Connection Problems

[#1]

A few more graphs from overnight and this morning.
Four here from yesterday afternoon/last night.

[#2]

Four from early this morning to noon today.

[#3]

I can't see any obvious pattern to the REIN other than it being largely absent during the early hours of the morning.

[#4]

@Kevin - We're currently waiting for Bookworms' availability for an engineer visit according to Ticket: 91633991

[#5]

Hi, a brief update on this, using graphs from routerstats.
The last obvious sustained episode of REIN appears to have been on October 1st  - it lasted most of the day and ended around 6:15pm.
There was another relatively brief burst (approx 45 mins) on  the morning of Oct 2 at about 9am.
Since then the Rx graph has been relatively even and I've not heard any 'hum' on the radio.
The last graph is the latest and shows a typical reading from the last couple days.
Given this, I'm not sure if it's worth booking another engineer appointement at the moment.
With only one brief burst of obvious REIN now for the last three days, chances are there'll be nothing for an engineer to monitor.
Fingers crossed, whatever was causing the interference has been fixed, but I will continue to monitor for a few more days.

[#6]

Ah well, spoke too soon.
Thinking maybe the REIN had stopped, I rebooted the router last night.
It synched at a steady 7.8Mb.
This afternoon there was another brief burst of REIN that only lasted five minutes but I noticed it at once - the web page I'd just opened suddenly crawled to a halt.
I've reconnected the router [ synch @ 4.6 Mb] and fired up routerstats again.
If the REIN continues to be this erratic, I'm not sure how it will ever be traced.
[it came back just as I was about to post  ]

[#7]

Having read some other accounts (here and elsewhere) of REIN issues, it seems they can drag on for ages without BTO resolving them.
At the moment it's back again, bad as ever, coinciding precisely with the hum on AM radio.
What is the chance of a BTO engineer being able to trace the source?
The engineer who fitted the new faceplate didn't seem all that interested.
I did another quick 'radio' test, wandering a few hundred yards in different directions and could hear this load hum on the radio over a wide area.
It seems stronger near wher phone lines and cable TV runs under the pavement but it's quite strong everywhere in the area and I suppose it could also be coming from power cables.
I first thought the cause might be some new street lights that have recently been installed in the area, but if it is, it isn't the actual lights themselves as there's no correlation between lights coming on/off and the 'hum'.

[#8]

Your options for locating the source may be limited to asking neighbours what was switched on and off around the times the interference starts and stops. It could be that the interference wasn't around much for the last few days because someone was away, and now they're back. Even if an Openreach engineer locates the source, I don't think they can compel whoever the owner of the source is to replace some piece of electrical or electronic equipment.
There might be some workarounds you could use to lessen the impact of the interference without losing so much bandwidth:
1. Set the router to ADSL2 (not ADSL2+), or
2. Use the "xdsl maxspeed" command to limit the speed to e.g. 6000k or 5500k
The idea is to limit the speed, but not as far as what you end up with by re-connecting when the interference is worst.
Alternatively you could try a 582n or some other different modem/router and find out if it can cope with the interference any better (the 582n is based on a Broadcom chipset unlike the Infineon Amazon-SE chipset of your 585v8).

[#9]

I've spoken to immediate neighbours but as far as I can tell, it could be coming from any one of several dozen properties.
I have a hunch that it may not be a domestic source at all, such is the strength of the interference.
I have a couple of spare routers around somewhere.
One is a
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prestige-660HN-F1Z-300mbps-802-11N-Wireless/dp/B001OAX9XU
I'm not sure if that would work well with Plusnet or if it would be an improvement on my TG585.
(How do you change to ADSL2 on the TG585 ?)

[#10]

The simple version of the telnet command is:
xdsl config adslmultimode=adsl2
The default is:
xdsl config adslmultimode=adsl2plus
each followed by "saveall".
Otherwise there's a more complex version: http://npr.me.uk/telnet.html#modulation
I'm not entirely certain, since I couldn't find much information on the Internet about it, nor even the firmware on Zyxel's own website, but I think the Zyxel P-660HN-F1Z is based on the same chipset as the 585v8 so it's performance should be pretty similar.

[#11]

Cheers.
Info on the Zyxel appears to be scant, though there are quite a few Amazon reviews for 585 v7...they are mixed at best!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thomson-ST585-v7-Wireless-Ethernet/dp/B001BPHEU2

[#12]

A quick update.
There doesn't appear to have been any notable episodes of REIN for about 4/5 days now so I decided to end the PPP session last night and turned the router off/on.
The attached images show the before and after graphs from routerstats.
The reported DSL connection is now about 7Mb  but I'm still only getting 3.7 actual download speed.
-------------------------
BTW Test
1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Download  Speed
3.67 Mbps

7.15 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed
Download speedachieved during the test was - 3.67 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 2 Mbps-7.15 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 6.94 Mbps
2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.
Upload Speed
0.77 Mbps

0 Mbps 0.83 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.77Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps
--------------------------
Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 20:29:31
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,104 / 8,208
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,112 / 7,864
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 46.27 / 350.92
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 20.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 22.5 / 40.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 5.5 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 8 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 71 / 1,060
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 42 / 2,276
-----------------------
*just to add: I haven't changed the router.
Assuming (hoping) the REIN has stopped (I will have a better idea of that by this time tomorrow) do these line stats look  healthy enough to sustain a 7Mb
connection?

[#13]

Hi Bookworm,
Thanks for the update - when did you restart the router?
The SNRM is a little elevated and the synch is a bit below where it ought to be for your line.  I suspect that you resynched during the evening in the presence of "normal" night time interference, thereby depressing your synch speed.  During the day you consequently see an elevated SNRM.
If your line can remain stable with the SNRM down at 4.5dB then resynching during day light hours will give you a bit better synch rate and hopefully a bit more usable DATA speed.
If you do a resynch, can you please post a complete set of stats / BTW speed test / PN Portal settings - note that the latter might take an hour or two to update after a change in synch speed.  Until that figure does update, your BTW speed test is not going to be optimal.
Kevin

[#14]

Quote from: Townman

when did you restart the router?

Around 8pm last night.
I'll post more stats later.
Interestingly, I'm still picking up a loud hum on AM radio at times, but it's now confined to a narrow frequency, somewhere around 1300Khz, and doesn't appear to be affecting the line anywhere near as badly as before.
Previously it was very wide and could be picked up across almost the entire MW band.
I'm not sure it's the same source but assuming it is, I'm hoping that something's changed for the better.

[#15]

Bookworms,
It is not unusual for there to be several sources of REIN.  If there is now a more constrained frequency range, then fewer "TONE BUCKETS" will be affected by the REIN, therefore there are more useable bits available for data transmission.
If you are running full RouterStats. then the tone "profile" can be seen on the BITLOADING tab.  1300khz is around tone 302 which is way above what your line will be using, therefore has no material impact on your service.
Kevin