Activation tomorrow but I have a question...

[Scorpio]

Hi there,

I have migrated from Aquiss and scheduled for activation tomorrow. Whilst with Aquiss I had some drop in speed for the past few weeks as you can see from my delta reports copied below.

The question when I changeover tomorrow, will my line go through a new training period for the next 10 days? Also what time do you think the IDNET connection will be active??

Thanks  and looking forward to being an IDNETTER!!!

Delta Reports:
19/01/2007 01:25:08     BT IPStream Max Premium     1728 k      N/A k      Auto
18/01/2007 08:10:30    BT IPStream Max Premium    2272 k     800 k     Auto
16/01/2007 03:19:54    BT IPStream Max Premium    1728 k     N/A k     Auto
16/01/2007 01:39:54    BT IPStream Max Premium    2848 k     N/A k     Auto
13/01/2007 07:24:50    BT IPStream Max Premium    2848 k     N/A k     Auto
13/01/2007 07:39:55    BT IPStream Max Premium    1728 k     N/A k     Auto
13/01/2007 05:14:53    BT IPStream Max Premium    3424 k     N/A k     Auto
13/01/2007 04:54:49    BT IPStream Max Premium    2272 k     N/A k     Auto
11/01/2007 07:14:45    BT IPStream Max Premium    2848 k     N/A k     Auto
04/01/2007 01:54:09    BT IPStream Max Premium    1728 k     N/A k     Auto
03/01/2007 18:54:37    BT IPStream Max Premium    3424 k     N/A k     Auto
03/01/2007 19:14:46    BT IPStream Max Premium    2272 k     N/A k     Auto
03/01/2007 11:29:32    BT IPStream Max Premium    2848 k     N/A k     Auto
29/12/2006 03:13:40    BT IPStream Max Premium    1152 k     N/A k     Auto
28/12/2006 11:14:10    BT IPStream Max Premium    1728 k     N/A k     Auto
26/12/2006 11:38:57    BT IPStream Max Premium    4000 k     800 k     Auto
24/12/2006 06:53:30    BT IPStream Max Premium    3424 k     800 k     Auto
21/12/2006 19:28:18    BT IPStream Max Premium    2272 k     N/A k     Auto
19/12/2006 01:52:57    BT IPStream Max Premium    2848 k     800 k     Auto
19/12/2006 01:13:09    BT IPStream Max Premium    3424 k     800 k     Auto

It was alot more stable and sticking around the 3000-3500k when I joined ealry November 2006. Here are my current Belkin 7633 router stats:

Downstream         Upstream

Data rate    
3776    800
      
Noise margin    
8.6    6.0
         
Output power    
18.9    12.5
         
Attenuation    
54.0    29.5

[Nerval]

Hi Scorpio and welcome.
The activation normally takes place before 6am, so should be active by the time you get up and you should just be able to log straight in to IDNet. I simply put in my IDNet details to my router before I turned it off for the night, and the next morning it just connected to IDNet.  Quite an anticlimax.
However, it MIGHT not, it might be later in the day, so that's not a promise, just the norm.

And you will start your "training" period again in theory, but there's no reason to believe your speeds will start off low.  It just means that BT won't start investigating problems for a couple of weeks - but you probably won't have any.

I'd suggest rebooting your router before breakfast once each day to remind Max to make a note of your speed.  I'd also avoid rebooting it from teatime onwards, as resynching at that time is often at a lower speed than earlier in the day.  (Don't know why, it just is).

When you're connected, run the BT SPeedtest HERE and that will give you your "profile" speed, which is the one that limits what speeds you will actually get.

Good luck.

[Lance]

And you will start your "training" period again in theory, but there's no reason to believe your speeds will start off low.  It just means that BT won't start investigating problems for a couple of weeks - but you probably won't have any.

Sorry Nerval, I'm going to have to disagree with you here! When i moved to IDNET my max did not go through any retraining, it just stayed on the same profile as before. I assume that this is because the profile for the line would be the same because you still have the same physical line from your house to the exchange, regardless of ISP.

Any changes which have happened on my line have been as a result of the 3 days up / hours down thing.

Hope the switch goes well for you Scorpio, I'm sure it will. And don't forget to keep posting on this forum!!! 

[Scorpio]

Thanks for your replies.

Any idea of what speeds I should be getting just by looking at my router stats??

[Lance]

I'm not very good on this bit - you need Rik who i think is pretty good at looking at the stats. No doubt he will post tomorrow!

My opinion is that because on max it trys to get a noise margin of 6 and yours is currently nearly 9 (on downstream) i would say that you could expect your downstream speed to increase a little higher than it currenttly is. But i'm sure someone will have a better idea than me and therefore a better answer!

[Scorpio]

I'm not very good on this bit - you need Rik who i think is pretty good at looking at the stats. No doubt he will post tomorrow!

My opinion is that because on max it trys to get a noise margin of 6 and yours is currently nearly 9 (on downstream) i would say that you could expect your downstream speed to increase a little higher than it currenttly is. But i'm sure someone will have a better idea than me and therefore a better answer!

