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Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

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archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

We have been suffering from poor connection reliability for a large part of the summer.
Late July / early August the connection was changed to Fastpath, both download and upload speeds increased (with latencies 0.25ms/0.25ms). Since then the connection has been very unreliable and at times has been down more than up.
We are perhaps 200metre from the exchange, with a line length of less than 500m, so I do not understand why we have such a poor service.
We have made numerous calls to the helpdesk over this period.
Last Sunday the helpdesk turned interleaving back on and booked a second Openreach visit.
Openreach have been out twice within two months, last week the master socket was replaced and a possible slight fault was reported on a joint in the external ducting.
This morning after 30-40 minutes of failing to maintain a connection, the helpdesk said they changed a setting, but didn't explain what was changed. Since then the connection has dropped at least five times.
Attached is a screen dump from the modem/router.
The up speed seems to have been fixed at 888kb/s but the down speed left automatic.
What can be done to get a reliable connection?

 

 

88 REPLIES 88
Thrall
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 568
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Registered: ‎28-09-2020

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

It’s likely your upload speed is fixed at 888kbps as a side effect of having interleaving enabled to try to artificially stabilise your line. 

Try asking Plusnet for a visual radius graph of your connection (it’s a pretty picture showing when your line drops out)

Armed with that and when you have an engineer visit next, show that to the engineer as it may assist with their investigation

Good luck!

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

So close to the exchange, yet so poor performance should ring alarm bells over the state of the phone line.

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.


 

How is your line performing?

Please post your router stats; for PN TG582n and 2704n routers use the buttons below, for other routers look at the Kitz link.

Also run a BT Wholesale speed test (ideally using an Ethernet wired PC with the WiFi turned off) then run the further diagnostics and post the results here. DO NOT REBOOT the router!

NB: Please use an Edge browser or IE as there have been many reports that others fail to function correctly when accessing the BTw speed test.


 

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.

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

There is slight crackling on the line (using a brand new corded phone). Followed the link to the Plusnet "phone faults", I am not sure that a report was raised as I lost the link when it did a line test.

Attached are the results from the BTW speedtests.

Currently, I have a BT HH5 running Openwrt connected.

The connection dropped three times overnight.

The stats on my modem/router, which has been up for 2 days,10 hours,are below:

Modem/router overview:

DSL Status
Line State:                                                   UP [0x0]
Line Mode:                                                   G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Line Uptime:                                                 2h 28m 10s
Annex:                                                          A
Profile: -
Data Rate:                                                   15.002 Mb/s / 763 Kb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR):        21.972 Mb/s / 888 Kb/s
Latency:                                                        8.0 ms / 8.0 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN):                              13.9 dB / 7.5 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN):                           11.9 dB / 7.7 dB
Noise Margin (SNR):                                     18.5 dB / 9.9 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP):         18.4 dB / 12.6 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 0 / 0
Errored seconds (ES):                                  4228 / 2282
Severely Errored Seconds (SES):                534 / 124
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS):                  38 / 2
Unavailable Seconds (UAS):                        1090 / 1090
Header Error Code Errors (HEC):                1823785 / 67307
Non Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRC_P):      0 / 0
Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRCP_P):           0 / 0
ATU-C System Vendor ID: Infineon             113.200
Power Management Mode:                          L0 - Synchronized

Regards.

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

Those stats do not look good. High error rates and high SNRM rather looks like the speed has been banded due to frequent disconnections.

You need to get the cracking on the line fixed. Check your ticket history to see if a fault report was raised. You can raise a fault report over any connection means, for example over 3/4G. Sometimes a fault ticket is raised successfully even though failure was reported. See the Ticket link below.

It is also worth running the BB fault reporter for slow speed as well.

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.

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

@Townman 

Thanks for the links.

The phone faults did not go through last night.

This evening the phone line is almost silent so I could not really raise a ticket on that.

I have gone through the Broadband Faults reporter to report the low speeds, and a ticket has been raised. It is frustrating being so close to the exchange but suffering like this, as we have with Plusnet since moving from dial-up.

