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Author Topic: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate  (Read 253953 times)

Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #270 on: September 07, 2011, 06:01:33 PM »

Dear Readers,

Today's feedback:-

There is no feedback today as Plusnet's Alex didn't manage to contact me.
He must have been busy with other stuff.

Paul.
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renluop

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #271 on: September 07, 2011, 06:28:19 PM »

....He must have been busy with other stuff.

Paul.
Maybe reading up on Hari-Kiri?  :silly: ;)
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burakkucat

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #272 on: September 07, 2011, 08:41:15 PM »

I think you have that slightly wrong in that OR are not responsible for the DSLAM equipment which is probably owned by BT W. (There is proof positive around here if you look at a FTTC as the DSLAM compartment is fitted with star key locks whereas the IDC connector compartment has the standard triangle key locks.)

Thank you, Walter. May we defer the question of who owns the cabinet DSLAM to the gentlemen employed by OR, Messrs RP & Ezzer?

I recall reading, somewhere, that special dispensation from Offcom was required so that the whole FTTC project could go ahead. It was something to do with the fact that the infrastructure provider, OR, would be providing an Internet connection when it is not a wholesale or retail service providing company. Basically the DSLAMs in an exchange are owned by a CP (BT Wholesale, TalkTalk, etc) but the DSLAMs in a FTTC environment (out in the street) are owned by the infrastructure provider (OR). Unfortunately, I can not put my paws onto an explicit reference / link. :(

One other thought has just come to mind. Mr Pag has gone on record as saying that he and his fellow CSEs are only allowed to access the tie pairs and copper side of a fibre connection and that there are other OR engineering staff who have been trained for fibre side working.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2011, 08:47:22 PM by burakkucat »
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burakkucat

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #273 on: September 07, 2011, 08:52:41 PM »

There is no feedback today as Plusnet's Alex didn't manage to contact me.
He must have been busy with other stuff.

Perhaps in a meeting with Bob Pullen, discussing the best way forward in resolving your connection issue? ;)
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Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #274 on: September 07, 2011, 10:56:45 PM »

There is no feedback today as Plusnet's Alex didn't manage to contact me.
He must have been busy with other stuff.

Perhaps in a meeting with Bob Pullen, discussing the best way forward in resolving your connection issue? ;)

Haha. You might be right.

I bet they were discussing why it looks like I'm only getting ADSL speeds now.
It's almost as though someone/something has turned off or blocked my access to the higher VDSL2 frequencies & speeds.

If only I was able to see my own current modem stats & compare them against the stats when FTTC was first installed, we might have a bit of a clue where to start looking. Certainly none of the engineers who have visited have managed to find the missing Mb's.

I have asked Plusnet a few times to provide my original stats for comparison against the last engineer's JDSU readings.
If you recall, those were the stats for which the engineer told me he would be sacked if he let me actually look at the JDSU's display myself.
Surely Plusnet/BT must keep those sort of records.

All will be revealed tomorrow?

Paul.
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limbo

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #275 on: September 07, 2011, 11:29:17 PM »

Hi Paul, and thank you for the welcome!

Quote
In my case, I had to switch to a different Plusnet product (Value) in order to be eligible for FTTC as I had to be moved from a 20CN connection to a 21CN connection (actually cheaper than what I had been paying for the last few years) in readiness for FTTC. I presume your are moving directly from BT to Plusnet's FTTC so that matter possibly isn't relevant?

Walter very kindly looked my line up for me, and according to the OR database, and I am on a 21CN connection, so I think you're right, this shouldn't be a problem for me.

Quote
The manual speed profile adjustment just means that when FTTC is first installed via Plusnet, you will probably still see your old download speeds for a while. I did & I was given a similar message to yours warning me in advance.
This may well stump the installing engineer as he should be seeing FTTC speeds at your master socket straight away.
My installation engineer was reluctant to leave as he couldn't see the 30+Mb on my PC's speedtests that he told me I would be able to achive for my connection's conditions. He thought it very strange that Plusnet had to adjust my profile manually.

All it means is that unlike BT & their Infinity product where FTTC speeds are seen immediately, Plusnet will have to manually adjust your profile to FTTC's 37Mb (Plusnet's name for the FTTC profile) after the engineer has confirmed the FTTC installation is completed.
In theory, this should be just a few hours after installation, but as it is a manual process, it may take a little longer due to staff workloads etc.
In my case, it took around 1 hour before I could see FTTC download speeds.
Apparently, Plusnet appear to occasionally overlook the profile reset & you may end up having to call them to give it a nudge.

Thank you for explaining this- it makes a lot of sense now! And hopefully the OR engineer won't be scratching his head wondering why the connection speed is so slow!

Quote
What I would strongly advise, & I wish I had done it at the time, is ask the engineer to give you as many connection statstics he can from his JDSU or other meter that he will test your connection with at your master socket.
Photograph the display if he will allow you to.
It may well come in very handy if you later have speed issues & at least you will be able to refer back to your connection's conditions at installation time. See the attached photo for the minimum details the engineer should give you. I took the photo during one of the BT engineer's "fault finding" visits, but I didn't have any details from installation date to compare them against.
If he won't let you photograph them, at least write them down & be insistent if he tries to avoid telling you.

