Openreach engineer finds no fault. PN want to send another.

[#1]

Hi @MVH_Somerset,

I'm really sorry to hear that this has started happening recently. I have to say, this certainly is an odd one. I've read through your posts a couple of times and had a look at the case on the account and before we do anything specific with this, there are a couple of questions that flagged up in my mind, which I'd like to ask you about. Firstly, when you've been carrying out these speed tests, you've mentioned that you're running them over a wired Ethernet connection, however I can't see if you've mentioned rerunning the same tests with an alternate Ethernet cable? It's a longshot admittedly, but Ethernet cables can sometimes be the cause of throughput speed issues, so it may be worth trying a spare if you haven't had chance yet.

The other question I had for you concerns the timing of all this. The fact that this has happened so close to Christmas and gets progressively worse throughout the afternoon/evening suggests to me that this may not be a coincidence. Since this issue started last week have there been any Christmas light displays, either within your own property or the local area, that might line up with the deteriorating speeds? Again, this one may be a bit of a longshot, especially as I can't see any engineers bringing it up before now. However, Christmas lights/displays can be notorious for causing unique and bizarre electrical interference issues at this time of the year, so it's always worth taking into consideration.

[#2]

Thank you for looking into this Alex.
To answer your 1st question - I am not relying on just one ethernet cable. My slow speeds are experienced by more than one wired device (including an Apple TV). Additionally, our speeds are also very slow on wifi devices (eg a new iPhone whilst sitting right beside the router).

Yes, there may be some Xmas lights in our vicinity, but none very close. We live in a detached house and the nearest lights are about 100m away and aren't one of those 'OTT' displays.

I'm very disappointed that you haven't responded to the point I made in my last post, where I mention packet loss. Surely this is a significant factor. If you don't believe that to be the case then please explain why.

I've run more tests this morning, including a tracert. These show that d/l speeds decrease when packet loss (p/l) increases. Tracert itself shows asterisks for some packets in some hops, which I assume indicates those packets going astray. I've attached screenshots, but to summarise:
8pm last night - d/l speed 9Mbps, p/l 22%
7:50am this morning - d/l speed 32Mbps, p/l 10%
The Tracert was done at 9:30 this morning.

A question back to you - when we experienced this same issue in June 2020 a 'GEA Test' was carried out, (screenshot attached). Again, I'm only a layman, but could you confirm that this test (and possibly any your colleagues have done this time) doesn't check for packet loss?

Finally, my router shows that there must have been a disconnection at about 2am this morning. That's certainly not something we instigated. Can your system determine what happened then?

[#3]

Hi @MVH_Somerset,

My apologies, I hadn't meant to ignore the question about the packet loss, I was simply trying to establish some additional info in my prior post. You've posted a lot of information here, which is definitely a good thing, but it may mean I won't address every single thing in my responses

Regarding the packet loss, I can certainly see why you'd be drawn to this, especially as it shares similarities to the other case referenced in this thread. With that having been said, it doesn't seem to be the cause of the issue and is more likely just another symptom. One thing I hadn't referenced in my previous post, but I feel is relevant to this line of investigation is that this isn't just a speed issue - the connection itself is very volatile at the moment. You can see a visualized graph of the connection stability here.

I've tried to look into the fault from last year, however I'm afraid that as it happened so long ago, the engineer notes are no longer available on the site and the visual RADIUS information isn't retrievable either. Having read the support ticket logged by ourselves at the time, I think there are some key differences between what had occurred then and what is occurring now however.

For starters, I cannot see any reference to the connection being intermittent at that time, just that the speed followed the same pattern of slowing down throughout the day. The other key thing I noticed is something you've already brought up in this thread - the matter of the capacity having been increased. The engineer that went out on the 24th had spoken to the DCOE team and they hadn't detected anything wrong capacity wise. As this is the case, it seems unlikely to me that this current fault is being caused by whatever had previously caused the fault in the summer of 2020.

My best suggestion for the time being is that we arrange another engineer visit and then speak to our suppliers about changing the location to an external visit to double check the cabinet or exchange. I can see that a member of our Tech Support Team is due to pick this up for review later on today after having chased this up with our suppliers, however if you don't hear back from them, please let us know and we'll be happy to make the necessary arrangements to progress the investigation further. 

[#4]

@TheMightyAJ Now you are on the case, I'm going to stay (relatively) quiet, but that VR looks horrible - is it possible there is a BT network issue here? You seem to suggest that with your later comments, but as @MVH_Somerset has obviously been in touch with you (PN) via the faults route, we aren't going to see everything online, so there is little more I will be able to add.

[#5]

Thank you again Alex.

I wasn't aware of the disconnections (other than the one in the middle of last night) as we are all using our phones as hotspots so haven't noticed them.

Yes an engineer visit to double check the cabinet and exchange is something which I certainly wouldn't object to. The engineer who came on Friday didn't check the exchange AFAIK.

BTW, you say "Regarding the packet loss, I can certainly see why you'd be drawn to this, especially as it shares similarities to the other case referenced in this thread. With that having been said, it doesn't seem to be the cause of the issue and is more likely just another symptom."  Obviously you are the professional, and I'm not, but I would like to know what makes you say this? When I Google 'packet loss' all the info mentions network traffic as a likely cause. For example on packetlosstest.com:

"The causes of packet loss are often the same as the causes for any network issue. The core issue is often network congestion. Too many people are trying to use a network connection at once, and the network routers cannot process what to do with all the packets fast enough so they necessarily have to drop some."

