Reoccurring fault - gets fixed, then returns.

[#1]

Hi,

I think this is the 4th or 5th time (maybe more) times this has happened now; what happens is my ping starts to go crazy, and then I get regular drop outs throughout the day and when it is connected, the speeds are much more reduced. I am quite lucky to live near the exchange, so I get 20 down and 1 up when it's working fine.

Whenever I open a new ticket or speak to support I first tell them that this problem reoccurs probably every couple of months and to check my past tickets to see how it was fixed in the past. The latter seems to get ignored as I get asked the same old things like, is it a wired connection, have you tested a different router, are you connected to the master socket etc, which is understandable, but not the issue.

The problems seems to reside with the SNR being manually set so that my connection is stable, and then over time it seems to set itself back (I seem to remember being warned that this may happen). There might be other issues that are causing it that I don't understand. To add, one of the BT engineers who visited my property in the past (he was really great, spent a lot of time doing tests and make phonecalls) and he said that if the problem happens again, that he recommends a "lift and shift". I have tried to press for this to happen, but the issue gets (temporarily) fixed, and then I'm advised that a lift and shift will not be needed as my connection is stable.

I currently have another support ticket in process (just at the stage where I am asked to connect to the test socket... again) and trying to get my issue across, but I was hoping that by posting here it may be seen by someone else or maybe I could get some advice from someone else who has had similar issues? I really don't want to go through the hassle of trying a new provider and I hope to sort the issues out with Plusnet.

Please let me know if you need anymore details.

Thanks.

[#2]

Lift & shift involves putting you on a new pair of lines from pole/ cabinet. It's dependent on if there are any spare.

[#3]

Cheers for your time on the phone shimynor, we'll see if the engineer co-op we've arranged for Monday helps to push thing forward. As explained we can't outright request or guarantee a lift and shift but we'll do what we can to put a good case across for one.

Gel, that's a D-side change not a lift and shift. A lift and shift means changing the line to a new port on the same line card at the exchange. A TPM (tie pair modify) moves the line to a totally different line card.

[#4]

Thanks for your (swift) help, hopefully this can be sorted once and for all.

[#5]

Hi there,

I am just following up on this for you. I've checked your line since the engineer visit, and I can see your router is in sync at 19.4 Mb/s and the engineer has performed the lift & shift as requested.

Let us know if you have any further issues.

[#6]

Thanks for this. Hopefully the connection will be fine now. If not then I'll be asking here again!

[#7]

So glad to see this and I'm REALLY (possibly a little too much to be normal) pleased to see that that the L&S went a head and led to some improvement

[#8]

It takes a lot of clout to get a lift and shift sanctioned with BTw.  I've sat next to senior BT engineers saying a L&S is required talking direct to BTw ... who have refused to sanction it.

[#9]

Well I've probably had £500+ worth of engineer so it's probably in everyone's best interest haha.

I do understand that it's an achievement that this went through though, but to be honest I am not holding my breath yet or pressing the "this fixed my problem" button yet 😛

I've had some useless support from PN ("there's nothing we can do about ping and speeds", "we have no contact with BT"), but also had some great support as well such as this. So thanks to those behind the scenes who have sorted this out for me. I was very impressed to receive a phone call an hour after my initial post here and be assured that you were going to personally make sure my issues were going to be sorted.

[#10]

Hi again,

So right now I am experiencing bad pings again. It's bouncing around the range of 15ms - 800ms. Any ideas?

A colleague of yours had just lowered the SNR to see if that's an issue.

[#11]

Oh dear - lowered the SNRM (target) from what to what?

ASSUMING that the SNRM was reset to a 6dB target after the L&S, the fact that it is elevated again rather suggests there is still an issue with the line ... or electrical noise in the locality.

...need some recent line history data from @CRT please!

[#12]

It was 9dB and now it's 6dB. Still getting issues though, will try another reset tonight.

[#13]

Your line does seem to have dropped a couple of times this evening,

Testing the line is showing that it's at a good speed and no errors showing.

Just to rule it out, are you uploading anything? Can you try pausing anything using the upload on the connection and see if that helps the pings.

[#14]

Speeds are fine yes, but the latency is not. Infact I think the change in SNR has ruined it even more. And no, no uploading on the network.

[#15]

"will try another reset tonight"

Repeatedly resetting the router is not desirable - especially at night time. If you must reset it, do it during daylight hours and leave it alone.

Depending upon local night time interference, resetting at night will deliver some lift in SNRM during the day ... which could confuse understanding of what is happening. You need to attain stability. Reset it if you must late Saturday morning then leave it alone and monitor the SNRM. Consider using router stats - see links below.