Me, ECI and Openreach
Apologies in advance for the long post
Today an Openreach engineer attended my property in the hunt for my missing speed!
Mid-March I went away on holiday for two weeks and came back briefly before being away for Easter long weekend. Between those two periods I noticed a change in my internet speed, up and down. I take a lot of photos and was uploading them to my website and cloud based storage as well as normal browsing. The connection felt laggy, slow etc.
I did some BT Wholesale tests and came back showing that my throughput was 58-61mbs, my IP Profile was 65 and ping was up by about 10, ok, not the end of world but quite a difference to my 77-78 IP Profile, throughput of 75 and ping of <10, which I've had since early 2013.
I'm on wireless and have been the only 5Ghz user for about 3 years in my block of flats and low and behold other people can joined - ah ha I knew what was up interference - so I changed channels, I tried new super duper routers (mine is currently Asus NT65U, where I find my wireless is the same as wired). No change. Tried an ethernet connection - exactly the same results hmm not good.
I browsed the forums etc and read about G.INP people losing 10mbs overnight on a long established stable connection, that sounded exactly like me, timing was right, I found out I had an ECI BTO modem, I checked the cabinet outside my block, looked like a Huewai.
I raised a helpdesk ticket (where did that link go? it was a mission to find). Was phoned this Monday evening and was told, my line had no faults, no cross, talk, no congestion and my speed was fine and stable. I mentioned G.INP and ECI, this was swept aside, but was granted an engineer visit due to my throughput being less than 80% of my expected speed (80mbs).
Today....
BTO engineer turns up on the dot at 8am, he then spend 2 hours and 15 minutes reviewing my line, yes its stable, yes it's perfect, no cross talk, no fault etc etc.
I mentioned the G.INP and ECI issue and he tells me he only ever issues ECI and they are fine. What I have read is probably rubbish on the internet.
An hour in he's phoned his helpdesk to find that retransmissioning (ie G.INP) has been put on my line - take it away and hey presto all is fine, put it back on and sync is back to what I have now. He explains that my loss of speed is to provide a better connection for those further away, sorry? where was the notification that I would lose a massive chunk of speed? where was the notification that BT were no longer able to offer an up to 80mbs product as according to him I am not allowed it because it is to improve others?
Sure it sounds selfish, but if I would have expected notification and compensation for receiving less.
I spoke about the forums; Plusnet, OC, Kitz, TBB where I had read about and how a change in product restored in most cases 'normal' service
Other than the constant pushing for BT as an ISP provider he was quite pleasant, he did try and source a Huawei modem for me, but other engineers were only carrying ECI. In the end he agreed my best bet was to try different hardware as there is nothing that can be done on the line from his perspective.
Other than not getting the speed back, it did rule out any other potential issues including my hardware and wiring or an issue at the cabinet.
Just need to source a compatible modem now
Today an Openreach engineer attended my property in the hunt for my missing speed!
Mid-March I went away on holiday for two weeks and came back briefly before being away for Easter long weekend. Between those two periods I noticed a change in my internet speed, up and down. I take a lot of photos and was uploading them to my website and cloud based storage as well as normal browsing. The connection felt laggy, slow etc.
I did some BT Wholesale tests and came back showing that my throughput was 58-61mbs, my IP Profile was 65 and ping was up by about 10, ok, not the end of world but quite a difference to my 77-78 IP Profile, throughput of 75 and ping of <10, which I've had since early 2013.
I'm on wireless and have been the only 5Ghz user for about 3 years in my block of flats and low and behold other people can joined - ah ha I knew what was up interference - so I changed channels, I tried new super duper routers (mine is currently Asus NT65U, where I find my wireless is the same as wired). No change. Tried an ethernet connection - exactly the same results hmm not good.
I browsed the forums etc and read about G.INP people losing 10mbs overnight on a long established stable connection, that sounded exactly like me, timing was right, I found out I had an ECI BTO modem, I checked the cabinet outside my block, looked like a Huewai.
I raised a helpdesk ticket (where did that link go? it was a mission to find). Was phoned this Monday evening and was told, my line had no faults, no cross, talk, no congestion and my speed was fine and stable. I mentioned G.INP and ECI, this was swept aside, but was granted an engineer visit due to my throughput being less than 80% of my expected speed (80mbs).
