Thanks to whoever fixed my broadband!

[Bat]

Hi,
I've no idea, but I like the look of this! 


Cheers,
Gavin

[Sebby]

Are you referring to the drop in SNRM? It could be that you've maintained a stable connection for over 14 days and the DLM has dropped it, yielding you more speed. But it could also be that there's more noise around...

[Rik]

It looks like the target NM has been dropped, Seb, there appears to be a re-sync at a lower margin.

[Steve]

Worth keeping for the archives  Evidence of a  resync with a lower margin  after 14 days of stability . A rare event

[Rik]

I've already framed a print, Steve.

[Steve]

Already on the wall above the router

[Rik]

Quite.

[LadFromWales85]

So, the DLM will decrease the target SNRM, all on it's own, if your line demonstrates stability over a 14 day period?

Due to a line fault on 12th Dec, rendering my line dead on the voice side, apparently one core of my pair severed at the pole, my modem kept syncing up as I wasn't home to notice, it ended up at something like 800/64!  Since been repaired, but the target SNRM is still sitting at 15dB despite being 400m from the exchange and having a 21dB attenuation.
I bought a Draytek Vigor 100 as my D-Link DSL-300g+ doesn't show linestats on either the web or cli, and with that was able to sync at 76xx kbps with the 15dB margin.  Not happy with just 76xx, I bought a Netgear DG834gV4 which managed around 6mbit...I was disappointed, as everyone seems to rave about how well the Netgears hang on to the line down to 0dB, so I installed the DGTeam firmware and tweaked its SNRM slider down to 1%...8128 sync!  Margin is 10.1dB at the moment, been synced since I installed the firmware happily, so I am happy with it for now   Just need the DLM to put me back to 6dB so that I don't need to tweak the target SNRM!

Simon has had a go at getting BT to lower the target manually, but they are reluctant to, due to the instability caused by a fault on their own network!  But of course, BTw are not going to know this, as it's unlikely BT's own faults team will inform BTw of the fault...left hand right hand!

[Rik]

Twas ever thus with BT sadly.

The speed should recover on its own though, but sometimes needs a helping hand.

[LadFromWales85]

heh my speeds are fine now, well a bit wobbly this evening, prob a bit of exchange contention!
Am now on interleaving opt-out so it shouldn't come back to haunt me...syncing at the full 8128/832 with the help of the Netgear being able to somehow lower the target SNRM.
Just want BT to lower the target at the dslam so that I can go back to using my Vigor 100, as the latency with that modem is a steady 17ms rather than the 23ms on the Netgear

[Sebby]

Netgears (those with the AR7 chipset) seem to negotiate a sync rate that's too high, and it ends up achieving an SNRM short of the target.

The DLM should drop the target SNRM automatically following 14 days without a re-sync, but it rarely happens.

[LadFromWales85]

I've got a DG834G version 4, so it has a Broadcom chipset.
As standard, it actually syncs slower than both my Draytek and D-Link (Globespan) modems, achieving only 6meg while reporting a 15dB margin, whereas both the Draytek and D-Link sync at at least 7648 while reporting 15dB!

This leads me to believe that the DG834G (version 4 at least) reads the downstream SNRM incorrectly, lower by a few dB at least, which would explain why some people manage to keep sync at 0dB and below.  Not important to me though, I'm only on ADSL1 and could happily sync at 8128 with any modem if BT put the damn target margin back where it should be!  For now though, the Netgear with DGTeam firmware with its tweakable margins allow me to sync up at 8128...as soon as the margin is lowered I'll likely go back to the Draytek as the latency to first hop is 17ms rather than 23ms.

I'll badger Simon on Monday to badger BT to lower the margin manually!

[Rik]

I have heard that, if you manually adjust the target NM from your end, the automatic system will no longer work (because the BT software is seeing a lower NM than the current target).

[Steve]

That's is correct as far as I know,you can't have it both ways.

[Rik]

Though I have tried.

[LadFromWales85]

But as the system rarely works, as has been said in this forum, I may as well tweak the target SNRM on the modem, and get it lowered manually at the dslam.
It's either that, or syncing at sub 8128 with one of my other modems and just hoping the system will lower it on its own within 14 days, which it may not do anyway, as the margin will drop below the target at points throughout the day anyway.
The modem has been synced up for over 72 hours now, so I'll leave things as they are for the timebeing

[Rik]

The problem is that BT will often refuse to manually intervene, unless they have a record of a fault being cleared. Let's hope Simon can work his magic though. 