It would be very helpful for us in this thread if you could post those stats here too as a comparison with mine & any others' FTTC stats as you will not be able to obtain them for yourself from the BT supplied modem. It is locked against users accessing their own connection stats  >:(
This obviously makes any trouble shooting almost impossible, then having to rely on BT engineer visits that could potentially cost you a lot of money if no fault is found at the time of his visit.

I will take as much data as I can, and post it here. After reading the forum, I think I have a good idea how to get OR Engineers friendly; the biscuits will come out!!

Quote
Final advice:-
Run regular speedtests (using the same speedtester for consistency). I use speedtest.net as it stores all your results over a long period of time, even when using the unregistered version.
Run regular BT performance tests as these are logged by BT & Plusnet are also informed. Really useful if/when trying to report a "fault".

Do you know which cabinet you will be connected to i.e. the line length from the cabinet to your home?
Once FTTC is installed, the line length all the way from the exchange can be ignored for broadband purposes.

Good luck, but be warned that as FTTC is fairly new technology, we don't fully understand exactly how it works yet, INCLUDING PLUSNET & SOME BT ENGINEERS & you may be given irrelevant "reasons" if your connection isn't performing properly.
e.g. both Plusnet & a visiting "special BT broadband engineer" have at some stage told me that I shouldn't expect high speeds from FTTC as my line is 5283m long. THAT IS ACTUALLY THE DISTANCE FROM THE EXCHANGE, NOT THE FTTC CABINET!!!!

I read about them getting confused with the distances- that is a really fundamental error!

I have spotted a cabinet (I think it is FTTC- one of those new smaller ones (saw the thread on Fibre Cabinets!), with an older more tradition cabinet on the other side of the road. In fact when we drove past it earlier today there was an OR engineer in the old cabinet doing something!) which is 0.6 miles away (when we drove past it). I'm not sure if this is the right one, as there as a reasonable housing estate before it gets to us, and I would have thought that there might be one in there- I might go and have a walk around it! I've read that just because we see a cabinet doesn't mean it's the right one. There is also one about the same distance away in the other direction... However, I am led to believe that this is connected to the adjacent exchange, not the one I am on (rather ironically, it is much closer to us than the exchange we are connected to).

Thanks for all of your help & advice Paul- I'm sure it will come in very handy!

Thomas

Ps. I hope you have some good news tomorrow!
« Last Edit: September 08, 2011, 11:13:34 AM by limbo »
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Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #276 on: September 08, 2011, 09:52:41 AM »

Dear Readers.

This morning's results following a forced modem power reset:-
bRAS / IP Profile 20487k, showing a slight improvement on the recent 19410k.



Downloads at 07:25 this morning were approximately 96.7% of IP Profile.

According to the Kitz Max ADSL Speed Calculator, the above is roughly the equivalent of an ADSL2+ connection on a line length of 900m, Attenuation 13dB, Target SNR 6dB.

So, what could possibly be blocking my VDSL2 connection's additional higher frequencies (assuming that is actually the issue) & associated connection/speeds 24 hours per day that wasn't apparently blocking them when FTTC was first installed?

I would assume it isn't noise/interference being introduced along the route of my D-side cable or even in my home as the SNR values from the engineer's JDSU looked O.K. & I can't for the life of me think what other equipment could be running 24 hours per day that could be affecting my D-side, apart from the stuff in the cabinet itself.
Where I live, there are no industrial buildings & the area is not heavily populated with houses.

I am not aware that anyone has physically checked the DSLAM / port / Line Card inside the cabinet itself yet.
Could it simply be that they, and/or the DLM kit are faulty or "stuck" & my connection issues quickly & permanently cured by a lift & shift to a previously unused DSLAM port?
I believe a lift & shift is usually quite a standard procedure in resolving such matters. It was done on my previous ADSL connection via Plusnet a long time ago.

There appears to be some reluctance from Plusnet/BT to try a lift & shift, but I don't understand what the reluctance is, other than the regular reference back to my originally estimated 14.6Mb speed, even though nobody has been able to confirm how that estimate was arrived at.

The closest I ever got to an explanation, from Plusnet, was that it was based on line length & takes into account actual line attenuation & "other factors".
However, the Plusnet guy that told me that also quoted my reported 5283m line length, even though that is the length right back to the exchange.
I don't know how the attenuation & "other factors" on the D-side that is relevant for FTTC purposes would be calculated/estimated prior to FTTC installation.

Can anyone explain these estimated speed calculations for me?

More feedback later today folks, following Plusnet hopefully contacting me to discuss the current position/action plan.

Paul.
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UncleUB

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #277 on: September 08, 2011, 10:10:07 AM »

@ Bald_Eagle1......do you actually find the time to do anything on the internet other than monitor your connection and write your findings on here.......  ;D
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Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #278 on: September 08, 2011, 10:20:58 AM »

@ Bald_Eagle1......do you actually find the time to do anything on the internet other than monitor your connection and write your findings on here.......  ;D

Hahaha.
It would appear not :lol:

I actually work from home a lot & dive in & out of the line issues stuff in between work matters.

