Had problems since before Xmas with Broadband connected but random no internet. Anyone help p...

[#1]

Thanks for getting back to me Rob,

@joseph1 wrote:

Your test shows a difference in line length estimate. Is that a good result?

I think it's just because it's an estimated line length, so our diagnostic tools may show a slightly different estimate. 

Just looked for BRAG info and found this:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0037/186688/openreach-broadband-experience.pdf

Page 1  "The lines classified as “Very Bad”and “Bad”have a high likelihood of seeing a speed improvement following an engineering visit, whereas the “Very Good”and “Excellent”lines are unlikely to see a speed improvement following an engineering visit."

Would you agree about this as a basis for another visit? In the meantime, I will try and get in touch with the original guy who did all the work on my line and get his opinion if I can.

Looking again I agree that it may be worth arranging another engineer to investigate further based on BRAG results showing the line quality as bad/amber. I've checked RRT and attached the results below. 

There's a lot of missing gaps as this diagnostic tool's generally used for fibre rather than ADSL.

If at around 0825, time of your test, which is well outside the times of the suspected MW REIN issue and a time which shows less disturbances on RS, the BRAG test shows Bad, could that mean Very Bad in the night? I appreciate you may not know the answer and I don't expect another test at say 0200.

Potentially but it'd be difficult to say

Regarding dropouts, as there have been none I don't know if this current router would reconnect every time automatically. The old 2704N would not and that was the big problem.

The Hub One is generally a much better router than the 2704N, plus it'd be newer.

Following your test today, the UL & DL speed is now increased.  Current speeds are UL 828kBps and DL 7300kBps.  Following this disconnection, is my router likely to try and adjust to a different speed either way?

Difficult to say again, when a connection drops, the router will renegotiate back to the exchange onto the best speed it can, which may be the same or different.

Regarding my changing to fibre, I have not seen any deals of interest cost wise and with the unknown result regarding the noise issue I could have similar issues but be paying a lot more for the privilege. I doubt there is a free trial available. When my adsl is working ok I have no need for fibre speed as it has always done all that I want.

Ah yeah that makes sense. 

I appreciate your time and effort in helping.

My wife did not use TV last night but did the night before and had 2 or 3 buffering issues.

No problem at all, if you don't get any joy with the engineer who's (presumably) given you their contact details, I'd raise a fault ticket at faults.plus.net and let us know here, we'll pick it up and arrange another engineer visit with you. 

I'm going to be out of the office from 12pm today as a heads up and I won't be back until Monday.

(Off to a well known music festival near Derby)

[#2]

Hi Rob ( @joseph1 ),

@Gandalf 's question about "real world problems" is quite fundamental here as an answer to that might point towards the way forward.

There are though some things which do not look entirely right here.

1. The line is not banded, but the sync speed appears to be fixed and the reported SNRM is higher than the line's target SNRM
2. The Celerity reported in the CLT is 10dB better than the attenuation being reported by the router ... which might point to the apparent difference in previous understanding of the line length
3. BRAG status being BAD certainly points to some thing to be examined 

Rob can you please post the speed plot associated with that step change in US SNRM - when there is a break of xDSL, examining just the SNRM plot tells us nothing of much (absolute) help.  At the time of a resync the SNRM is predicated on the new sync speed.  If the sync speed remains more or less the same, then the raised SNRM tells us something about the change in signal strength.  If with a raised SNRM there is a reduction of sync speed then that indicates that the line's profile has been changed (think of it as changing the width x length of a piece of cloth but delivering the same area [square inches]).

Anoush, inadequate diagnostic tools offered by BTOR to diagnose issues with their ADSL infrastructure does not to me seem to be a justification for the user to upgrade to FTTC to access better diagnostic tools.  The BRAG status ought to be enough to get BTOR out of bed to fix issues in their network.  However, we all need to recognise that this could be a long haul.  See here - https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/A-rather-sad-ADSL2-connection/m-p/1171924#M280205 and here - https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/How-to-get-max-speed/m-p/1167865#M278605

These reference a history of problematic lines (and there are others) where in the end what fixed issues has been an engineer working the full length of the circuit re-joining every joint.  Generally such issues are found on the d-side of the circuit - the same bit of copper which delivers FTTC.  The only bit of the equation eliminated by FTTC is the use of the e-side trunk for data transmission purposes.

