A quick question

[#1]

Just a quick question for anyone; I raised a ticket Thursday because we are getting drop outs on incoming calls with our ADSL 2+ line.
The last message I had was the line was being tested and nothing since, I think the ticket expires after 48 hours so should I add something to keep the ticket open or just leave things to take it’s course?
Regards P.

[#2]

I think it is 14 days but in any case if it isn't waiting for a response from you I don't think it auto closes

[#3]

It won't auto close if the ticket is with our Support Team. They'll respond further to you ASAP. It can take up to 72 hours to get a response from the Faults Team.

[#4]

Thanks guys I'll leave things as they are and await a responce.

[#5]

@Pendragon
I've flagged your ticket up to our faults team so you should have a response soon.

[#6]

Good Morning Adam,
Although after reading this it might not be your best start to a Monday morning, so I shall explain this slowly and as carefully as I can to save any ambiguity unlike your ‘Raise a Ticket’ site which is ‘wanting’ to say the least.
I have had the reply this morning as you intimated above and the suggestion from the support message is that ‘interleaving’ is turned on to stabilise the line.
Wrong answer, we are on a long rural line and interleaving IS ALWAYS ON, also because of the way our line works we have our downstream SNRM set at 3 db this usually gives us a pretty stable line with a downstream speed of around 5.8 to 6.1 Meg.
BTW my DSL Stats reports interleaving is on at (32) and has for the last few months.
This problem started a few weeks ago when some Openreach contractors started work next to the elderly green (rusty) cabinet that supplies our connection, it may be coincidence but as they also severed the main power supply connection to our part of the estate it seemed the best culprit.
The problem only happens on incoming calls (your site does not ask this question) not outgoing and we have not been able to test either via a test socket or with a new splitter because Openreach fitted their own faceplate splitter because of the instability of our connection (again questions your site does not ask).
Also note the downstream SNR remains stable within a small tolerance but our upstream SNR varies widely from as low as 4.5 db to above 14 db, I have attached a sample for you to look at with this message. The first jump is the ring tone of an incoming call and the last jump is the call ending.
Your line test probably reported no fault found (normal for this line) and a quiet line test sometimes give the odd crackle but nothing to get worried about, but there is a problem and finding it may need an engineer visit. We have a number of connections all underground between the box and our house yet it is only 150 Mtrs from one to the other and like the box all our cables are elderly (now nearly 40 years old).
Sorry if this may come over as a bit smug but I have been a customer of yours for some years now and have had problems with my line in the past so many times we can almost predict (I did say almost), the outcome from the line stats.
So I’ll pass this back to the support group via yourself and see what is the outcome.
Regards, P.

[#7]

Sorry for any confusion the ticket that mentions interleaving seems to be there because of the changes to stability settings rather than interleaving permissions.
Glad to see we've subsequently reset the line too.
Can you let me know if this has led to any improvement yet?

[#8]

This reply also CC’d to Adam on the customer forums.
OK, done as requested and switched off router for 10 seconds to restart.
From DSL stats it looks like interleaving is still ON, downstream SNR has been doubled to 6 db (the 3 db settings was suggested by the Openreach engineer when he installed the splitter faceplate) and upstream SNR is for the time being 11.5 db and fluctuating as before.
Downstream speed is now 5294 kbps slightly lower than normal and it also looks like the upstream speed has been capped because it is reported as 888 kbps.
I’ll wait for the next incoming call to see how the system reacts and see how it settles down after the re-train 10 days are up. I must say I am disappointed that 6 dropouts in 72 hours are not classed as a problem (reply to my ticket) as we do not receive many incoming calls to trigger the fault.
The downstream speed was never a problem, it was the total loss of connection caused by incoming calls that warranted the raising of the ticket, anyway we will see how it responds for the next 10 days.
Regards, P.

[#9]

OK,
I'll keep an eye out for further replies from you.

[#10]

Hi Adam I hope as you suggested you are watching out for updates?
Last Saturday the 19th I did a reply to the question in the ticket (88343948) reporting a single drop out that occurred early in the morning. I noted then with the attached snapshot the UPSTREAM SNR was actually lower then the downstream SNR.
This afternoon the upstream SNR became unstable and finally dropped so low the router had no option but to reset the line and retrain (twice I think), this has caused a further small downstream drop in speed. It has also caused some wild fluctuations in the upstream speed from 888 (I thought this had been capped but looks like I was wrong), to way above 1112 now back down to 914 as of this last retrain.
It seems the line is still somewhat unstable and may require further investigation. However all is not lost, a gleam of light may be on the horizon, a brand new green small cabinet is now waiting next to our 40 year old rusty cabinet and looks like this is the long awaited replacement \o/.
Note this is not a new FTTC cabinet they are already in place and awaiting their insides and the fibre connection.
So for now investigate if you wish but if Openreach are doing what we think they are it might not be long (3 to 6 Months we hope) before things may get a lot better. Anyway I’ll pass it back to you to do as you wish, we would love to get back to 5.9 to 6.1 downstream but with all the work going on don’t hold out much hope for now.
Regards, P.

[#11]

Hi Pendragon and thanks for the heads up.
I'm unable to take this on personally today but I'll do my very best to make sure the faults team pick this up in a satisfactory manner.

[#12]

Thank you Sir.