Internet Down?

[karvala]

Anyone else experiencing problems at the moment?  Internet went down at around 10.07pm, and remains down now.  Seems a bit early for BT work (I'm in Lincoln in case that's relevant), and not aware of any other problems.  Rebooting the router made no difference, and because I'm on FTTC, it's not even possible to see in the router interface what the problems might be (since all it knows is that it's not receiving anything useful from the BT Box).

Cheers.

[Steve]

No BT faults showing on IDNet or elsewhere currently, is the OpenReach modem showing a sync?

[karvala]

Yes, that's the thing, it looks fine; all lights on.  I unplugged the DSL cable for a short while, replugged it and as expected got a flashing light for a few seconds while it was trying to resync, and then a solid light indicated that it did sync, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with that, which is why I'm thinking it must be some sort of authentication problem or PPP layer (if that exists on FTTC?), but all I can see in the modem is that it's not connected, and the change occurred spontaneously and remains regardless of a reboot.

It's possible that the router suddenly failed, but as it's showing all the status lights correctly (i.e. wireless connections on; something plugged in to the incoming ethernet but no incoming internet), and the wireless networks are operating okay, that seems relatively unlikely to me.

Interestingly, and I'm not sure if it usually behaves this way or not, my TBB monitor has effectively stopped at 10.07pm as well, i.e. it won't move the time axis on beyond that point, not even showing 100% dropped packets or just empty space.  All I see even an hour later is a graph that looks perfect, but which will only display up to 10.07pm.

[Steve]

Sounds like an authentication issue, hopefully your not on your own as that should be a BT issue . May be worth just powering the router off for a least 30 mins ( I would leave the modem alone if all lights are green)  you can of course try a direct PPPOE connection from your computer/laptop to rule out the router as the cause.

[karvala]

Sounds like an authentication issue, hopefully your not on your own as that should be a BT issue . May be worth just powering the router off for a least 30 mins ( I would leave the modem alone if all lights are green)  you can of course try a direct PPPOE connection from your computer/laptop to rule out the router as the cause.

Thanks Steve.  I'm not sure what you mean by running a direct PPPoE from the router to the laptop, and what it would demonstrate?  If you mean do that to demonstrate that the router can communicate with the laptop okay, then presumably I know that anyway from being able to access the router web interface, which is only possible when the network connection between the two is functioning properly.

I will probably try turning the router off for 30mins, and crossing my fingers.  These things always seem to happen at weekends!

[Lance]

Steve meant a direct connection from pc to modem (with the PC handling the pppoe side of things) therefore bypassing and ruling out the router as the issue.

[karvala]

Oh okay.  Which I do by simply plugging in the ethernet cable from the modem to the laptop?  What should I look for if I do that, i.e. how would I test that?

Many thanks for all the help so far.

[Steve]

http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,1904.msg621335.html#msg621335

[karvala]

Fantastic, that's very helpful.  I've done that, and I get a "Connection failed with error 651".  I guess that rules out the router as the problem.  Could that be an authentication problem, or does it indicate a problem with the modem, or is it not possible to tell from that?  I'm not familiar with that particular error.

[Steve]

I think it confirms that your router is ok, the dsl light on the modem is green so that's not the issue. So I think there's  an issue after the cabinet and the usual is the inability to authenticate a PPPOE session . Hopefully it's BT messing about 

If it's not resolved tomorrow you need to involve support.

[karvala]

Brilliant, thanks for all your help Steve.  I'll sleep on it and hopefully by the morning BT will have stopped messing around and things will be functional again.

[karvala]

Hmm, still down this morning, exactly the symptoms.  Guess a call to support will be going in.

One thing puzzles me and makes me one wonder about the router.  The authentication must presumably be done at the level of the router (rather than in the modem before it gets to the router), as the username and password details are entered there, but router log shows no attempt to connect, negotiate or any authentication failure whatsoever.  It also (unlike my old ADSL router, which was also a Netgear) does not attempt to assign any external IP address from its own range in place of the genuine external one.  It just sits there with 0.0.0.0, and if I specifically tell it to connect, it thinks and then still sits there, and there's no evidence that it's tried to do anything.  Is that normal for FTTC?

[Steve]

If you've followed the above link to perform a direct PPPOE connection correctly and failed I wouldn't go looking further. Support may respond to a lack of Internet connection today drop them an email.

My router doesn't generate a local IP address on failure to connect it can be accessed via it's local gateway address.

[karvala]

Yeah, I was just concerned that the 651 error can be caused by a dodgy driver on Windows 7 apparently, although I have tested a different driver and tested it on two different machines (both of which give the same error), so probably it is the modem/connection rather than anything at my end.

I have dropped an e-mail to support (contactus@idnet.com; is this the right address these days?).  I also tried to get through to them on the phone, but just got some (rather bad!) music.  They used to at least have the ability to leave a phone message at weekends and would sometimes respond to those if they were urgent; has this now disappeared as well?  There's not even a message saying that the office is closed, or that they're busy, or anything.

[Glenn]

I've always used support at idnet.com in the past, but it looks like contactus is the current one from the webpage.

[Simon]

support @ idnet.com is what I always use.  There's now an out of hours service operating at the weekends, so rather than leave a message, you should eventually get through to a real person, but they'll probably take you through all the usual 'no connection' drill.

Would a hard reset of the router do any good?   

[karvala]

Could try a hard reset of the router I guess, though it might be superseded by the following.

I called support, who are apparently inundated with calls (it took about 30mins to get through, which raises the question in my mind of why I'm paying IDNet prices if I'm getting a BT level of service, but I guess I'll think about that).  They ran some line tests which they were going to call back about but didn't.    After getting hold of them again, they said they have raised a ticket with BT because there is a problem with the SNR margins, so there's either a problem with the line or a problem on the exchange.  My guess is the latter; I can't see why a line would suddenly develop unacceptable noise at 10.15pm on a Saturday night, and it doesn't seem to be affecting  the voice frequencies as far as I can tell.  The person who ran the test didn't bother to record the actual numbers, so I've asked them to run it again and tell me, and I'll post the numbers here if/when I get them.

All seems a bit strange, though; the line was rock solid before (as you can see from my sig speedtest), and I can see the cabinet from here so there is no great distance involved.  Anyway, looks like I'll have to wait at least 24hrs before even getting a proper update on this, which creates significant problems in regard to work. 

Any/all comments welcome.

[Steve]

I think your stuck sadly until OpenReach get back to work on Monday for those of us without enhanced care.

[karvala]

Yes, unfortunately I think you're right.  I wouldn't mind so much if I thought it was likely to be fixed tomorrow (i.e. with less than 48 hours downtime), but previous experience with Openreach tells me I should probably be looking for to get a mobile dongle in preparation for days or even weeks of procrastination and failed attempts to fix it.

Two last updates for today.  First is that, to categorically rule out my equipment, I borrowed another router and sure enough it shows exactly the same symptoms, so I can certainly say it's nothing to do with my router.  The failed line test pretty much ruled that out as well, though I'm still a bit confused as to how it manages to get and hold sync without any problem if there's a major SNR problem.

Second is that, once again, support failed to keep their promise to call me back, so I still have no SNR stats.  So after (i) taking more than 30mins to answer my first call; (ii) promising to call me back with the results of the first line test and failing to do so; (iii) failing to record the stats of the first line test; and (iv) failing to call me back again with the results of the second line test, I can say that they're now ready for a career with BT.  I will be making a formal complaint about them tomorrow as a special reward for their outstanding service.

[pctech]

Yep once took them a week to fix a borked line card which failed while they were upgrading me to ADSL Max

[karvala]

Still down this morning, which is no great surprise.  Support have finally gotten back to me, having a run another line test and "BT showed a possible fault on their equipment."  Well done, Sherlock; I think that would fall into the category of what Basil Fawlty called "the bleedin' obvious".

No ETA on a fix, of course.  Instead, Openreach are apparently given a free 48 hour pass during which IDNet support won't so much as pick up the phone to them and ask them how they're doing.  It's no wonder Openreach are so slow given the absurd level of deference they're shown by ISPs.  Someone needs to give these people a lesson in how to get things done in the real world.

[Glenn]

The weekend and evening support as far as I know are a 3rd party company, so your call may have been the first time IDNet had seen the issue (assuming you called before they read any mails etc from the support company).

[karvala]

The weekend and evening support as far as I know are a 3rd party company, so your call may have been the first time IDNet had seen the issue (assuming you called before they read any mails etc from the support company).

That would be a reasonable supposition, but in fact IDNet had read my e-mail sent over the weekend; it was their reply to that which I received this morning that I was responding to.

I'm not going to blame IDNet for the failings of the third-party support, although of course they do choose who that provider is and should be accountable in some sense.  What I object to is ISPs, now including IDNet (and it didn't used to be the case) meekly sitting in the corner for 48hrs doing nothing while waiting for their lords and masters at Openreach to get back to them.  If I want someone to do something in a sensible timeframe, I hassle them until it's done, because years of experience tell me that unfortunately that's the only way 99% of people will do it.  This wait-for-48hrs until they respond nonsense is nothing more than a prolonged teabreak for Openreach, and I'm saddened to see ISPs inadvertently complicit in it, instead of hassling Openreach into actually getting off their backside and doing something.