[Sebby]

Fingers crossed for you. BT should reset it if there was work on their network, but their policies are far from uniform.

[LadFromWales85]

The problem is that BT will often refuse to manually intervene, unless they have a record of a fault being cleared. Let's hope Simon can work his magic though. 

Yep, my account shows two PSTN faults, both marked successful (first engineer was rubbish, did nothing, left my line broken, blaming my phone!), and an ADSL fault, marked as successful, apparently my connection at the exchange 'fell off' (his words!) as soon as he touched it.

I've no clue what the snrm's were like on my line prior to the fault, as my old modem didn't show statistics, but kept sync indefinately.  This Netgear DG834Gv4 appears to report the margin as being lower than it does on the Draytek and my Linksys ADSL2MUE (when it works, psu fault ) which means it syncs lower than both of them when not applying the SNRM tweak!  Think that explains how people report keeping sync with a Netgear reporting -2dB where others kick the bucket below 3dB or so...!

But this is BT we're talking about, don't know their arm from their elbow...I just hope Simon can coerce them to click a few buttons to reduce my margin so I can go back to using a modem I can trust!   Gotta love the Netgear for getting me back to 7150k though!

[Rik]

Different modems seem to manage the NM in different ways. The Netgears have always swung wildly in my experience, but have maintained sync at <0db, usually to -2db for me. OTOH, my 2-Wire 2700 rarely moves by more than 2db from target.

[LadFromWales85]

Everyone raves about this 2-wire on here!  What's so special about it?  Good at obtaining sync on long lines or something?  I'm close to the exchange, so naffed up DLM profiles aside, I get full sync with any modem.

Yeah the margin on the Netgear does seem to swing wildly, but I'm unsure it's the Netgear showing interference on the circuit somewhere or it just being, well, a Netgear!  The important thing is that the connection hasn't dropped for 60 hours so far
Does the 2-wire show margins at a higher resolution than whole dB or can it show it to one decimal place like the Netgears?  Could explain the differing appearance of margin on your line maybe?

[David]

  Im not up on all of this but  for Bat and the Lad 

[LadFromWales85]

lol cheers

Though I've been an IDNet subscriber (twice!) and have been registered on these forums for ages, but never really posted much...never had anything to post about, heh!

[David]

lol cheers

Though I've been an IDNet subscriber (twice!) and have been registered on these forums for ages, but never really posted much...never had anything to post about, heh!

You mean we need a reason  god I have it all wrong   

[Sebby]

The 2700 seems to be good on long lines. It usually yields higher sync whilst maintaining a more solid SMRM. And it's cheap.

[Glenn]

You mean we need a reason  god I have it all wrong   

Only 8000+ times, you will learn soon though

[Rik]

I wouldn't count on that, Glenn. 

[LadFromWales85]

So how long do IDNet take to respond to support emails in general?  I don't really want to call, it always feels as though you can't get your point across well enough on the phone, and theres always an excuse to get you off asap.  Perhaps not with IDNet, but I do feel that an email is better in this situation...

Being something that has been on ongoing issue for over 3 weeks I am eager to bang the final nail into the coffin asap...should I just ring them or just hope that someone looks at my email sometime today and gets something off to BT?

[Sebby]

They usually respond same day, unless they have to do some investigation that takes a bit longer.

[LadFromWales85]

I think they did enough of that the other side of Christmas!  Think I'll ring em after 3PM, i'll feel more comfortable knowing someone is actually looking at my case rather than sending an email and just hoping it hasn't been tossed to the side because the issue isn't as simple as clicking a few buttons.

[Simon]

I don't think your email would have been deliberately ignored, but a phone call wouldn't hurt, and they may be able to sort out your issue there and then. 

[LadFromWales85]

Maybe they will!  They just need to give BT a virtual arm twist to get them to lower my DLM target SNRM  from 15dB!