Mrs. Eagle's not too chuffed about the amount of time I spend "messing about" with this when I should be finishing the house refurb though.

I wouldn't like Plusnet's Alex and/or now Adam to get on the wrong side of her. She can be quite "dangerous" ;)


Paul.
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limbo

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #279 on: September 08, 2011, 11:33:21 AM »

Hi Paul,

One question, if I may:

How do you log modem disconnections? Presumably if you're on the internet then you would notice, but other than that, how do you know when it's happened (eg if it's been happening throughout the night)?

Thanks,

Thomas
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Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #280 on: September 08, 2011, 12:15:23 PM »

Hi limbo,

I have the BT supplied modem & a Netgear WNR1000 router as supplied by Plusnet for an ethernet connection from the BT modem.

The modem as supplied by BT cannot be monitored as it is locked, but the Netgear router maintains an activity log, showing stuff like this:-

[Time synchronized with NTP server] Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 18:56:38
[Internet connected] IP address: 91.125.94.116, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 18:57:00
[Internet disconnected] Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 18:48:53
[Admin login] from source 192.168.1.100, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 16:55:57
[DHCP IP: (192.168.1.3)] to MAC address 00:01:E6:70:69:6C, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 16:28:28
[DoS attack: ACK Scan] attack packets in last 20 sec from ip [212.159.15.7], Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 16:08:19
[DHCP IP: (192.168.1.4)] to MAC address 00:1C:23:03:F9:4B, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 12:46:44
[Admin login] from source 192.168.1.100, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 12:27:07
[DoS attack: ACK Scan] attack packets in last 20 sec from ip [212.159.15.10], Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 12:19:33
[DoS attack: ACK Scan] attack packets in last 20 sec from ip [212.159.15.10], Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 12:08:01
[Admin login] from source 192.168.1.100, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 11:03:43
[DoS attack: ACK Scan] attack packets in last 20 sec from ip [212.159.15.6], Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 10:49:09
[Time synchronized with NTP server] Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 08:13:10
[Internet connected] IP address: 87.113.179.243, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 08:13:58
[Admin login] from source 192.168.1.100, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 08:12:34
[Internet disconnected] Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 08:07:29
[DHCP IP: (192.168.1.5)] to MAC address 00:24:2B:07:68:E6, Tuesday, Aug 30,2011 06:29:42

You can set the router to email the logs to you if you wish.
I have mine set to email me at 5:00am every day.
If you do choose that option, the router logs are cleared as soon as the email is sent, so you would have to save the emails for record purposes.

You will see from the above log that it can take quite a few minutes for the router to regain an internet connection, even though the BT modem only takes a few seconds (unless it is continually trying to re-sync due to line/connection problems etc.

If you haven't already received it yet, the Netgear router should arrive from Plusnet a day or so in advance of the FTTC installation & give you time to set it up with your own connection details/wireless access & security etc.

Plusnet can also confirm disconnections/reconnections via a chart, but usually only do so if they are trying to monitor your connection's stability etc.

If you choose to use a different router with the BT modem, it should also have its own logging facility.

HTH.

Paul.
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limbo

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #281 on: September 08, 2011, 08:11:18 PM »

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the explanation- that is very useful to know.

You're right about the router taking a long time to reconnect.

Out of sheer curiosity, if the router was unplugged from the modem, would that be considered losing sync from the DSLAM (and hence cause the IP profile to be lowered)?

Cheers,

Thomas
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burakkucat

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #282 on: September 08, 2011, 09:09:35 PM »

I can answer that for you, Thomas.

It is the modem (the OR provided HG612) that synchronises with the DSLAM in the fibre cabinet. So if the link between the modem and the router is broken, it is only your PPPoE session that drops. You would just loose your current authenticated session with your ISP / CP.

Hence "no" is the short answer. ;)
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limbo

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #283 on: September 08, 2011, 11:49:22 PM »

I can answer that for you, Thomas.

It is the modem (the OR provided HG612) that synchronises with the DSLAM in the fibre cabinet. So if the link between the modem and the router is broken, it is only your PPPoE session that drops. You would just loose your current authenticated session with your ISP / CP.

Hence "no" is the short answer. ;)

Thank you for confirming this. I asked because I am going on holiday a week after the FTTC is installed, and we wanted to turn off as much as possible, but we don't want to have an inferior speed because we turned it off.
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Bald_Eagle1

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Re: FTTC - Distance from the Cabinet - Realistic speed estimate
« Reply #284 on: September 09, 2011, 01:01:15 PM »

Dear Readers,

There is a rather interesting thread going on over at thinkbroadband:-
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4040711-more-fttc-line-stats.html?vc=1

Well, interesting to me anyway ;D
I might have to try to get hold of one of them there unlocked modems as a spare, for research & information use only.

I would then be able to post some proper stats & graphs for your interest, delight, & hopefully sound advice as to what is actually wrong with my connection, & how to deal with it.

I am still awaiting Plusnet's feedback as to what happens next.

Paul.
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