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

For a few minutes mid-morning the connection had been very unreliable, and caused the modem/router to reboot.
The 'quiet line' test was very crackly, and is still crackly now at tea time.
The HEC Errors are high:
Below is the modem/router summary stats just before to the reboot:

DSL Status
Line State: UP [0x0]
Line Mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Line Uptime: 1s
Annex: A
Profile: -
Data Rate: 22.247 Mb/s / 888 Kb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR): 22.244 Mb/s / 888 Kb/s
Latency: 5.50 ms / 8.0 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN): 14.2 dB / 6.4 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN): 12.7 dB / 6.6 dB
Noise Margin (SNR): 6.2 dB / 6.0 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power (ACTATP): 19.9 dB / 12.5 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 0 / 0
Errored seconds (ES): 4588 / 2336
Severely Errored Seconds (SES): 792 / 126
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS): 43 / 3
Unavailable Seconds (UAS): 1570 / 1567
Header Error Code Errors (HEC): 2286352 / 68540
Non Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRC_P): 0 / 0
Pre-emptive CRC errors (CRCP_P): 0 / 0
ATU-C System Vendor ID:
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized

Regards

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

You need to get the intermittent POTS crackling fixed. That is going to cause intermittent disconnections which will cause the DLM to adjust the speed downwards to improve stability.

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.

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

Issue: broadband connection problems over the summer Misrepresented on call to helpline 2/10/20

Having made multiple calls over the summer about persistent broadband connection issues & had two technician visits , the problem was unresolved. On 2/10/20 we spoke to someone on the helpline for 53 minutes explaining the problem, going through the tests again & were assured that we would be contacted by the faults team on 3/10/20.
He recommended repeatedly that the brand new mk4 filter be removed from the new Master Socket 5c fitted the previous week and that we fit an older random filter to the test socket, despite there being nothing else connected to the line.
We were offered a new modem/router and asked for a "Plusnet Hub One" (rather than the "Plusnet 2704n") but when we checked the broadband account online we saw that the '2704n was listed for dispatch. We want to cancel this & have money for postage returned as this is not what was agreed.

We have not heard from the Faults Team. How do we escalate this problem.

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
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Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

@Gandalf @BD

How does one get a review of what’s happened and a focus on the apparent intermittent POTS issue please?

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.

BD
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,359
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Registered: ‎24-04-2017

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

Hi @archerry, thanks for getting in touch and I'm sincerely sorry to hear you're having ongoing phone and broadband issues as of recent.
Firstly, I've looked into the call you had on Friday regarding the new router and although can't confirm my actions on here I've raised a ticket on your account with the steps I've taken here.


Upon looking into and testing your connection to decide the best course of action from here I've spotted something that's caught my eye given previous faults I've handled that have been similar.

  Upstream DSL Link Information Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss: 6.5 13.8
SNR Margin: 9.0 18.5
Errored Seconds: 33 0
HEC Errors: 953  
Cell Count: 2111785 57407109
Speed: 888 12638
 
Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS): 18176 Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS): 14541
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds): 8516 Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds): 560
Indicative Line Quality: R Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds): 141


Looking at your connection we can see the errors which are occurring solely look to be upload related. Granted the SNR for the download looks to have adjust to be abnormally high currently but we'd still expect to see some errors given how much the upload looks to be impacted.
On previous faults like this with solely the upload errors and HEC errors looking so high I've found the problem to be caused by the router so I think replacing and trying a new router sounds like a great course of action moving forwards first of all.
If you could please let us know how the connection is looking once the new router is plugged in.
(Although they may revert straight back I've adjusted your download SNR back to 6dB)

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

Thank you for your help with the modem/router supply.

 

Our connection went down at 10:20, took two attempts to re-connect, then dropped again ~13minutes later.
After the second drop the line was crackling (checked using 17070 #2).

I found a mention of tuning to 612kHz on an AM radio to listen for interference, but I am not sure what I am checking.

Should I hear a lot of noise next the telephone line itself?

 

Regards,

Alistair

Townman
Superuser
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Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

That’s an approach to looking for REIN which is somewhat different. If REIN were present you may find hums or buzzing in the frequency range, not near the phone line but anywhere.

AM radios are very direction, you might find rotating the radio increases / decreases the level of the sound. You can use that to point towards the source.

What you have described sounds more like problematic joints. For the moment you will have to go with the router replacement approach. Some routers are better at holding onto a bad signal ... they certainly will not address crackles on the phone line.

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.

archerry
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 101
Thanks: 37
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎15-06-2013

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

@Townman 

Thanks, I agree that we should check out one part at a time and I will set up the new modem/router as soon as I can.

@BD 

I assume that I should let you know on this thread once the new modem/router is installed, or if the '2704n arrives?

Regards,

Alistair

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
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Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Unreliable ADSL2+ Connection

Hi Alistair,

Sounds like a plan, let us know how it goes

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