsnakeman]

There are several different types of engineers within OR that qualify for certain types of jobs. The type of engineer you are having sent out is an SFI engineer (special faults investigater) who can do pretty much everything for example lift and shifts, request for line cards to be reset and can also deal with the local network if there is any underground cabling faults or any faults at the DP or MDF or the PCP or SCP. They can also identify REIN issues but that requires a REIN engineer to find the source using a wee special tool and this can take a while to identify. There is also frames engineers who only deal with the likes of jumpering (cabling at the MDF) and also they can identify faulty equipment so they can take your BB equipment out of the MDF if this is causing an issue with your PSTN. Then you have transmission engineers these guys deal with certain aspects of the equipment also at the MDF so if your issue is something along the lines of noise on your line when the router is connected thats when a transmissions engineer will be sent to the exchange to check the likes of the splitter (big microfilter) at the exchange which seperates the phone service from the broadband service. The SFI being sent out to you will beable to identify any of these issues on the local network, exchange equipment and your own domain by fault finding. Don't be afraid to ask the engineer to explain what he is doing and ask what his findings are aswell. Make sure he demonstrates to you and explains to you in simple terms you can understand what he believes he has found and how he has fixed the issue.

Regards
Gary

[Wildy]

BT guy has been out tinkering today.  He started off doing some tests on a laptop through the phone socket, then disappeared for a couple of hours.  When he came back he said there were 3 lines up to where we live and we were on the poorest one. He's now swapped us over to the better one.

Stats tonight as follows:

Noise Margin:     8.6   dB
Connection Rate:  2016  Kbps
Line Attenuation: 47.0  dB 
Power:            17.6  dBm
Max Rate:         2336  Kbps
 
SF:               14275
SF Errors:        21
Reed Solomon:     485382
RS Corrected:     258846
RS Un-Corrected:  486
HEC:              14
Errored Seconds:  3
Severe ES:        0

Interleave Depth: 64
Bitswaps:         0

It's certainly an improvement (pretty much a 100% speed increase) but I still think we should be doing better 

[sevenlayermuddle]

@Wildy,

Did you ever get Sky or BT to take any more interest?

I see your attenuation now shows 47dB, whereas it used to be 55dB, is that correct and consistent?  I guess it's theoretically possible that your new line could take a much more direct route to the exchange, but it doesn't seem likely.  Normally, line attenuation shouldn't change much, except that different routers can report different figures (a couple of dB or so either way).  Large changes in attenuation can suggest an intermittent line fault, so it's possible your old line had a fault, and your new one doesn't, which would explain you speed gain.

Regardless of why the attenuation has improved, I still think you're right, 2016 is disappointing even for a 55dB (as it used to be) line.  For a 47dB line it's downright pathetic - the kitz calculator predicts over 5500.  The 8.6dB noise margin is high, but nowhere near enough to explain that discrepancy.

[Wildy]

Hi again.

I'd left it after Tuesday as there was a marked improvement in speed, a stable 2 meg connection would be ok for us and I wanted to see how it went.   Unfortunately we've had the same noise issues and disconnections as before, guess I'll be ringing them back again tomorrow to look for more help.

I know I'm massively unobservant, but Dad has just pointed out there's a (very) small electricity substation close to the cabinet that serves the houses here.  Could that be a likely culprit? and if so, is there likely nothing that can be done about it?

Cheers once more
Wildy

[waltergmw]

@Wildy,

Whilst any electrical device can cause problems, substations are usually quiet. If they're not you should probably hear some strange audible noises and if so I suggest you call the number on the identification plate. As they are heavy current devices you might expect things to get hot and possibly start smoking or at least smelling hot, if there is a fault.

I suggest you run Routerstats Lite and record your findings for us to look at.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/log_routerstats.htm

Kind regards,
Walter

[Wildy]

Thanks Walter, have added some pages from RS this afternoon, looks like a pretty typical example of what goes on. I'm not sure if there's anything else I should be watching other than moise margin and sync speed.  Have included the stats page as there seem to be a lot of errors (hopefully someone can suggest if those are excessive or normal).

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[waltergmw]

Hi again Wildy,

The noise margin graphs do look quite horrible. There's little doubt that you are suffering from some form of noise injection, but quite different characteristics before and after the second probable re-sync.

You'll see at

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php

that you are under half the sync speed you should be achieving probably because of the state of the line.

Have you removed all ring wires and connected the modem to the master socket ?

Have you tried wandering around with a de-tuned AM radio ?

Is there any heavy plant near you, or perhaps old refrigerators or air-conditioning units etc. etc.

Kind regards,
Walter