Mode:                   G.DMT                                       
Channel:                Fast                                       
Trellis:                ON                                         
Line Status:            No Defect                                   
Training Status:        Showtime                                   
                Down            Up                                 
SNR (dB):       10.6            13.0                               
Attn(dB):       21.0            9.5                                 
Pwr(dBm):       19.8            12.3                               
Max(Kbps):      8736            1156                               
Rate (Kbps):    8128            832                                 

Current stats

Well, I give them a call, conveniently Simon answered...apparently he's raised the issue with BT to get the target SNRM reduced, but claims that they may not do anything as I am connected at the full rate?!  He is aware that I am 'manipulating' the SNRM, but I would not have to do this if IDNet/BT allowed me to sync at that rate by connecting normally with any modem as I have done previously.

When it comes down to it, I am paying IDNet more than any other consumer broadband service charges per month with the amount of usage allocated in the package 30/30.  It is up to IDNet to live up to the expectations they set of themselves for the price they charge, and at the moment it does not feel as though this is the case.

If I could talk with BT myself, I would...but as IDNet bill me for the service that BT provide, it is sadly them that must get the sharp side of the stick.  I pay £34.99 a month to get a service that is for the most part always fast whenever I want to use the connection.  If I have to remove the SNRM manipulation I am applying at my side of the connection to get IDNet/BT to do something, I may as well pay half the price for a slower service.

Bottom line is BT have records of the line fault, they are even visible from their customer portal, so they know full well there was a DSL impacting fault on the line that has since been cleared.

Maybe IDNet and I will live happily ever after, but it depends on how well they are able to work with their supplier of my broadband service...

[Rik]

The problem is that BT can be very unwilling to reset margins at times, but IDNet will do their best for you.

[g7pkf]

Hmm...sorry i dont agree with you.

I too pay 34.99 for the supermax package BUT i am currently synced at 4000. hence my speed is theoretically half yours.

why pay 34.99 you may ask well my understanding is (and i may be a noob at this )

1.) I have a higher up speed.
2.) I am "in theory" given a higher priority at the exchange due to the package i am on.
3.) Idnet do not oversubscribe the pipes, when they come close to congestion they order a new one, Yes i know BT (bloody twit's) cannot keep to order dates for new pipes. so therefore unlike some (most) isp's congestion should never be within idnet's network.
4.) Idnet do not port block or traffic shape or throttle, this is both good and bad (personally i would like to see voip traffic prioritized-but then i am being selfish)
5.) Idnet are a uk company, when you phone support you get through to a real person who actually knows what they are doing.


Is 34.99 a good price? i do think it is at the upper limit and would certainly pay no more than 34.99.

could they improve anything, well yes but there hands are tied by BT and belive me if you go direct to BT for broadband support is appauling (if you can understand them that is).

I think BT really need to overhaul there whole network, oops there doing that but it keeps getting pushed back and back and back.

I have a nephew who is on O2 broadband, boy is it fast (he is also very close to exchange) and its cheap but he gets contention and throttled, port's blocked galore. I have a friend who is with sky, and then found he cant even use vpn to his work and he is tied to a 12month contract with 10 months to go (he did not notice the problem within the initial coolong off period).

The grass may look greener on the other side, belive me its not.

if anyone asks me i always recommend idnet and if they don't like the price i suggest newnet, if they then go elsewhere (a few idiots have) and then ask me for support i politely tell them to phone the companies support.

Only once have i moaned about Idnet and in reality it was a BT problem, the poor guy i was setting up broadband for was too far from the exchange and could get absoloutely NO ADSL. ended up with a very expensive wireless usb dongle with an ext ant fitted (all mounted on the roof of his house.

I am sure lots of people will shoot me down in flames if i have any of the techy stuff wrong.


Dean

[Rik]

Not I, Dean.

[Simon]

Nor me - I'd miss! 

[LadFromWales85]

Yep, I'd say you've got it wrong there!

I have and always have had full sync on my DSL prior to the line fault.  I pay £34.99 for the privilege of being able to download as fast as my line will allow (exchange contention permitting) at the times when I want to use my connection (8pm-1am mainly).

If I have to allow my modem to train with a 15dB noise margin in order to get BT to do anything, I will likely achieve no more than the low 6's with this Netgear (7616 or so with a decent modem, actually any other modem I own!), resulting in an IP Profile of 5000, or even 4500.  If I have to sync at those rates, I may as well be paying an ISP half the price where contention/shaping/whatever will likely reduce speeds to that sort of level when I want to use my connection anyway.