While I'm ranting, I will add that they also be pointing out to Openreach that if their engineers are going into exchanges and breaking things at weekends, then this "we're not back at work until Monday, so the clock starts then" argument is patently nonsense.  If we have the downside of them working at weekends, which they clearly are, then we should have the upside too.  ISPs need to realise that if customers are not allowed to talk to Openreach directly themselves, then they must pass on their customers views and concerns and reflect their customers' attitudes; basically, they need to figure out whose side they're on, i.e. who's paying the bills.

[pctech]

IDNet are as much a customer of BT as you are of IDNet so they unfortunately have to dance to Openreach's tune.

[karvala]

IDNet are as much a customer of BT as you are of IDNet so they unfortunately have to dance to Openreach's tune.

That doesn't make sense.  IDNet are indeed customers of BT, and I am indeed a customer of IDNet.  Just as I therefore expect IDNet to dance to my tune, since I'm paying the piper, it would follow that Openreach should be dancing to IDNet's for a similar reason, not the other way around.  That is exactly the problem: ISPs have been fooled by Openreach into somehow thinking that Openreach are doing them a favour when in fact Openreach can only exist and operate due to the income they receive from ISPs.  ISPs need to assert themselves over Openreach, for their own sake and on behalf of their customers.

[Steve]

Whilst I agree but is there any other option but the enhanced care package, that's the only way currently to get OpenReach to pull their finger out for the end user.

[karvala]

Yes, and I'm strongly opposed to the existence of those care packages in principle.  That's like me working on your car, and breaking it while working on it.  If you want me to repair the damage I did in a timely fashion, then sorry, but you'll have to pay me some more money.

Talk about a conflict of interest.  I wouldn't be surprised if Openreach actually employed people to break connections in order to sell enhanced care packages.  It was the same at Liverpool airport.  I travelled through there a couple of times after they'd started their security "fast lane".  Looked like a conflict of interest to me, since the only reason people needed a fast lane was because the same people who were asking for the money were clearly doing an inadequate job in processing everyone else.  Turns out later that's exactly what they were doing - they had been specifically instructed to let the queues build up in order to get people to pay to be fast-tracked.

I think the moment you allow incentives (aka bribes) for people to perform better, you inadvertently but inevitably create a situation where they will choose to perform worse for everyone who is unable or unwilling to pay the bribe.

[karvala]

DAY FOUR

Still no internet connection.  More than 24hrs after I spoke to them yesterday, had not heard a word from IDNet.  Phoned them, and it turns out the reason for that was that they hadn't bothered checking the status of the ticket at all.  I suspect if I hadn't phoned them I would still be sitting here with the same situation this time tomorrow.  It used to be the case if someone was on day four with no functional internet connection, that Simon, Tim or Miriam would be bending over backwards to try and get it sorted.  Now apparently even logging in and checking the status of a ticket once per day is too much to ask.  This is certainly not the company I joined nearly ten years ago.

Openreach in fact had got back to them to say that they had changed their minds and there was no problem on their equipment after all, and so we have an engineer's visit tomorrow.  I'm guessing that either faceplate or the Openreach modem are the prime candidates now, although the modem lights are all behaving entirely normally.  What are the odds the engineer will check things here, find that they're fine and start a game of tennis with the guys who check the exchange?  Rather high, I suspect.

[pctech]

I don't disagree with you at all but alas until Ofcom start getting tough on BT (unlikely) the situation is not likely to change.

Not sure why the Customer Service has got worse.

If you are on ADSL could always ring and ask for your MAC.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Karvala,

Sorry to hear you are dissatisfied with the support you have received. In fairness we are monitoring tickets as regularly as possible to ensure a swift resolution to customers issues and will normally respond to customers as soon as an update is received from BT.

As mentioned, originally this was thought to be a problem on BTs side but following further diagnostics they rejected the case back to us for engineering appointment.

I can assure you you would have received an update today but due to the work load at present it did not come first thing as you might normally expect.

Hopefully the engineer will resolve your issue tomorrow but should the case continue be assured the team will do everything to have your case resolved in a timely manner.

Miriam
IDNet Support

[karvala]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for the reply.  Firstly about customer service:-

(1)  I appreciate you're busy, but I don't believe you're busier than I am (I worked 105 hours last week), and if I can find time to make a call, so can you guys.  If it's really that much of a problem, employ more staff.  I'm sure you agree that being busy isn't a good excuse for lowering standards.

(2) You assure me that I would have received an update today, but where is the evidence?  BT had posted an update on the case (I don't know when; it could even have been yesterday for all I know), but I hadn't received any contact by gone 11am when I called.  Furthermore, on Sunday when the ticket was first posted I was promised a return call within half an hour with the results of a line test, and the call never happened.  A couple of hours later I called for the results myself, and was again promised a return call and again it didn't happen; I waited until the end of the day and there was no return call at all.  The only evidence I have in this case so far is that not a single promised contact has actually happened, so you'll understand my scepticism.  Perhaps you are being let down by your choice of out-of-hour service?

(3) You need to way less deferential towards Openreach, who are taking you guys for a ride.  There are plenty of documented cases on here about that, but look at my update below if you want yet more evidence.

-------------------

UPDATE

So, about an hour after a BT engineer's appointment is scheduled for tomorrow, and without any changes whatsoever at my end or as far as I'm aware at IDNet's end, the connection mysteriously comes back online.  Anyone reading poor Niall's long-running case won't be surprised to see that pattern.  Openreach have not, however, posted any update on their system I am told, and deny having made any changes.  So what is it?  An act of God that just happens to coincide with an engineer appointment being booked?  Do me a favour.  It is clear that it WAS an Openreach problem and they clearly HAVE done something.

The one remaining problem is that my IP profile is set artificially low to around 47Mbps (you can see from my sig that I was previously connecting at around 77Mbps, with a 74Mbps real download capability), but I'm told that the DLM should update the profile within 72 hours.

So here is the customer service challenge for you, Miriam: I, as the customer who has paid for the connection and been without it since Saturday, would like an explanation as to (i) what went wrong, and (ii) who fixed it.  Your support team have already been clearly lied to by Openreach who claim they didn't do anything, and the lie is passed on to me, and I find that unacceptable.  Time to call Openreach to account and not take any more of their BS.

[Steve]

Unless you know your sync which I assume you don't your IP profile on FTTC is around 88.9% of sync, there should be no playing 'catch up' like on old adslmax.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Karvala,

Re: Customer Service Challenge.

BT held on to the claim that they had taken no action to resolve the issue at this stage. They had completed diagnostics to rule out a BT network issue and offered an engineer. However, on further investigation I have found the following report from Openreach:
op03/AI/00684476 ORSA103: Configuration Issue
no previous field engineering work
Outcome Code :  Fail 
Description :  DS SNR Margin has exceeded threshold from real time check
MFL :  CI

This confirms the issue was firmly on BTs side and identified as a configuration issue. Although I cannot get anyone in BT (not even our account manager) to admit they have taken action and there is no record of anyone physically making any changes relating to your service, they have clearly reconfigured your circuit resulting is the restoration of your connection, albeit with the slower speeds which you are now monitoring. Should the speeds not restore I am to understand you will be contacting us so we can continue the investigation for you.

Re: Customer service

I sincerely apologise for the continued lack of response you have received. It is understandable from the past experiences that you mention in your post that you would have little faith in the Support Team managing your case effectively and responding in a timely manner.

There is no excuse for failed call backs when they are promised and I am certainly taking this feedback on board and ensuring the Team, out of hours included, understand this is absolutely unacceptable. Changes will be made to improve the customer service experience immediately.

Miriam
IDNet Support

[karvala]

Unless you know your sync which I assume you don't your IP profile on FTTC is around 88.9% of sync, there should be no playing 'catch up' like on old adslmax.

Thanks Steve.  To be honest that's what I thought too, but the support guy said that while it should change it immediately, sometimes it fails and then gets updated within 72 hours instead.  I'm not entirely convinced, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until Friday afternoon to see.

[cavillas]

Watch out support staff and BT Miriam is on a mission.

[karvala]

Many thanks Miriam, that's an excellent response.  I think it's appalling how BT blatantly lie to you, and good that you're not trying to protect them.

I will keep an eye on the speed and be in touch if it doesn't recover by Friday afternoon, but otherwise I think we say that I'm a satisfied customer again.

Best wishes.

[karvala]

Just a brief update on this for information more than anything else, in case anyone else comes across a similar situation: the IP profile on my connection is apparently increasing incrementally across a period of days.  It started out around 47Mbps, then upped to around 56Mbps, and at the moment is around 71Mbps (and I may have not noticed some steps in between those).  This has been over a period of three days.  I'm hoping that next week it will eventually find it's way back to the 77Mbps that it was before the connection went down, but in any case this seems to be evidence that IP profiles are not always instantly reset on FTTC, but do seem to follow an ADSL-like incremental path.

[Niall]

Miriam is rather ace. She phoned me out of the blue the other day and Brian and herself are monitoring what's going on with my line and are trying to find out what/who is resetting my line before engineer visits so my fault never gets fixed. Every company should have a Miriam

[Clive]

Amen to that!  Miriam is the greatest!   

[pctech]

Creep 

[Clive]

I know!     I can't help myself. 

[karvala]

And here we go again.  Last week I am told that if the IP Profile has not updated itself back to where it was before the fault, I should contact support and they will ask BT to reset it.  So I give it plenty of time to reset itself, it fails to reach the pre-fault level so I contact support, and now I'm told "we have no way of resetting it".  It looks as though the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It has been suggested that I should instead reboot my router, and this will reset the IP Profile.  I have a strong suspicion that this in fact not true, given that the profile was already updating itself without the router needing to be rebooted, and which raises the question of why I'm being told this, but would anybody care to comment?

[Simon]

Have you spoken to Miriam direct?  As she had taken it on, perhaps she'd be the best one to talk to?

[Steve]

I do wonder whether the advice you been given is for VDSL, sounds ok for adsl but 

[karvala]

I do wonder whether the advice you been given is for VDSL, sounds ok for adsl but 

Yes, that was might feeling as well.  Anyway, I tried it just to humour them, and surprise surprise, it made no difference at all to the IP profile.  Once again, a member of the IDNet support team have shown themselves completely incapable of doing their job, and given a response which amounts to "go away".  How many more times are we supposed to put up with this before someone gets handed their P45?  My direct debit is due in a couple of weeks, and if anyone at IDNet thinks for a moment that I'll be handing over the money while this shambolic situation remains ongoing, they can think again.  This is a two-way business contract, not a charitable contribution.

[karvala]

Have you spoken to Miriam direct?  As she had taken it on, perhaps she'd be the best one to talk to?

I haven't, not because I don't have an e-mail address for her and I've been too busy at work to take time out to get through to support on the phone, but I certainly will be tomorrow, and I will asking to make an official complaint against Nick, because I'm sick and tired of being fobbed off by morons who think their number one job remit is to make customers go away as fast as possible.  If he wants to mess me around and waste my time, he'd better be prepared to take the consequences.

[andrue]

It has been suggested that I should instead reboot my router, and this will reset the IP Profile.

Sort of correct. The IP profile on 21cn (aka WB(M)C) is linked to the PPP session. If the modem resync occurs fast enough the PPP session sometimes hangs on and the profile won't change. By rebooting the router you are ensuring that a new PPP session is established and it will then pick up the latest profile.

[karvala]

Sort of correct. The IP profile on 21cn (aka WB(M)C) is linked to the PPP session. If the modem resync occurs fast enough the PPP session sometimes hangs on and the profile won't change. By rebooting the router you are ensuring that a new PPP session is established and it will then pick up the latest profile.

Many thanks for the info, but it leaves me confused about one thing: how has my IP profile updated at least three times during which time there was no modem resync?

[andrue]

Many thanks for the info, but it leaves me confused about one thing: how has my IP profile updated at least three times during which time there was no modem resync?

Dunno. That doesn't jibe with how everyone thinks it works. I can see how a profile might be out of whack once and need a router kick to get it back in touch. In effect there's two profiles in play.

The 'official' profile is what DLM wants you to have.
The 'active' profile is what your session currently has.

I assume there's logic that stops the active profile being higher than the official profile but otherwise I don't think BT's systems care. Some ISPs might also have their own profile (PlusNet used to).

But there's clearly more here than we know. My line for instance has a fault that means every 60 days there's a leap in latency for 4 to 5 days which is eventually cured by a router reset. This last time Support created a test login for me and the fault was still present on the new login. So we know it's not a line issue and we know it's not specific to my account (which I think rules out the BRAS) but it means there's something else most likely specific to my physical connection (ie; in the cabinet) that can have an impact.

It's all very mysterious and personally I find it fascinating. Then again I only suffer for 4 or 5 days so can afford to be sanguine

[karvala]

Yes, it all sounds rather mysterious.  A quick bit of googling revealed other people who also have reported that their IP profile updated without needing to reboot their modems or routers , so the conventional wisdom that this isn't possible without a modem resync, and that even with a modem resync a router reboot might also be necessary, may not be correct or applicable in all cases.

The whole thing would be a good deal less mysterious if I didn't have a locked ECI modem.  I haven't the time or inclination to crack it open and start soldering on serial connections, and without that it seems like it's impossible to get any stats out of it, so while I can say that I certainly haven't rebooted the modem, and my TBBM doesn't show any downtime except when I manually rebooted it today at the request of IDNet support, it's hard to be definitive without access to the modem uptime stats.

The info about the official and active profiles is interesting.  I don't think that's related to my problem, though, because as far as I understand it, you are there describing the situation where the active profile has dropped but the lack of a new PPP session means that the official profile still looks high, giving an apparently inexplicable drop in performance.  I've come across such cases, and that makes sense, although of course resyncing in such a situation will not actually improve the speed, it will simply allow the official profile to catch up with the active profile.

Or alternatively, do you mean the official profile is some sort of long-term target profile?  That would be an interesting possibility, but then it begs the question: how does one find out what the official profile for a particular line is?  The IP profile from something like the BT speedtester under this definition would presumably give the active profile.  I have a suspicion that my official/target profile has been set to a lower value than it was before the fault occurred, and that the active profile has reached this value and remained steady on it for the last 5-6 days now, but it would good to get that confirmed.

I read your thread about the 60 day problem, and it's certainly mysterious.  I think, as others have said in that thread, that knowing whether or not your neighbours/others connected to the cabinet, suffer from the same problem would be very useful to know.  If so, it might imply something in the vicinity, though I don't really buy interference as causing those types of symptoms; otherwise it implies something timed in the cabinet or the exchange.  It's certainly not something from your equipment or local line; that seems very clear.

[andrue]

I think that your active profile is supposed to follow the official profile it's just that sometimes your PPP session survives the resyn so the profile just get updated. In that situation your throughput will be lower than expected from your sync. As you say though it doesn't sound like your issue.

[mervl]

Don't know whether it has any bearing but my own German (AVM) modem/router (in place of OpenReach modem) reports three figures from the cab DSLAM presumably affected by the DLM and negotiated (I assume) with the modem:
sync rate (as for any modem/router)
a higher maximum, and minimum (50% of the maximum) rate
attainable rate (best the line can support). Interleaving is always on.

The IP profile reported by the BT checker  (not, I believe affected by DLM) is different again, at a maximum of slightly less than the sync rate as expected, and is approached by (but never exceed by) the best throughput.

For my line (capped at 40Mbps) it's all as expected with attainable highest, and sync at 39992 just below the (capped) reported maximum rate at 40000 and has been like that for 15 months. Like Andrue I get occasional bursts of latency disturbance and lower throughputs without any significant changes reported by the modem (other than I've noticed a strange jump in INP on the last occasion without any change in error rates to justify it), which correct themselves within a couple of days.

I don't think anyone on the operational side of OpenReach (or Wholesale) understands the DLM - only perhaps the boffins in BT research at Martlesham who don't get their hands dirty on the ground. It sometimes goes awry, and sometimes a disconnect at the modem for say 1/2 hour can facilitate a correction, but sometimes not. When my line goes temporarily awry it looks as though it always ends with an automatic  resync.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Karvala,

ISPs cannot reset the profile of an FTTC or FTTP circuit. The DLM on these types of circuits is fully automated and self correcting.

If your circuit holds sync for a period of 48-72 hours it builds new profiles in that time to be applied on the next resync. This is achieved by rebooting the Openreach modem, rebooting your router will only drop PPP.

If your profile is not automatically reset upon resync and you feel it should be the only option available is to raise a fault to BT requesting an engineer visit (chargeable), if the engineer determines that there is indeed a problem he can request BT reset the profile manually.

There is no way for us to request the profile reset, only the engineer can request it. Unbelievable I know, but BT have never been the most logical bunch...

I have read the response Nick sent to you and find it courteous, informative and accurate. However, i do appreciate being told to reboot the router can sometimes appear to be a fob-off.

I hope this has provided some clarity on the subject.

Kind regards,

Miriam
Technical and Customer Services Manager
IDNet

[karvala]

"Should the speeds not restore I am to understand you will be contacting us so we can continue the investigation for you."  That was what you said to me, it's written right here in this thread.  The speeds have not restored, hence I contacted you, and naturally enough I expected you therefore to continue to investigate, exactly as stated here.  That's why I sound put out - instead of getting the promised investigation I got a reply telling me to reboot my router and if I'm lucky things will magically return to normal, even though I suspect it was pretty obvious to both Nick and myself that this was not likely to happen.  Just for the record, I did reboot my router and unsurprisingly it made absolutely no difference at all.

This is why I no longer trust IDNet support - you promise something, I keep my side of the bargain, but you don't deliver on yours, instead you just opt for the fastest and most flippant response.  I was promised an investigation (as opposed to an instruction to reboot my router) into the fact the speed is now lower than it was before the fault.  Are you now going to deliver on that promise?

[karvala]

Hi again Miriam,

Addressing some your other comments while I'm here:-

If your circuit holds sync for a period of 48-72 hours it builds new profiles in that time to be applied on the next resync. This is achieved by rebooting the Openreach modem, rebooting your router will only drop PPP.

That's interesting, and of course if you say that then I'm sure you must be right, but it's worth noting that many other experts are saying that it is precisely a refresh of the PPP session that actually allows the profile to change, rather than a resync, so there appears to be some confusion in this area.

There is no way for us to request the profile reset, only the engineer can request it. Unbelievable I know, but BT have never been the most logical bunch...

Are you seriously saying that you can't pick up the phone to your BT account manager and say "We have got a customer whose IP profile is lower after a recent outage and is not increasing beyond its present level; can you ask an engineer to reset his profile please?"  You honestly can't do that?  Because if so, that is completely insane.  What would happen if you did do that?

If your profile is not automatically reset upon resync and you feel it should be the only option available is to raise a fault to BT requesting an engineer visit (chargeable)

That's the only option?  So you can't, for example, look at my line stats and say whether or not in your expert opinion my line would support a higher speed?  That would be very interesting and relevant information, since my line clearly supported a higher speed prior to the fault; if the line stats have changed after the fault it would be further evidence that BT did change something in spite of claiming not to.  It would also tell me whether or not it is worth trying to achieve a higher speed.  I can't access that information myself because I am forced by BT to use a locked EIC modem which provides me with no information, but I assume that you guys can?

I have read the response Nick sent to you and find it courteous, informative and accurate. However, i do appreciate being told to reboot the router can sometimes appear to be a fob-off.

In the circumstances of a promised speed investigation, I'd say it's almost inevitable that it will look like a fob-off.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Karvala,

Apologies for the delayed response, the Gig Circuit failure has demanded my attention for the best part of the day.

Please see below comments from our Account Manager and Product Team at BT Wholesale regarding the ability to reset a profile on FTTC products.

'Hi Miriam

See below a response from the product team. They would like me reiterate that this is only done in exceptional circumstances and has only been carried out once in 12 months.

We do not offer a reset of profile as a product feature either in L2C or T2R.

That is not to say that OR can't do it if we ask them, but we generally do not do this.
Our reasons are that DLM manages the line speed through profiling, giving the best speed that the line will run at with a reasonable amount of stability. It can take a few days to do this either at provision or following a hard fault corrective action. If you have a line running on a given profile, resetting it simply puts the line into a temporary state for a period until the speed is managed back down by DLM. If the line has been stable continuously the DLM will build a new profile where applicable, this is applied at the next resync.

There are occasions where we break from this rule, but they are few and far between. An example of this is that a line running at (for example) 60Mb, it impacted by a copper fault which slows the line down to say 25Mb. When the fault is corrected the engineer should reset the profile as BAU, sometimes this does not happen, and a small percentage of these occasions, we have seen DLM not manage the profile back up. In very exceptional cases like this, we have requested a profile reset following the standard escalation procedure and it has helped.'
As is clearly shown here, ISPs are not given access to reset the SNR of FTTC circuits, the standard procedure is to raise a fault, push for an engineer. If the engineer does not arrange the reset as he does not feel it is required we can then raise an escalation to Openreach via BT Wholesale to push for this action.

If we request our Account Manager take action to have the profile reset he will simply refer us back to the Handbook and escalation procedure, he will not intervene unless an escalation procedure has failed.

Regarding the promises to investigate further, as is the case for any customer, if a problem persists we will 'investigate further' meaning we will assess the situation, re run any relevant tests and progress the case to BT where necessary. This process does sometimes require the customer retest or carry out another local diagnostic to assist with the investigation. If the customer finds there is still no change after they complete the requested tests we will pass the case on to BT for the next stage.

BT Wholesale and Openreach have not provided ISPs with access to view the line stats of FTTC circuits. It is not therefore possible for us to offer you this detail, we can only follow the standard procedures laid out by BT in addition to using our own logic and experience to stream line the process.

I am sorry you feel you can no longer trust us here at IDNet however, I fully stand by my staff and support them as I know that they perform to the best of their ability with the given tools. Granted, as is the case with any support team there will be times where improvements can be made, that is where I step in and up the focus and impetus of the team and re train where necessary. I have addressed the initial issue of lack of call backs when promised but the technical ability of my team is certainly and without a doubt above par.

We have always had  a policy of honesty with our customers and will not sugar coat or mislead customers to make our lives easier, sometimes this is not the answer the customer wants however it is the best policy in the long run. If there is anything further we can do for a customer, I can assure everyone reading, we will already have done it to have the case closed and a happy customer as quickly as possible.

If you truly feel you cannot trust myself or my team any longer in supporting your issues please do let us know so we can have a MAC generated for you should you wish to migrate to another provider.

Regards,

Miriam
Technical and Customer Services Manager
IDNet

[karvala]

Hi Miriam,

Many thanks for the comprehensive reply, especially on a day in which you had the outage.  I appreciate you obtaining and providing that information.

It seems clear that you are largely powerless in the face of BT procedures; you're not given access to almost any relevant information and told that you have to rigidly follow a set procedure even when basic logic and common sense suggest that an alternative approach would be much productive.  That's a pity, but no surprise given who is behind it.

Contrary to what you might think, I am not just here to have a go at you, I am actually trying to do you a favour.  Reputable companies go to considerable lengths to obtain honest and evidence-based customer feedback, and I believe I have provided you with a number of valid points supported by evidence.  You might think I'm just a nuisance customer who should take a MAC code and go away, but I am actually trying to help you manage customer expectations, which is the principal reason I wanted to do this in public; some of the other customers I brought with me have made similar comments to me in private, and I daresay other people have thought similar things.  If the precise restrictions on what you are able to do, and what information you have available, were more widely known, you might find customers have more realistic expectations.

