Tortoise Broadband :(

[#1]

I'm hoping someone can help me here, because plusnet support don't seem to be taking this seriously at all.
Here's the story.
I live 2.3 miles from my exchange and the line has been in since the house was built some 10-15 years ago. My router plugs directly into the master socket through a working filter (there is no phone plugged in I use the line only for broadband).
I've never had great speeds since I moved here a year ago, but I was getting almost 500kbps on the speed tester then. Now it's down to 340kbps. (I used to get 4.5Mbps at my old house and I was further from the exchange).
My modem stats are below:
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 544
US Margin 16
DS Margin 9
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 5
DS Line Attenuation 58
US Line Attenuation 63
Path Mode Interleaved
The log contains a strange error:
Jan 1 01:01:11> default route ioctl(SIOCADDRT): Network is unreachable(128)
but connects OK immediately afterwards, this happens at every connection.
When I try and use the BT speedtester (the only one plusnet take seriously) I get the error:
"The IP address discovered on the network associated with your telephone number:01179******, did not match the one we have logged from this browser/connection. Please check your telephone number and try again. If problem persists please contact your CP. "
Now when I first moved here there was a mixup with the cease and reprovide on my house move and BT put me in the Pipex authentication realm at the exchange instead of the plusnet one. Could this be the cause of the strange error in my modem logs and the IP mis-match error on the speed test?
Anyone any idea of what could be causing my problems? It's been a year now

[#2]

I have had problems with my house wiring, and the bell wire.
A chap at work has just brought a new falt on the estate and reported an improvement.
Maybe reading my web page may be of help:
http://www.dougrice.plus.com/Erlangs/adsl.htm

Doug

[#3]

Hi doug, I don't have any house wiring, my router connects directly into the master socket and there is nothing else connected to it (I don't use the voice line).
If it's a house wiring fault then it can only be either the master socket itself or the lead to the router (which has worked OK elsewhere and only has 2 pins connected anyway).

[#4]

Doing a little research it seems to me that there is a problem on my line. There are examples of other people on this forum with greater attenuation and better speeds.
A lot of replies on a lot of the speed threads seem to suggest that the uplink attenuation should be significantly less than the downlink, yet my stats are:

Uplink Attenuation	63dB
Downlink Attenuation	58dB
Uplink Noise Ratio	16dB
Downlink Noise Ratio	9dB

This would suggest that my uplink attenuation is the cause of the problem.
Could anyone confirm this?

[#5]

Hi PJ, thanks for your input.
I'm at work at the moment, but will find a handset to test the 17070 line with when I get home in the morning.  On the rare occasions I do use the BT line to make calls, people do have trouble hearing me (which would also be indicative of poor UL attenuation).
I thought the Pipex thing may be connected to the IP mis-match error, I wondered if BT hadn't changed everything over properly?
Still I think that the line is the root cause.
Do you have any idea what a reasonable attenuation should be for that distance (2.3miles by car, less as the crow flies)?

[#6]

This gets more and more strange.
I called 17070 opt 2 and the line (down to me) was absolutely silent. But then the issue would seem perhaps more associated with the UL attenuation anyway from the stats... 
I have a feeling I'm not going to get anywhere this this though - just had another numpty from PlusNet "support" advise that they cannot do anything until I run the BT speedtester three times.
I sometimes wonder if they ever read back in the ticket, and how many times I'm going to have to post the error before they actually accept that there is a problem.

[#7]

Hi there,
I've just had a look into your line and the upstream attenuation is currently showing as 36dB, versus a downstream attenuation of 55dB.  Does this fluctuate?
Also, you have an SNR margin of 15dB on what is already quite a long line, which is like to be the cause of the slower speeds if your upstream attenuation is now remaining constant.  This change in noise margin may have only recently been applied, giving more stable line conditions.
Let me know if you are still seeing high upstream attenuation figures and I'll run further tests where required.

[#8]

Hi James,
Thanks for looking in on my thread, glad to see there are still some experienced and knowledgeable people around in the support team.
I came home from work at 07:30 this morning and found my modem had lost synch sometime overnight so I restarted it. Below are the current stats pulled off 5 minutes ago:
Status Information
DSL Status Connected
DSL Speed
448 Kbps Upstream
448 Kbps Downstream
LAN IP Address 10.0.0.1
Ethernet Connected
DHCP Server  Running
Software Version  V1.00B02T02.UK.20040618
Modem Status
  Connection Status Connected
  Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
  Downstream Rate (Kbps) 448
  US Margin 16
  DS Margin 15
  Modulation MMODE
  LOS Errors 0
  DS Line Attenuation 58
  US Line Attenuation 63
  Path Mode Interleaved