Today....
BTO engineer turns up on the dot at 8am, he then spend 2 hours and 15 minutes reviewing my line, yes its stable, yes it's perfect, no cross talk, no fault etc etc.
I mentioned the G.INP and ECI issue and he tells me he only ever issues ECI and they are fine. What I have read is probably rubbish on the internet.
An hour in he's phoned his helpdesk to find that retransmissioning (ie G.INP) has been put on my line - take it away and hey presto all is fine, put it back on and sync is back to what I have now. He explains that my loss of speed is to provide a better connection for those further away, sorry? where was the notification that I would lose a massive chunk of speed? where was the notification that BT were no longer able to offer an up to 80mbs product as according to him I am not allowed it because it is to improve others?
Sure it sounds selfish, but if I would have expected notification and compensation for receiving less. I spoke about the forums; Plusnet, OC, Kitz, TBB where I had read about and how a change in product restored in most cases 'normal' service
Other than the constant pushing for BT as an ISP provider he was quite pleasant, he did try and source a Huawei modem for me, but other engineers were only carrying ECI. In the end he agreed my best bet was to try different hardware as there is nothing that can be done on the line from his perspective.
Other than not getting the speed back, it did rule out any other potential issues including my hardware and wiring or an issue at the cabinet.
Just need to source a compatible modem now
@NedLudd and jafreer - thanks for the recommendations I will definitely have a look at those
@Terranova667 - I definitely got than impression when I mentioned G.INP and he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about (to be honest, I don't really know what it is myself), but as far as I was concerned it is not about me giving up speed for others, perhaps I'm not that generous
It is from my understanding a current incompatibility of my ECI's firmware with changes that have been made to the cab
@Terranova667 - I definitely got than impression when I mentioned G.INP and he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about (to be honest, I don't really know what it is myself), but as far as I was concerned it is not about me giving up speed for others, perhaps I'm not that generous
It is from my understanding a current incompatibility of my ECI's firmware with changes that have been made to the cab
One thing you can absolutely rely on here is that someone will post totally duff information on these forums and yet again we see the myth that updating the ECI firmware will resolve the speed drop and increased latency.
@goldenfibre It is unfortunate that people may see your post count and think that as a regular poster you know what you are talking about. Please go to http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15283.0.html and read at least the first post and the first two replies.
@goldenfibre It is unfortunate that people may see your post count and think that as a regular poster you know what you are talking about. Please go to http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15283.0.html and read at least the first post and the first two replies.
Well after having my assumptions proved right about my line I went out and bought the Asus DSL-AC68U and read about a million posts on the router, now I know it's not for everyone, but I liked the fact it was an all in one and after seeing all the cables once I moved my TV for the BTO engineer decided I needed to streamline slightly. I have an Asus at the moment (RT-65U) so I am fairly comfortable with the UI and this would be an upgrade, which I've been looking at anyway.
Also looking on a well known auction site prices are starting to get silly for many of the offerings for the HG612.
OK to cut a long story short, last night updated firmware (meant a couple of reboots), IP Profile dropped slightly and throughput dropped slightly, ping dropped to 5 or less! when pinging BBC :D. This morning via BT wholesale IP Profile is now up to 74mbs, which is an overnight gain of about 10, but throughput is still in mid 50's although I see this is probably due to change of modems, re-starts etc and I may need to PN to push it.
The router is stating connection/sync stats in excess 100 and thus my actual connection is syncing at 80.
Looking good so far...... :
Also looking on a well known auction site prices are starting to get silly for many of the offerings for the HG612.
OK to cut a long story short, last night updated firmware (meant a couple of reboots), IP Profile dropped slightly and throughput dropped slightly, ping dropped to 5 or less! when pinging BBC :D. This morning via BT wholesale IP Profile is now up to 74mbs, which is an overnight gain of about 10, but throughput is still in mid 50's although I see this is probably due to change of modems, re-starts etc and I may need to PN to push it.
The router is stating connection/sync stats in excess 100 and thus my actual connection is syncing at 80.
Looking good so far...... :
Quote from: jelv Please go to http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15283.0.html and read at least the first post and the first two replies.
Excellent link, jelv.
Reading those posts will (hopefully) put some of the myths & nonsense to bed once & for all
