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Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solved!

Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

News just in. The tie pair modification order has been placed and it should complete by Tuesday.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

@Dibblah,


@Gandalf wrote:

If things don't get resolved at this level, we can then escalate it to team manager level. Whilst we need to provide each level a chance to fix the problem, at this point I'm more than happy to escalate it at the first opportunity we have.


The issue is that BTOR has layers of obfuscation which tend not to not help get things done quickly, because ISPs are obliged to follow the rules.  Whatever, there are no penalties against BTOR for not delivering the service which ISPs and their end users are paying for ... beyond brand or reputational damage arising from decrying their performance ... but given there is no alternative, that too has limited impact.

I would somewhat expect that this 50 pair cable has been know to be defective for sometime and it has finally reached a point where BTOR cannot keep papering over the cracks ... but as ever they will do things as slowly as they can get away with, rather than being proactive.

The great thing about rules binding ISPs is that YOU do not need to follow them.  A swift email to the CEOs of BT Group and BTOR reporting that BTOR are dragging their feet here, will (quite perversely) open escalation routes not presently available to Plusnet - because they have not yet gone through all of the layers of escalation and had their "failed to deliver" time allowances expire.  If there are a lot of people impacted by this cable, try getting the local media involved, especially if there are vulnerable people affected.

If there are 3 escalation levels before DSO and each is allowed a "5 working days chance to fix" you could be 3+ weeks before you get to DSO escalation level.  One email to the CEOs should quickly get this sorted without the usual BTOR procrastination seen all too often.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

If there are 3 escalation levels before DSO and each is allowed a "5 working days chance to fix" you could be 3+ weeks before you get to DSO escalation level

There isn't a set lead time for each escalation level, but we do need to allow the team leader level a chance to fix the problem before we can go to the next level - team manager.

For us to potentially raise a high level escalation (Which needs to meet certain criteria) one of the criteria is that we've provided each level an opportunity to fix the problem. Even then it's not guaranteed HLE will take the case.

I'll provide an update on the fault/TPM early next week if not sooner.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Townman
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Hi @Gandalf,

Yes I know there are layers of escalation and each one has to be allowed time to fail before an ISP can push to the next level ... so that the job finally gets done ... by the same team which ought to have done it on time in the first place.

Multiple layers of escalation very much implies an approach of managing failure rather than ensuring delivery of success. In a well run organisation this 50 pair cable would have been replaced long before becoming next to useless.

You guys being left to defend BTOR failures is a disgrace. They are not exactly helping you deliver excellence to your customers.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Dibblah
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Thanks again for the updates and community spirit - all appreciated!

 

I'm not asking for a BT engineer to take responsibility - I know that's above their pay grade. But after the in-house connection was ruled out, this is purely a supplier matter. I am asking for OR to not be requiring us to be present at the property for a known line issue.

 

There appear to now be additional issues caused by (I guess) the repeated disconnections. PPP is now not successfully negotiating (LCP timeout - the initial negotiation phase isn't even starting), even though the line is (in terms of DSL) already up and passing traffic.

 

Is there anti-hammer protection on the RADIUS service or something else interfering with us even getting a connection now?

 

BTW, the service appears to have degraded when it rained and not improved since then.

 

Cheers,

Allan.

Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Hi Allan.

Unfortunately if line tests don't find a potentially external fault the only option both our suppliers and we have is to arrange an engineer visit though I appreciate the frustration. There are times I wish we could send an engineer out without a visit.

 

Our tests are showing your circuit not in sync so there's no DSL connection.

If your router is showing it's in sync then there's likely a cross jumpering problem somewhere along the line.

What's your availability like next week for a visit? Currently we have any week days from Tuesday.

 

Cheers,

Anoush

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Dibblah
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Wow. So, they've managed to "lose" our pair... Again. That's the 3rd time - slippery little [-Censored-]s, apparently.

Thanks for the reply, have replied to the ticket with availability.

Status: UP
Line State: showtime_tc_sync [0x801]
Line Mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Annex: A
Profile:
Data Rate: 917 Kb/s / 446 Kb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR): 1.008 Mb/s / 499 Kb/s
Latency: 8.0 ms / 6.75 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN): 66.8 dB / 40.9 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN): 59.3 dB / 40.7 dB
Noise Margin (SNR): 9.9 dB / 9.6 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power(ACTATP): 15.8 dB / 12.2 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 24861 / 0
Errored seconds (ES): 11019 / 14583
Severely Errored Seconds (SES): 1070 / 450
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS): 49 / 96
Unavailable Seconds (UAS): 1360 / 1360
Header Error Code Errors (HEC): 362940 / 55464
Non Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRC_P): 0 / 0
Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRCP_P): 0 / 0
Line Uptime: 3m 18s
ATU-C System Vendor ID: Broadcom 163.167
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized

Townman
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Cross connected line!!

Well that would cause no end of issues - the line being tested will not be the line you’re connected to. Just to rule that out, please do a quiet line test - dial 17070 and confirm that the number reported is yours!

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Appointment is booked for 15/05/2018 between 8am and 1pm.

I've let our suppliers know, so they can escalate this appropriately.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Our suppliers have escalated this with BTW today ahead of the appointment tomorrow morning.

They've also mentioned that the fault is being monitored by the Openreach Multiple Repeats Case Management Team.

Fingers crossed the visit tomorrow goes well.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

monitored by the Openreach Multiple Repeats Case Management Team

That sounds like good news ... indeed something not really heard of before ... though a sensible strategy. Thumbs_Up

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Dibblah
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

"being monitored by the Openreach Multiple Repeats Case Management Team."

What this meant last time was they sent an an engineer from outside of the local area.

Who had no access to the fault history, because every man is an island or something.

 

This was the engineer that physically lost our pair the second time.

 

So, sounds good, implementation details could do with some work. Sad

 

I still live in hope - thanks for your help!

Dibblah
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

So, another engineer visit, who was actually quite explicit that he was seeing odd things.

The 50 pair near the exchange has already been replaced.

When I said that we were told "most of the cable has been replaced" he expressed surprise, since you can't physically do that on this property (we're quite hilly) and a few of the poles are no-climb.

He is working on the part of the cable nearest the exchange (relatively - near is not unfortunately what we are!). Testing about 300m off the split out of our line shows odd things - adding "simulated" line (still packed reels) to the end of the line and testing at the end of that _decreases_ the insertion loss (line loss). I'm wondering if it's the inductance of the reel that's throwing things off.

Anyway, after he reconnected the line (I assume after replacing some lengths) it negotiated up to 1.8Mbits/s, with a line loss of 67dB. However,... the negotiated speed has now dropped back down to sub-1Mbit/s.

He is apparently "on this until it's fixed", whatever that means in BT terms. This engineer is local and knows the nearby topology, so hopefully he stays on it.

 

Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

Sounds like something may be happening to get this fixed.

Looking through the fault report with BTwholesale, I can see it's still in hand with Openreach. As we've not been given any notes, our suppliers have been trying to chase this up with the engineer, but couldn't get through via phone.

However, the notes from the exchange between BTW and Openreach do indicate that the engineer may have retained the task to follow up. Our suppliers will chase this up tomorrow and I'll update you when we know more.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
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Re: Most engineers ever involved? DSL speed issues progressed to line disconnection - Still not solv

From what our suppliers have gathered, the engineer has retained the job which means that we don't have an update at the moment but they'll chase tomorrow.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet