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Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

happysnapper
Grafter
Posts: 69
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

My fibre connection won't do more than 34999 kbps and it took 6 engineer visits to determine that.

 

The line generates CRC errors if it's turned up more than 34999 kbps.

 

Whenever there's a disconnection the line is re-provisioned at 39999 and the CRC errors start again.

 

I've had a question open on this matter for many weeks and when the fault is reintroduced (either manually or by the multiplexer - who knows) I have to contact support via the (still) open question and get the line turned down to 34999.

 

But for the last three weeks the line has been stable and the question automatically closed after 14 days.

 

Today, the line went t*ts up again and it's reset itself to 39999.

 

Again. After 20 minutes on the phone to get through to support I got through to someone who was less than helpful, wouldn't listen and interrupted to the point where I hung up.

 

What do I have to do to get the line reset to 34999 kbps?

 

The last time this happened I asked why it couldn't be 'locked off' at 34999 kbps to avoid this happening again and again.

 

I'm still waiting for an answer.

44 REPLIES 44
ejs
Aspiring Hero
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Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

I didn't think Plusnet have the ability to directly set capped rate profiles on FTTC.

Have you considered getting a modem with the ability to cap the rate yourself?

happysnapper
Grafter
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

>I didn't think Plusnet have the ability to directly set capped rate profiles on FTTC.

Someone does, they've capped it three times in the last 5/6 weeks.

It's great until it becomes uncapped.

>Have you considered getting a modem with the ability to cap the rate yourself?

I have a modem which can do that and more, an Asus DSL-N17U.

Using QOS or setting speed limits per IP/MAC address doesn't improve the downstream CRC errors on the line.

I currently have 656504 downstream errors showing in 3 and a half hours of uptime.

High score was over a million and a half in 2 hours!

When it's profiled to 34999 the errors vanish the line is stable.

Anything over that and it's like browsing through treacle.

Web pages appear without images and downloading anything, even graphics card drivers or a medium sized .pdf file, crashes the line and causes the modem/multiplexer at their end to reboot the line.

I've been through this with support several times over the last 3/4 months and each time they re-profile it to 34999 and it's fine until it does it again.

ejs
Aspiring Hero
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

Have you tried another modem? Asus modems have notoriously bad MediaTek chipsets.

What I meant was using a Broadcom based modem in which the xdslctl command has the ability to set caps on the actual DSL line rate.

happysnapper
Grafter
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

There is nothing wrong with the modem, it works perfectly when the line is set to 34999 because the line won't support anything faster than that.

6 Openreach engineers and one senior Openreach engineer have arrived at that conclusion after 7 weeks of investigations.

Why should I have to play modem roulette to sort a problem out that can and should be fixed by the service provider?

ejs
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

So have you tried another modem or not?

The problem with the Asus modems is that they tend to rack up loads of errors and make the line look unstable.

What were your estimated speeds?

happysnapper
Grafter
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

"they tend to rack up loads of errors"

Evidence?

I've been told that the multiplexer is downgrading the line automatically because the line won't support anything faster than 34999 due to the distance from the cabinet. That was from a senior Openreach engineer after 7 weeks of investigations. Might be BS though. At the time I was told that only 11 fibre connections had been provisioned and 2 of those were for Openreach so no statistics were available as to who else in y neighbourhood might be suffering faults at this distance from the cabinet.

Weirdly, for the first time ever, it's now running at 39998 but the modem is still detecting downstream errors.

it's currently at 780740 and increasing although, for the first time ever, the line hasn't crashed.

The guaranteed minimum speed was initially 48 meg - subsequently downgraded to ~37 meg which I accepted after being released from the contract I'd agreed to due to non performance by Plusnet/Openreach.

I'm happy with what I've got when it works.

OK, it's not cable/150meg I had previously, glory days, but it's better than 1.7 ADSL Plusnet were providing for 3 years before the 'upgrade'

ejs
Aspiring Hero
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

I assume by "multiplexer" what they must be referring to is the DLM - Dynamic Line Management system. The only input the DLM gets is from the equipment at each end of the line, so if you've got a bad modem, it will make the "line" look bad.

I would have thought that using your own modem is playing modem roulette, whereas using ISP supplied equipment, or at least something from the Openreach approved list would not be.

The general opinion on Asus modems: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,14399.msg337343.html#msg337343

Occasionally someone tries extensively fiddling with the Asus settings trying to make it stable: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,20071.0.html

 

You still haven't actually answered the question regarding if you've actually tried another modem or not.

happysnapper
Grafter
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

>I assume by "multiplexer" what they must be referring to is the DLM - Dynamic Line Management system. The only input the >DLM gets is from the equipment at each end of the line, so if you've got a bad modem, it will make the "line" look bad.

Interesting though not surprising. 6 'engineers' - the entire weight of Openreach and Plusnet and that's the first time I've heard that. I was told it was the line and that it was due to the distance from the cabinet.

>using ISP supplied equipment

If only it would work in modem mode I'd be a happy camper.

>or at least something from the Openreach approved list would not be.

>You still haven't actually answered the question regarding if you've actually tried another modem or not.

One Openreach engineer had a supply of the old modems on his van which he said might be of use in such situation but he didn't leave one for me to try, I might have to resort to eBay to try one, see if it makes a difference.

In the meantime, the preferred solution of Openreach and Plusnet was to profile the line at 34999.

 

:: Just to add, everything I've done has been following the advice from Plusnet and Openreach.

This modem was running my ADSL connection fine at 17 meg for about a year until I experienced faults which made me contact Plusnet. That's when they told me that fibre was now available and I switched. Initially I was able to pull files from Usenet at 60meg, no problems, then the connection degraded. Today is the first time it's been profiled at 39998 and hasn't crashed. Usually, I can download at ~37meg. Just tried now and it's 120 KB/s

Gel
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

Mav
Moderator
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

Moderator's note:

Thread moved from Broadband to Fibre Broadband.

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happysnapper
Grafter
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

Thread moved from Broadband to Fibre Broadband.

Thanks!

Someone with access to the levers has read this thread as the line has been profiled back to 34991.

Sadly, the fault persists because upstream is set to interleaved instead of fastpath.

/taps foot impatiently......

Baldrick1
Moderator
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

If this comes back, an alternative approach.

As I understand it the Plusnet profile has no influence on dynamic IP addresses. However due to the use of different servers, fixed IP addresses can be capped by Plusnet. So the cunning plan is to pay a fiver for a fixed IP address and get Plusnet to set your download speed profile to 35Mbps rather than leaving it to the outside world.

Edit

Ah, I see from Gandalf's later post where another cunning plan has gone wrong. Plusnet may be able to limit the data rate but they have no control over the sync rate. To correct this problem it's the sync rate that needs limiting.

@Gandalf I stand humbled and corrected!

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Gandalf
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Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

Hi @happysnapper

Sorry to hear you're having connection problems.

For the record we don't have any influence over your sync rate so we can't cap it at a certain speed.

I'm trying to access your account to check things over but struggling to locate it using the details in your forum profile.

Could you send me a PM with your username please?

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
happysnapper
Grafter
Posts: 69
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Registered: ‎24-09-2007

Re: Fibre Fault - Wrongly Provisioned Again and Again and Again.

For the record we don't have any influence over your sync rate so we can't cap it at a certain speed.

 

Interesting. Two people have told me 'I can sort that for you now from here' in the past.

Different person, different story!

pmd.