Anyway, I'm happy to leave it there for the time being, unless my speeds fall below a level which even BT would be willing to investigate (i.e. something slower than a carrier pigeon!).

[cavillas]

fAs ar as I am concerned Idnet have always been upfront and honest in all of their explanations and problem solving.  Unlike some other companies who always give you the answer you want, even when they can do nothing about it and then leave you in ignorance.

[Niall]

fAs ar as I am concerned Idnet have always been upfront and honest in all of their explanations and problem solving.  Unlike some other companies who always give you the answer you want, even when they can do nothing about it and then leave you in ignorance.

I agree, and what Miriam says above is actually what she told me when she phoned me (a call I wasn't expecting I should add!).

Basically it appears to me that there's a massive lack of training on BTs side, although after speaking with two very pleasant and honest engineers, one for installing FTTC and the other for the fault, they told me that BT are re-training ex army people for the FTTC rollout and they have very limited knowledge of the system themselves. One thing that I was and am aware of is that BT seem to actively lie about what they do, and not only that they are now seemingly trying to hide what they are doing from the ISPs. It's possible it's purely to keep the work on target for their rollout, so engineers aren't distracted by fault fixing, but it comes across as far too secretive and when someone tells you something from BT and your ISP tells you the opposite how on earth is a customer supposed to know who is telling the  truth? For me it's been a case of a year and a half of being bounced back and forth from support to engineer. Now seemingly this is due to BT resetting the line before visits (although I'm still waiting for Brian to get back to me to confirm this, after Miriam's call to me) and denying they do it, leaving me and the ISP getting nowhere.

When I've got confirmation (if support can get it) that BT are resetting the line before visits, I'm thinking of referring it to my MP to get BT to compensate me as I've lost count of the days off I've had to take because of faults, and am (nor are support) any wiser. Clearly BT faults cause it, but resetting the line is wasting my time, my annual leave and supports valuable time.

[karvala]

Now seemingly this is due to BT resetting the line before visits (although I'm still waiting for Brian to get back to me to confirm this, after Miriam's call to me) and denying they do it, leaving me and the ISP getting nowhere.

I think they definitely do that; they did that in my case as well.  There was a fault somewhere on their side because their system reported it.  Then for no reason at all they suddenly declared that there wasn't a fault on their side after all.  As a result, an engineer's visit was booked, and within an hour of that booking being made, and before the visit could actually take place, mysteriously the connection was suddenly okay again.  That's way too much of a coincidence if you ask me; I think it is clear that they won't do anything unless an engineer's visit is booked, and then they suddenly spring into action and reset the line before the visit.  If I were cynical, I'd say they did it in order that they could then charge someone (ISP or customer) for the engineer's visit, as of course the engineer won't find anything.

The whole thing is shrouded under a veil of secrecy and lies that can only be described as fraudulant.  You should certainly take it to your MP.  If you're feeling mischievous you should also put in a freedom of information request to BT asking for details of all action taken on your line in the six months; let's see if they're prepared to break the law and give a false response.

[andrue]

I think they definitely do that;

It's struck me as odd that after an engineer visit on Sunday my line had it's first ever major resync. Down from 73Mb/s to 66Mb/s even though attainable rate is 77Mb/s. It also has interleave on it now. What makes it more odd is that my line has been pretty stable for the last year. We didn't even want the engineer to look at the line since IDNet and myself are pretty sure the problem lies elsewhere in BT's network.

So an engineer visits a line that has been sat at 73Mb/s for three months and 24 hours later it resyncs down to 66Mb/s 

[karvala]

It's struck me as odd that after an engineer visit on Sunday my line had it's first ever major resync. Down from 73Mb/s to 66Mb/s even though attainable rate is 77Mb/s. It also has interleave on it now. What makes it more odd is that my line has been pretty stable for the last year. We didn't even want the engineer to look at the line since IDNet and myself are pretty sure the problem lies elsewhere in BT's network.

So an engineer visits a line that has been sat at 73Mb/s for three months and 24 hours later it resyncs down to 66Mb/s 

Yeah, I think that's another part of it as well.  Mine had also been rock solid connecting at 77Mbps and getting a good real download speed, but after the line was reset it will mysteriously not sync above 71Mbps under any circumstances, even though the line clearly supports it.  I reckon BT "solve" problems by just downgrading the connection in some way.  That was actually the basis of my argument with IDNet support; I think if a line has previously supported a particular speed, BT should be challenged on why it is no longer connecting at that speed.  They must know.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Niall,

We havent forgotten about you!!

I've chased BT again this morning for you, will be in touch as soon as I have their response.

Kind regards,

Miriam
IDNet Support

[peasblossom]

Niall, for FoI requests try: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/  It sounds like it would be illuminating for many to know what's been going on at BT's end of things. If you already know about this site, sorry.