DSL Statistics
  Near End F4 Loop Back Count 0
  Near End F5 Loop Back Count 0

Log

Jan  1 01:01:00> Valid Configuration Tree
Jan  1 01:01:00> Firewall NAT service started
Jan  1 01:01:00> Bridge Created: br0
Jan  1 01:01:00> Bridge Interface Added: eth0
Jan  1 01:01:04> DSL Carrier is training
Jan  1 01:01:14> DSL Carrier is up
Jan  1 01:01:14> pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Jan  1 01:01:14> Connect: ppp0 {--}
Jan  1 01:01:17> Connection terminated.
Jan  1 01:01:18> PPP Negotiation Failed
Jan  1 01:01:18> pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Jan  1 01:01:18> Connect: ppp0 {--}
Jan  1 01:01:22> default route ioctl(SIOCADDRT): Network is unreachable(128)
Jan  1 01:01:22> WAN IP address 81.174.***.***
Jan  1 01:01:22> PPPoA Connect with IP Address 81.174.172.238
Jan  1 01:01:22> WAN gateway 195.166.***.***
Jan  1 01:01:22> PPPoA Connection Successfully Established
Jan  1 01:01:22> PPPoA Connect with Gateway IP Address: 195.166.***.***
Jan  1 01:01:22> primary  DNS address 212.159.13.49
Jan  1 01:01:22> secondary DNS address 212.159.13.50
As you can see it is still reporting the UL attenuation as 63dB and is still getting the strange "Network is unreachable" error. Not only that, the downlink is now poorer than it was at the start of this thread. 
In addition I still can't run the speedtester - I'm still seeing an IP mis-match error (quoted in full above). I though it may be java related but I've tried it on every platform I have (Linux/Firefox/JRE5.0, WinXP/Firefox and even WinXP/IE6) yet no joy with any of them.
I did get a reply from support this morning saying that "your speed is 1000" but no suggestion of what they were measuring - I'm certainly not getting anywhere near 1000kpbs here. They then gave me the standard spiel about MAX being an adaptive service and threatened to charge me £144 if they passed it to BT and they found no fault.
I'll try and get my hands on another router and see whether I get any different results from that one.

[#9]

My problem was the house wiring connected to the master socket had six wires extended to two extensions around the house.
I think that the advice to plug the modem into the master socket needs clarification. All extension wiring should be disconnected. In my house the extension wiring was connected to the faceplate which I could unplug.
If you have no extension wiring at all, I need to apologise, and shut up. If you have,  even if you are not using it, it will have an effect,  well it did in my house.
My modem only connects with two wires. However, within the master socket, the bell wire was connected and it made an effect.
Sometimes on Analogue TV aerials connecting multiple room sockets off one aerial without a proper splitter has a similar effect.
In my old house, there was a wire from the lounge, kitchen and bed room all connected into the aerial, and I could not get Channel 4.
I only had the one telly. I disconnected the bedroom and kitchen wires at the aeriel and Channel 4 came in loud and clear!
I note my Signal To Noise ratio for downstream is now 3.1 db!
I need to read up on Shannon's law and ADSL to understand what this really means.
My ADSL Statistics - Not really sure what they mean? 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
                          Downstream Upstream 
SNR Margin (dB)          3.1            21.0 
Attenuation (dB)      35.5            26.0 
Output Power (dBm) 21.5            10.5 
Attainable Rate (Kbps) 6684        1080 
Rate (Kbps)                  5664          448 
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) 178 15 
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) 16 16 
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) 1.00 8.00 
D (interleaver depth)                    32          4 
Delay (msec)                                8.00    8.00 
FEC                                      35503589  2820 
CRC 512 23 
Total ES 233 20 
Total SES 5 0 
Total UAS 0 0 

 

[#10]

Hi Doug and thanks for taking the trouble to explain so thoroughly. I have no telephone wiring in the house other than the master socket to which I connect my router via an ADSL filter. I don't even have a phone plugged in most of the time.
I still think that the problem is the attenuation on my line, the uplink particularly.  Although I did a test tonight on www.speedtest.net and got the following results:
Uplink 373kbps
Downlink 337kbps
Pingtime 63ms
Server Location Maindenhead (150miles away)
which only goes to show just how bad my downlink actually is.

[#11]

Hi there,
Whilst I'm not seeing the upstream attenuation, your downstream synchronisation rate is below the "Fault Threshold Rate" which means that you should raise a fault to us so that we can send it to BT.
I see that you are connecting to your master socket.  Can you confirm that you are using a micrtofilter and that you have tried changing this?

[#12]

Hi James,
Thank you so much for your help. Sorry I haven't replied sooner, I've been away for a couple of days.
I came in this evening from work to find we'd had a power cut, restarted the router (again) and the stats have changed markedly!
Status Information
DSL Status Connected
DSL Speed 448 Kbps Upstream,
2144 Kbps Downstream
LAN IP Address 10.0.0.1
Ethernet Connected
DHCP Server Running
Software Version V1.00B02T02.UK.20040618
Modem Status
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 2144
US Margin 18
DS Margin 10
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 61
US Line Attenuation 63
Path Mode Interleaved
DSL Statistics
Near End F4 Loop Back Count 0
Near End F5 Loop Back Count 0
The downstream synch rate is now over 4 times higher than before! I don't know what you or BT have done but if it stays like that I'll be more than happy!
Thanks again.

[#13]

Quote

2144 Kbps Downstream

That looks much healthier now, I can see at the moment that BT have given you an IP Profile of 1000, hopefully this will increase slightly if your sync stays stable at 2144 over the next few days.