Actually,
I forgot that there is a tool that gives you an idea of your speeds from your noise and att stats which is on another forum. Thanks anyway...

[Lance]

Maybe you could post a link to this tool over on this forum??? it may be of use to some users over here!

[stevelondon]

Hi Scorpo

Welcome to IDNet and the forums or commonly known as the nuthouse,

Just in case you aint activated early lke most, dont worry as i was activated about 4.30pm ish when i joined last august

Good luck with your migration in.

[Scorpio]

I suppose putting the links up would be helpful, silly me!!

Copied from the DSLZone site:
This small tool will give you an estimate of the maximum speed your line can support. You will need to obtain the "Downstream Attenuation" and "Downstream Noise Margin (SNR)" figures to continue. These can be obtained from your modem/router configuration pages.

ADSL MAX SPEED: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed.php

ADSL2+ MAX SPEED: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php

There are other testers and lots of other interesting info on that site.

[Scorpio]

Hi Scorpo

Welcome to IDNet and the forums or commonly known as the nuthouse,

Just in case you aint activated early lke most, dont worry as i was activated about 4.30pm ish when i joined lat august

Good luck with your migration in.

Ok thanks, im looking forward to joining Idnet. I think I have made the right choice even though I'm not official yet.... 

[stevelondon]

You definately have mate 

[Bat]

Hi,
I've just tried the tester above. It says my line will support 20Mbit/s
Cheers,
Gavin

[Inactive]

Welcome aboard Scorpio, not everyone on here is nutty.. 


Where is my fruit cake?

[stevelondon]

<---------------------------------Your slice is over there
oops no its over there------------------------------------->   

[DorsetBoy]

I suppose putting the links up would be helpful, silly me!!

Copied from the DSLZone site:
This small tool will give you an estimate of the maximum speed your line can support. You will need to obtain the "Downstream Attenuation" and "Downstream Noise Margin (SNR)" figures to continue. These can be obtained from your modem/router configuration pages.

ADSL MAX SPEED: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed.php

ADSL2+ MAX SPEED: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php

There are other testers and lots of other interesting info on that site.

Well ho hum!!

According to that my line will only support 0.5m-- 1.3 Mbps.
I get over 6Meg here.

Distance to exchange ............6.31Kms.............err nope it is 1.06 Kms.
Don't believe anything from those tests

[Nerval]

The checker is really for people not already on Max.  The first link actually says:
Please NOTE: If you are already on the 8Mb Max service, there is no point in using this checker. It is only for people on 512Kb - 2Mb.

So it's no use in predicting your Max speed if you're already on Max.  What actually limits you  is the Profile rate, which depends on the Sync rate you can maintain constantly for 3 days or more, and a brief spell at a lower sync rate will give you an overall lower speed, until you sync higher again.

This link posted by Rik, gives you the figure you will get for a given sync rate.
And Scorpio, it's your lowest current sync rate that counts, not the highest or the average.

[sallyandjames]

Kinda right!

When on Max, your target SNR is 6db (by default, but your ISP may have requested a change to 9db, or 12db to help stability issues)

As your sync rate increases, the attenuation has a greater effect, thus the Signal to Noise Ratio decreases.
(Which is why a checker based upon fixed line rates can't calculate max throughput for a line already on a rate adaptive product - any calculations have to based upon current sync speed, SNR and Attenuation.)


Once the sync rate is determined (which happens during the handshake processes with the line cards at your exchange) it is logged.

Every few days the report of your sync rates are checked by the kit at the exchange, and a BRAS rate is set, this BRAS profile is just slightly higher than the maximum throughput you should expect during off peak times, although the max you will acheive is of course dependant upon VP Contention, available capacity on your ISP network etc.

This BRAS rate, along with your Sync speeds are forwarded to your ISP, who will then set a profile at their end.
The profile set by your ISP will be lower than the BRAS profile by a small margin, to ensure that they don't send more data down your line than it can efficiently handle. (If too much was allowed, you would end up with packet loss increase, and higher latency)

The report sent to your ISP is known as a Delta report, when these aren't received, you can end up with the wrong settings at your ISP end, resulting in lower throughput, or increased latency/packet loss.

This process is supposed to be seamless, and continual.

Sometimes you may hear reference to a 10 day 'training period' - this does exist, but is often misinterpreted. Nothing is different about the first ten days when compared against any other subsequent 10 day periods in terms of how your connection will perform and be profiled. All it actually does is set a fault rate against your connection.
At the end of the 10 days, your sync speed is noted. For BTw to accept a fault report for your line (a fault relating to poor speeds - other types of faults can still be raised and progressed), your sync rate has to drop to 40% lower than the one set at the end of the 10day training period.

I'm aware that this post wanders a little, and may not be perfectly clear - feel free to ask for furter clarification on any of the points, and I'll do my best to 'unmuddy the waters'

[Rik]

People might find this link useful in explaining the processes involved in Max.