Are you suggesting that we have reached the end of practical investigation of what is delivering puzzling metrics on this circuit?

[#3]

@Townman wrote:

Anoush, inadequate diagnostic tools offered by BTOR to diagnose issues with their ADSL infrastructure does not to me seem to be a justification for the user to upgrade to FTTC to access better diagnostic tools.  The BRAG status ought to be enough to get BTOR out of bed to fix issues in their network.  However, we all need to recognise that this could be a long haul.  See here - https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/A-rather-sad-ADSL2-connection/m-p/1171924#M280205 and here - https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/How-to-get-max-speed/m-p/1167865#M278605

I agree but it doesn't change the fact it's generally easier to diagnose and fix a fibre issue as less things can go wrong.

These reference a history of problematic lines (and there are others) where in the end what fixed issues has been an engineer working the full length of the circuit re-joining every joint.  Generally such issues are found on the d-side of the circuit - the same bit of copper which delivers FTTC.  The only bit of the equation eliminated by FTTC is the use of the e-side trunk for data transmission purposes.

Are you suggesting that we have reached the end of practical investigation of what is delivering puzzling metrics on this circuit?

I don't think we have reached the end of the investigation, definitely worth arranging another engineer to take a closer look.

[#4]

@joseph1 

Can you please post the current router stats?  I'm particularly interested in what attenuation the router reports.  The previous 41dB suggests a circuit length of 3km which is markedly different to the numbers in the various reports @Gandalf has posted.  Even they vary by 4%.

@Gandalf 

Might we be looking at one of those issues where a line tests out differently from the exchange to what it does from the user's premises?  I had a protracted experience of repeated engineer visits where on multiple occasions the test out from the property reported no error but the eclipse automated test from the exchange reported a fault.  Repeatedly the engineer sought to believe their test kit and not the test head.  Eventually I got a female engineer who diligently checked the whole circuit repaired all the iffy joints and left with clean test results from both ends.  I never had another engineer visit between then and leaving the business some two and a half years later ... having had 20 or so engineer visits over 8 months.

We saw a very similar experience with the deli in Newton-le-Willows ... who in desperation were influenced to upgrade to FTTC to "fix" the problem.  There eventually a bad joint was found under the eves by the diligent lady engineer ... after a previous engineer had the drop wire "come off the pole" in their hand and thought that was the only fault.

[#5]

@Gandalf @Townman 

Back in March, the OR engineer was very thorough, changing my pair from top of pole back into exchange. He said he then checked each cabinet en-route and re-made 2 connections on this new circuit.

Attached are 2 RS logs, Max speed and connection speed.

I spoke to the engineer just now and he said ac balance would have been tested back in March as a routine procedure

Thanks, Rob

[#6]

@Townman  @Gandalf 

Current attenuation page attached, is that what was wanted?

PLus noise margin

Rob

[#7]

@Townman wrote:

@Gandalf 

Might we be looking at one of those issues where a line tests out differently from the exchange to what it does from the user's premises?  I had a protracted experience of repeated engineer visits where on multiple occasions the test out from the property reported no error but the eclipse automated test from the exchange reported a fault.  Repeatedly the engineer sought to believe their test kit and not the test head.  Eventually I got a female engineer who diligently checked the whole circuit repaired all the iffy joints and left with clean test results from both ends.  I never had another engineer visit between then and leaving the business some two and a half years later ... having had 20 or so engineer visits over 8 months.

It's possible, again it's difficult to say though. We've only arranged two engineers here from what I can see, and while that should be enough to get to the bottom of a problem, it's nowhere near 20! haha

We saw a very similar experience with the deli in Newton-le-Willows ... who in desperation were influenced to upgrade to FTTC to "fix" the problem.  There eventually a bad joint was found under the eves by the diligent lady engineer ... after a previous engineer had the drop wire "come off the pole" in their hand and thought that was the only fault.