So my theory is still that somewhere in your system, as the day goes on, congestion is occurring, and leading to my slow speeds and packet loss. It would certainly explain why I had a d/l speed of between 55 and 63 Mbps over several tests at about 0750 yesterday morning (Boxing Day - when I suggest consumer demand was pretty small). And that also confirms, IMHO, that there is nothing wrong with the physical connections between the exchange and my devices.

I'm ready to take a call from one of your colleagues in the Support Team any time. Will they be likely to have looked at this thread before calling, do you know?

[#6]

Hi John, thanks for your continuing interest. Just one question: what is the "VR" your refer to?

[#7]

@MVH_Somerset  Sorry VR = Visual Radius, which I believe @TheMightyAJ has posted slightly earlier in this topic - in his last post, I believe.

[#8]

Hiya @MVH_Somerset, it looks like you have since spoke with the team and can see they are aware of this thread. It looks like they are liaising with a Manager to discuss the next steps and due to get back to you tomorrow with an update.

[#9]

Hi @LaurenB and @TheMightyAJ

I have had calls with "my" Support Team member late yesterday and again this morning. She has stated that Openreach "will not escalate my issue without a second visit", so that has been arranged for Thursday am.

I would like to be as well-informed as possible for when I speak to the OR engineer, so I'd like to re-ask my question from a previous post, and also quote something to see if it makes sense to you.

So, please would you explain why Alex said "Regarding the packet loss, I can certainly see why you'd be drawn to this, especially as it shares similarities to the other case referenced in this thread. With that having been said, it doesn't seem to be the cause of the issue and is more likely just another symptom." What is your response to my follow-up question ie "...I would like to know what makes you say this? When I Google 'packet loss' all the info mentions network traffic as a likely cause. For example on packetlosstest.com:

"The causes of packet loss are often the same as the causes for any network issue. The core issue is often network congestion. Too many people are trying to use a network connection at once, and the network routers cannot process what to do with all the packets fast enough so they necessarily have to drop some."

I DM'd the other user in this thread who was experiencing what seems to be a very similar issue and asked if it had been resolved. As of last night it hadn't, and in his reply he said that OR had apparently found an error, which was recorded as the following. Please would you explain what this means:
 "CRM User Attention Deviating from BIA as IP tests shows UII error. Sending a mail to internal Bridge team to fix the UII error"   What do these acronyms mean, and who are the "internal Bridge team"?

[#10]

Hi @MVH_Somerset,

I'm sorry if my previous response hadn't seemed clearer regarding the packet loss. To clarify, the packet loss you're seeing is certainly something that we'd take into consideration when analyzing your fault, however in this case it isn't something we'd focus on at this stage due to the actual connection drops we're seeing take place on the line. To expand on this, the connection drops supersede the packet loss right now, as they are much more tangible and a greater issue. Resolving the problem with the connection drops will very likely resolve the issue with the packet loss, but if that persists for whatever reason then we can tackle it as an individual problem at that time.

As for the issues that the other user is experiencing, I cannot discuss these openly with you on this thread (or privately for that matter) for privacy reasons. You are both of course free to discuss your line faults amongst yourselves, but I feel it is very important to note that these two faults (no matter how seemingly similar in nature) are ultimately completely separate issues, with resolutions that are very likely to be completely divorced from one another. Please don't get me wrong, I think an open discussion about faults can be quite good and that's sort of what this forum is all about, but it can be counterintuitive to consider these faults as having come from the same place.

[#11]

Thanks again Alex for your response. I do see what you mean about the disconnections being as significant (or more so) than the packet loss. We aren't getting any visibility of the disconnections (if they're very short), as they are 'masked' by our consistently poor d/l speeds, (or the fact that they sometimes happen in the night).

Indeed, I see from my router's 'DSL Line Status' that we last had a disconnection about 8 hours ago (2:40am), although the 'Internet Connection Configuration' page says that connection time is only 1 hour 30 minutes. Why is there a discrepancy, do you know?

I also understand why you can't go into any details about another user's situation. 😎

However, I was only asking what the abbreviations meant, and who the 'Bridge Team' are. I'm surprised that really isn't something you answer without there being a privacy issue, but if that is the case then I shall take your word for it. 😊

[#12]

The Bridge Team are a team we can contact when escalating or chasing up certain aspects of a case. The reasons we might do this are varied, but it's never something we would do straight away on an investigation, as their assistance isn't always required to resolve every fault. The message itself is meant to be an internal note to any of our agents who might come across the case and so it's not really supposed to be dissected in discussions. The abbreviations themselves refer to internal names for platforms we use to carry out our jobs and fault types, which are honestly pretty useless without a greater understanding of the context they are used in.

As for the router logs and the disconnections that we see, there may be discrepancies at the moment due to the outstanding fault on the line. The connection seems to have dropped a couple of times between 2:40AM and now according to our RADIUS report, for example.

[#13]

Thanks again Alex, in particular for explaining about the Bridge Team and internal abbreviations.

Also for posting the Radius Report. I don't know why there was the disconnection after 9am (or of course the one in the night), but I did instigate the one before midday by making a change to the router's wifi settings and also swapping over the cable connecting the master socket to the router in preparation for the engineer visit tomorrow morning. (I wanted to be able to say that I had swapped out every single component of our system!)

[#14]

Thanks for letting us know @MVH_Somerset, let us know how you get on with the visit tomorrow.

[#15]

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@MVH_Somerset wrote:

...data download speeds starting around our rated max of 60Mbps very early in the day, but reducing to less than 1Mbps by evening.

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Interesting that lickeh and jim13 are reporting the same issue in recent days.  🤔