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Author Topic: MSR & Fault threshold  (Read 7998 times)

Astral

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MSR & Fault threshold
« on: July 14, 2006, 03:02:01 PM »

Hi all

Has anyone had any luck with getting their MSR reset? Mine is set @ 4000 so consequently I have a fault threshold of 2800. My line stats, & everything else I look at, indicates I should be achieving 6.5Mbps or better (off peak obviously) but I mostly get 4-4500kbps with occasional forays into the 5-6000kbps zone in the wee small hours.

My ISP won't refer my case to BT because I'm not consistently below fault threshold. If my MSR was 6000 or higher I might get a look-in.

Also my speeds are very erratic, even in the middle of the night, despite my line stats only varying by 1dB max, day or night. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance if you can help.
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kitz

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2006, 07:26:23 PM »

Hi Astral

AFAIK the only way you can get your MSR reset is via instruction from a BT Engineer.
However the MSR is accademic to what speeds you should be syncing at.  The DLM should continually monitor your connection each time you connect and set your sync speed accordingly.

If you sync at 4-4500 kbps most of the time then your Data Rate (bRAS profile) will be rounded down to the nearest 0.5Mb.  
Are you perhaps referring to the figure on the portal (which PN confusingly call the Stable Rate) which is in fact linked to your bRAS profile.
You bRAS profile can change, but from what you have said it would seem that a Data Rate/bRAS profile of 4000kbps would be correct I'm afraid.

To get an increased bRAS profile to 6000 you would need to continously sync at over 6Mbps for more than 3 days.

Theres more info about your MSR and DataRate on this page
How maxdsl works.

Hope the info helps.
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Astral

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2006, 11:34:24 PM »

Hi Kitz

Thanks for the reply. The reason I was asking about MSR is because I have synched @ 8128 from day 1 (months ago), and my so called "stable rate" was increased to 8000 a couple of weeks ago (had been stuck @ 5500).

I currently have a ticket open on which I got a fail on the automatic testing procedue, so presumeably something is amiss. The only thing I can see which doesn't seem to fit is the MSR which is apparently set @ 4000 which gives a fault threshold of 2800 and therefore a snowball's chance in hell of BT looking at it.

My speed resolutely refuses to rise, despite everything pointing to the fact that I ought to see something approaching the maximum, even at 4 or 5 in the morning.

If you (that includes anyone reading this) can think of anything else that I may have missed I wil be very interested to hear from you.
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kitz

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2006, 10:23:25 AM »

Firstly

>> on which I got a fail on the automatic testing procedue, so presumeably something is amiss.

Naww...  I fail that too and there is nothing wrong with my line :D :D
Ive tried it a couple of times and it still doesnt complete. :/
Raised this as a fault to PN direct.

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Can I just ask those speeds in your first post were they your sync speeds or the results of speed tests? (I had at first assumed they were sync speeds).

Honestly your MSR should affect your throughput speeds although your bRAS profile will.  If your data rate is set at 8000 then there there shouldnt be anything on the PN side of things that is throttling you either.

Have you done any a BTw Speedtest to see what speed that gives you?

I have a horrible feeling that it may be contention at the exchange that is causing your problem.  Since max I dont think Ive seen anyone on any ISP who has been able to get full speeds during peak time, and its more likely to be in the 4Mbps region  
Believe it or not BTw state that they consider a measly 400kbps (nope I havent missed a zero out) as acceptable speeds during peak time due to the fact that IPStream adsl is sold as a contended product :/
Since the advent of max BTw are happy to let contention kick in on the VPs :(
When I first got max I got some good speeds, but as more users on my exchange have also been maxed Ive noticed this speed gradually decline as more users share the same backhaul capacity.

Finally you could try MTU/RWin tweaking for 8Mb - I got an extra 400kbps when I changed my MTU and RWIN to 1430 / 166800.  Different settings work best for different people and theres a few on that page if you want to try.
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kitz

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2006, 10:26:59 AM »

PS which speedtester are you using?

a few people have said the AG speedtester is sometimes wonky
as Ive just found out myself -
Couple of speedtests Ive just performed :(

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp

result = 2,546.0 Kbps ( = 2.5 Mbps )

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk

Download speed = 6199 kbps
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Astral

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2006, 01:25:47 PM »

Hi Kitz

You may be right about contention, although i find it hard to believe that there are many in my village as daft as me (I'm the only idiot in this village :!: ) using their BB @ 0430. I should get close to max at that time of night surely. According to the PN exchange checker tool there are no contention issues on the exchange.

The only thing I can think of is that there are a lot of p2p afficionados locally downloading stuff all night. Certainly when you look at PN's usage graphs p2p is the biggest bandwidth hog day and night.

I use various speed testers including BTw, PN, ADSL guide, bbmax & kbps.co.uk.  I have tweaked MTU/Rwin and get 100% efficiency. The thing I find odd is the randomness of the speed tests. I can do 3 or 4 tests in a minute on one tester & get a variation of over 1000kbps between them. Now you could argue that was local contention because general congestion does not fluctuate so suddenly. But according to BT there is no problem on the local VP's. Perhaps they are liars. :shock:  :shock:  :shock:
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mr_chris

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2006, 01:38:32 PM »

Well, I wouldn't have believed it either, but for having experienced it first hand.

When our town first got ADSL 3 years ago, a couple of weeks later we started experiencing horrendous slowdowns. The 512k line would often crawl at much less than 100kbps. The pattern went something like this:

18:00 - Internet would very rapidly slow down to a crawl. Worst time of night
22:00 - Easing off slightly - we might see 200kbps around this time.
0:00 - Slightly better again
4:00 - 5:00 - around 400kbps
8:00 - better
Midday through to about 17:00 - Full speed ahead (500kbps)
Leading up to 18:00 - slow down. Rinse and repeat...

Which made me wonder if there were people queueing up downloads when they got in from work. I suspect the same will be happening now, especially given the increasing number of ISPs who are allowing "free" overnight usage on an otherwise capped service.

Could the same or similar be happening there, especially as you say mid-morning was even better than through the night?
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Chris

Astral

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2006, 02:00:30 PM »

Hi Chris

I've been thinking about posting something on PUG to the effect that p2p is the major cause of contention and should be either a paid-for extra or is severely speed restricted at all (most) times to improve  performance of netwoorks as a whole. I think the reason I don't, is because it would make me about as popular as a t**d in a swimming pool. :)  Or more likely because I'm a coward. :oops:  Then again, what have I got to lose.
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mr_chris

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MSR & Fault threshold
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2006, 02:44:30 PM »

> I think the reason I don't, is because it would make me about as popular as a t**d in a swimming pool.

LOL - you're not wrong there.

To be honest, I wouldn't like it to be a paid for extra, since I probably do at the most a couple of hundred megs of P2P in a month.

Plusnet's "Plus" account is designed so that P2P is severely speed restricted at pretty much all times to avoid clogging up the network. Premier is less restricted, but at busy times it can crawl.

Plusnet do prioritise everything else over and above P2P, and for the most part this seems to work reasonably well.

Trouble is, it wouldn't really help any exchange issues, since people on Plusnet would simply move to the current "flavour of the month" ISP who didn't restrict P2P, until they realised they couldn't sustain that.. then they would all move over to the next ISP.... and so it continues.

Whilst there are P2P networks, for the forseeable future there will always be people using them, and ISPs allowing users to do so. And if not, they will turn to other technology!
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Chris
 

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