Hi.
I've recently noticed I've got "poor" (relatively speaking!) sync rates.
We had FTTC installed ~ April this year. There was a problem with water in the junction hole outside the house, so they propped the enclosure up on bricks(!) to keep it out of the puddle in there.
The Openreach engineer tested the system with his portable tester, and showed a full 80/20 down/up sync. We're only ~300m from the FTTC cabinet.
Once the HG612 was installed, results from a broadband speed tester showed 78Mbit/15Mbit. I was a little disappointed with the upload, but I don't do any uploading, so it's not a big deal for me. When updating games through Steam, I've actually seen ~8Mbyte transfer rates.
I've been doing a spot of decorating in the hall, and wanted to move all of the modem/router boxes round, as the hall wall was covered in cables, beige boxes and wall-warts. Plus the siting for the wireless router wasn't optimal, as it was against a block wall.
When we had the house re-wired, we had Cat5E fitted throughout, so I piggybacked an unused pair from the phone extension that was put in (appears inside the , and interrupted the phone extension and extracted that pair at a more accessible location.
Before I put the floor down, I wanted to check the new extension wiring was OK, so I punched down the pair to the DSL extension IDC header in my Mk3 faceplate, crimped an FCC68 4/4 with the same pair on the centre 2 pins on the a cable, and joined the two with a Cat5E IDC punch-down connector joint, connected it up, and was disappointed to see my download speed was ~40Mbit. Upload was still 15.
I figured it was my extension, so put the old Cat3 VDSL modem lead into the Mk3 faceplate & modem, re-started, and got 40Mbit. I then thought it was because I'd left the new extension in, so the VDSL was "Teed". I levered it out, and still got 40Mbit.
All the other work I've done on my other cables, when tested with a Fluke cable tester, shows them all capable of 1000base TX (but not quite Cat6). I couldn't test this cable in the same way, but the speed actually *improves* when I connect the modem via the extension compared to the standard lead.
To allow me to do some more testing, I've unlocked my HG612 (3rd gen IIRC - it's got a 3 on the label on the back). This confirms that the max attainable rate is ~ 40M up and 15M down.
I've run the HG612 stats tool, and attached the details to this post.
The trouble is, I'm not 100% sure what I'm looking for. As an electronic engineer, none of the figures look "bad" in that there's no huge step discontinuity in any of the figures.
One thing I have seen is that I've seen someone elses post with "This is what mine looks like", and the *shape* is the same, but the bits per tone are doubled, e.g. their image showed 12 bits/tone in the places mine's showing 6 bits/tone.
This post
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147016.msg1294252.html#msg1294252 shows "poor upload" with 6 bit/tone, but download with 15>12
This one
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147016.msg1294323.html#msg1294323 shows a shape like mine, but more bits/tone.
I'm 99% sure that it's not in my wiring, as if I connect the BT faceplate with the BT lead to the BT modem, it reports the sync speed is commensurate with the download speeds I'm seeing. I'm not even using the router at this point - this is a Cat5E cable going straight into the modem.
I've raised this as a ticket, and I've been asked to provide 3 appropriate times for a BT engineer to visit, but it's got the usual warning of "if it's in your wiring, that'll be £50 please".
As usual, *for me*, plusnet have been great. I got in touch, they confirmed no known issues on my exchange, raised a fault, and got back to me. This isn't a moan at Plusnet! I just want to make sure I've covered all bases.
If it's a fault with the faceplate or router, is this classed as "my problem" or not? Are BT likely to be arsey as I've re-flashed the firmware on the HG612? I hope I've kept the old firmware image, as
https://huaweihg612hacking.wordpress.com/ have gone awol
😞Is there anything else that someone can suggest I try? e.g.
- Leaving the modem turned off overnight
Jumping up and down and shouting & crying
Holding my breath until my face turns blue?
I'm always open to suggestions!
FWIW, if it turns out there's a terminal issue with the line, I'm happy to save ~£4 a month and drop down to a 40Mbit service. I'd rather have the 80 though!
Thanks.
Pete.