I was just about to bring that up. It was a long protracted fault on ADSL where our tests weren't showing any issues apart from we could see there was an issue. After upgrading to FTTC we detected several issues and was fixed relatively quickly: https://community.plus.net/t5/Business/Intermittent-Speed-Issues/m-p/1737983/highlight/true#M4428

I'm happy to carry on with the investigation though to try to get Rob's ADSL working as it should be. 

[#8]

@Gandalf 

Grand job!!

One other thought here, in the vein that when all does not look clear, do not ignore something which looks odd.

Here https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/Had-problems-since-before-Xmas-with-Broadband-connected... the CLT reports line attenuations very similar to those reported by Rob's router.

The more recent tests suggest that the line attenuation DS is circa 32dB.

Rob's router reports a clearly unattainable 21mbps UP stream.  Is there any reasonable possibility that the router is suspect?

The US plots across the last xDSL break are confusing, we see the same US sync speed but a marked difference in SNRM.  Did whatever change was made change the error correction profile, such that the same sync speed is delivered but with a "better" SNRM?  Such would infer that the US is banded ... but you say there is no banding here. 🤔

[#9]

We've sent out two routers of different models, so the possibility of both being faulty is unlikely.

I could try putting through a full SNR reset, but that may cause further issues. 

I think there's something else at play here, which'll need another engineer to investigate further.

I'm about to log off now for the weekend, I'll be happy to pick this back up on Monday. 

[#10]

OK @Gandalf

Enjoy your music festival.

Thanks, Rob

[#11]

@Townman 

@Gandalf  "I think there's something else at play here, which'll need another engineer to investigate further."

OK.  What will he be asked to investigate please?Will you be asking OR specifically what  needs doing?

Looking at recent comments from you both on previous customer faults you experienced, it looks like maybe different testing methods could be beneficial?

Thanks, Rob

[#12]

Hi Rob,

@joseph1 wrote:

@Gandalf  "I think there's something else at play here, which'll need another engineer to investigate further."

OK.  What will he be asked to investigate please?Will you be asking OR specifically what  needs doing?

We can't tell an engineer what to do, we can just recommend or suggest things. 

We'd normally say something along the lines of check the D-Side, E-Side, look at doing a Lift and Shift, check for REIN etc. If we arrange multiple engineering visits within a short space of time, we can raise an escalation with Openreach to ask that the patch manager is emailed and a senior multi-skilled engineer to allocated if possible.

@joseph1 wrote:

Looking at recent comments from you both on previous customer faults you experienced, it looks like maybe different testing methods could be beneficial?

I'm afraid that there aren't other testing methods we can do for ADSL that I haven't already done or would be of benefit. 

[#13]

@Gandalf @Townman 

OK. Even I didn't like being told what to do when dealing with faults!  Far better to receive a detailed description of the symptoms and then ask further questions if needed.

Lift and shift was done last time, together with swapping me to a different pair fom U/G chamber in the street back to exchange.

Pity I can't remember exactly what the engineer said about noise he observed, this was during daytime as well.

Any idea what might cause the anomaly regarding my router reported line loss (was showing same on old router as well) and the expected line loss.

Also my 21Mb upload max speed and the increase in UL noise margin immediately after your test 0819 on 18 June?

Then there is the BAD result charted as well.

Just need an engineer who is interested in all looking into these symptoms and not a NFF after a quick test type.

Thanks, Rob

[#14]

No problem and makes sense. I'm afraid it's difficult to say what's causing those anomalies. We can't raise an escalation to ask a senior or multiskilled engineer's assigned the job due to the length of time it's been since the previous engineer visits, but one may very well pick the task up, even if we arrange another visit without an escalation. 

[#15]

@Gandalf 

OK, thanks for that.

Just a reminder if you would, do they contact me with day/am/pm option or do you contact them and advise me?

Thanks, Rob