Supporting Customers on Long Lines
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Supporting Customers on Long Lines
16-05-2008 5:23 PM
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I was toying with the idea of getting the free router with my PN account but I've been hearing some frankly astonishing reports regarding the Billion Bipac routers, on long lines.
I know it's anecdotal, but someone in my village got one, and they're telling me they're synching at 2mb. Despite being over 5.5km from the exchange.
I googled, and turned up some discussions which seem to bear this out:
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1875.0
The combination of this and an Interstitial Plate would probably do a lot more for me, than having a standard off-the-shelf router, until / if BT allow sub-loop unbundling.
Got me thinking; is there any specific entity within PlusNet which deals specifically with long line customers, customers in TPON areas and the like?
Because in fairness the long line customer experience of ADSL is rather different to the people who, for arguments' sake, moan about their 7200k connection dropping to 6968k when the street lights come on...
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
16-05-2008 5:30 PM
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Now you can do that in various ways with other routers - DMT tool or modified firmware for example.
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
16-05-2008 6:07 PM
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Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
17-05-2008 12:52 PM
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Rate (Kbps): 640 down, 448 up
SNR Margin (dB): 6.1 down, 5.0 up
Attenuation (dB): 63.5 down, 31.5 up
I really do need the best possible modem/router I can get for long line support, and one which will sit in nicely with my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54.
The RTA1310 drops out at least twice a day - but when I got it, it totally wiped the floor with the 3com ADSL router I had at the time in handling the long line.
If it's still performing as well as it did when I got it, and the disconnects are due to the line, then I cannot possibly countenance getting a router that isn't at least as good (if not substantially better) as it was when I first got it.
Like I said, someone in the same village as me is getting WAY better stats than mine, with a Billion router; while I can't assume the only variable is the router the fact is that they're getting over 1mb, stable, with a line that can't possibly be more than 150m nearer to the exchange (which is over 5km away) and our lines are connected to the same cabinet.
I have a filtered faceplate, they don't. The BT engineer who checked the line when we moved in, sorted out our bell wire; to my knowledge they haven't done that.
I've ripped out unnecessary extensions, they haven't.
About the only thing I can't resolve, which works to their advantage, is I have a lamp post literally right next to where the line comes into the house. But that was replaced last year and causes a lot less interference than the previous lamp post did.
If you were in my position, what would you be thinking?
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
17-05-2008 1:42 PM
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1. With that attenuation it should be faster, say 1.5 to 2mbps, so what is wrong?
2. What's my neighbour's attenuation etc. in comparison?
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
17-05-2008 9:20 PM
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Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
18-05-2008 4:37 PM
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I went to a boot fair this morning and there was a guy flogging two ADSL routers - one of which happened to be a Bipac 5200g. He said he preferred the BT Home Hub and that was the reason for sale.
Not being one to pass up an opportunity I bought the Billion - for a tenner.
Here are the line stats:
ADSL Firmware Version : FwVer:3.6.0.0_A_TC3085 HwVer:T14.F7_1.0
Line State : Showtime
Modulation : G.DMT
Annex Mode : ANNEX_A
Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin : 7.0 8.0 db
Line Attenuation : 63.5 31.5 db
Data Rate : 1024 448 kbps
Anecdotally things do feel like they're a bit faster as well.
So, time will tell.
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
18-05-2008 11:19 PM
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Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
01-06-2008 3:22 PM
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I'm 4.9km away from the exchange, but the line is good quality. Even though the BT database claims I'd be lucky to get 1000kbs, the normal sync speed was above 6000kbs after the upgrade to Max, with Att 47db and daytime SNR around 6 db. One very lucky day I even saw a 7100kbs connection for a few hours.
Unfortunately, after several disconnections during storms earlier in the year, BT imposed the SNR curse. Target SNR was fixed at 12db and I've been struggling to reach 5000 ever since. The problem is that there is interference from a power line nearby and there's a brief loss of sync most evenings at a certain time, possibly when the people in the village switch something on or off all at the same time.
After reading this thread, I ordered a Bipac 5200g. Tested it yesterday evening. Sync speed with the usual router (Netgear DG384v.3) was 4600kbs, Att 47db, SNR 11db. After switching to the Bipac 5200, it shot up to 6700kbs and the SNR went down to around 5db, Att went slightly up to 49db. In the several hours it was on, there was no loss of synch at all and hardly any errors.
The bad news is, the Bipac driver is not fully compatable with XP SP3 I couldn't connect it until after going back to the DG384 and googling for the reason and a workaround: IP address and DNS have to be set manually in the network connection. Still haven't been able to make the WLAN work, so I'm back on the DG384 to avoid tripping on long cables.
Bipac will issue a new driver soon. Until then, if you're using this router, don't upgrade to XP SP3!
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
01-06-2008 3:39 PM
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Quote from: Possum Bipac will issue a new driver soon. Until then, if you're using this router, don't upgrade to XP SP3!
Looking at the spec it's a router with a web interface so you would either connect wirelessly or via ethernet - why does this not work with SP3?
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
01-06-2008 3:53 PM
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There is a software compatibility problem of Billion BiPAC 5200 series (that is loaded with
specific firmware version, see below) occurred in the past weeks. After end-users upgrade
Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) release on their PC or Notebook, it will cause
BiPAC 5200 series crashed and rebooted constantly.
After detail analysis, we found that Windows XP SP3 sent out the DHCP packet with the
Option 43 data (include Microsoft’s ‘Vendor Specific Information’), but Windows XP SP2 sent
out the DHCP packet without the Option 43 data. However, the Option 43 data is not
compatible with Billion’s original definition, so it will cause this problem. The affected firmware
versions of BiPAC 5200 series are 2.9.8.x and 2.11.0.x~2.11.33.x. There is no impact to BiPAC
5200 series if the firmware is 2.10.x.x. Please check Appendix A for checking your current
firmware version.
Microsoft released Windows XP SP3 on May 6, 2008, and provided it on their web site only for
manual downloading. So there are not many end-users to report this problem to us in this
stage. However, Microsoft plans to upgrade all end-users' PC to Windows XP SP3
automatically in June 2008. The affected scope will be expanded.
Not sure what it all means, but when I first tried to set up the router, it just wouldn't establish a connection at all. The connection went live only after following their workaround instructions (setting IP address & DNS manually).
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
01-06-2008 7:10 PM
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Meanwhile, this guy swears by his Thomson Speedtouch 585v6 for stopping his line dropping every evening.
Anyway, from what I understand achieving optimum performance with your exchange boils down to having a modem/router with a chipset which is best matching the chipset at the exchange. Firmware upgrades at either end change things around of course - so this is a bit of a moving beast. Any idea what works best with my DSLAM chipset which is a STMicro Alcatel? I have always been using a Netgear DG834, but have had no experience with other modems.
Re: Supporting Customers on Long Lines
01-06-2008 10:15 PM
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Everybody says the Speedtouch is good but needs a lot of tweaking, and that the 2wire can't be tweaked as much but works very nearly as well out of the box. So I got an unlocked 2wire 2700HGV via our favourite auction site for about £35. The interface is a bit weird, but I have worked it out (I think) and it is syncing at a reported 1440kbps with a 14dB noise margin, and has done so for a week with no disconnections. If it stays stable I shall ask to get the margin lowered a bit - who knows, I might be able to get a 1.5Mb profile out of it!
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