I am 400m straight line from the exchange, and it is within a 2 minute walk from here.  There is no need for my line to be profiled to connect with a 15dB target margin, when the neighbors wired from the same pole can all connect at 8128 with no sync modifications at all.  Thats not the point though.  There was a fault on BT's side of the network and they are fully aware of it.

When I suggested talking directly with BT, I did not mean BT Retail...I know they are appalling to deal with, probably don't know what a target margin is for a start!  I meant talking directly with BTw, as they are who bill IDNet for my broadband connection.

Was a nice 11 months or so though, not having to think about the connection at all, it "just works".  I'd just like it to go back to being like that

[Rik]

The problem is that any move to another IPStream ISP usually takes all the line issues with it. Only an LLU move gets away from BT's out-dated and restrictive practices.

[g7pkf]

Anyone that close to the exchange should consider a LLU operator (just try and find one with a good level of support).

I do not normally recommend this step but as Rik has said BT at present for the majority use outdated technology.

But lets face it at the end of the day it was a line fault, i would seriously expect BT to fix  the snr issue.

One thing i can say is idnet do provide a very good service in communicating faults to BT and the two i have reported have been very quickly actioned.

fingers crossed for you.

[LadFromWales85]

Yes, but if the most expensive consumer ISP cannot convince BT that my line is of satisfactory quality to reduce the target SNRM from the current highest possible setting, then there really is no point paying that amount, when other lesser performing ISP's will give me similar speeds while tethered to a 15dB target that I could achieve with IDNet.

Perhaps some of you pay the price even though your lines do not achieve the full rate.  I don't sit at a computer anywhere near as much as I used to, and therefore only pay this amount for the connection because it used to allow me to download at the maximum whenever I wanted to use it.  I left Entanet even though they charged less than £30/month because everyone and his dog downloaded from 8PM so I never saw more than 2meg when I was using the connection.

I am aware that an IPStream>IPStream migration will not alter the DLM profiling.  A cease and reprovide might work though, but I'm not willing to go to that extreme  I've already spent money on two new modems as it is, when my current modem was totally fine.

Things could all be fine, and I'll get an email from Simon later on or something telling me that my profile has been reduced back to 6dB and all will be well, I can go back to using my Draytek and achieving latencies of 17ms to the usual gaming servers, rather than the 'massive' 24ms this Netgear gives me.  Used to get 14ms with the WAG54GS but I sent it back as they were supposed to send me a WRT54GS! heh

[Rik]

I pay the price and accept that if I want higher speeds I need to move, hopefully that extreme won't be necessary for you.

[LadFromWales85]

The fact is, I can get the highest speed available to me in my area, and have been synced at that speed for over 5 days now.  I'm not dropping sync unless I absolutely have to, as if the modem can't lower the training margin by enough to get it to sync at 8128 I'll have to wait forever for BT to reincrease the IP profile back when I do sync at that rate next time.

If I could get LLU from any of the reputable providers I'd likely be giving it a lot of thought!  But none are available to me, just BTw sadly   BT do not need to run any tests or checks on my circuit, they have already done that a million times before, and have records of the fault on their own systems, and it was their own engineers that rectified them!  All they need to do is pass a command over to the DLM to reset the profiling status.  Is that really so hard, BT?

[Rik]

Sadly, it often is. BT's lack of effective competition allows them to continue to get away with such ineptitude. If they are allowed to abandon the USO, things could even get worse.

[Sebby]

I have a nephew who is on O2 broadband, boy is it fast (he is also very close to exchange) and its cheap but he gets contention and throttled, port's blocked galore. I have a friend who is with sky, and then found he cant even use vpn to his work and he is tied to a 12month contract with 10 months to go (he did not notice the problem within the initial coolong off period).

O2 uses the same network as Be, who don't throttle or port block, FYI.

[g7pkf]

O2 uses the same network as Be, who don't throttle or port block, FYI.

sorry they do. they definately block smtp (port 25) and i think the other one i found was port 110 (pop3) as he cannot get to my mail server.

I had to set up a vpn connection to get it to work

[Sebby]

Actually you're right, they do block port 25, but you can usually use 587 instead. But they don't throttle.

[g7pkf]

Yeh next time up up there ill sort it out properly.

trouble with computer users non technical, you cant talk them through stuff and forget getting vnc or letmein working

[Sebby]

I know that feeling.