Why does it always REIN on me?

[pctech]

Last Friday speed dropped from 3.5 Meg to 1.

Swapped router, filter and RJ11 cable, no change.

BT visit on Thursday, E-side move and line rejumpered at exchange, engineer said errors reduced, no change in throughput.

ISP says lots of errors on upstream, thinks it maybe REIN, tried switching off everything I can with exception of fridge and freezer but no change, getting a horrible feeling its outside.

Anyone had a similar issue and managed to solve it, is there anything I can do to filter the line against it?

[Technical Ben]

Someone in the tiny little village down the road had useless internet for months/years. Eventually an engineer found it was a sky box that had some how developed a fault of putting the live into it's online/telephone cable connection. 

Down the road they could not get more than 0.5 meg down, but were getting 1 meg up. Was like that since day one, and they KEPT paying for it, I'd have left long ago.
Which is very strange IMO as down should always be better than up. As I had no way to deal with the ISP (Virgin) I recommended they did, I could see no errors with their setup. Long story short the engineer found they have no master socket and Sky had wired the dish into the telephone (or what ever sky do... I've no idea I'm staying away from them! ), and it's bad wiring was causing the interference.

[pctech]

Yep I've a feeling its something someone has plugged in, installed or machinery that has come online.

I'm moving my BB back to my landline provider in the hope that they can get a fuller picture and help, also looking into FTTP which is currently being offered at FTTC rates as its still a trial but I dread to think how much it'll be when it comes off trial which is my worry.

[Technical Ben]

I get cut offs all through some parts of the year at exactly mid night. I don't think it's my systems, as even with all electric off it happens. I've just learnt to live with it. 
But if it was during the day, or a time I was using the connection, it would be a massive pain.

[Glenn]

Yep I've a feeling its something someone has plugged in, installed or machinery that has come online.

I'm moving my BB back to my landline provider in the hope that they can get a fuller picture and help, also looking into FTTP which is currently being offered at FTTC rates as its still a trial but I dread to think how much it'll be when it comes off trial which is my worry.

My brother is getting connected this week, for 330mb he was quoted £140/month, but for 78mb £26/month, thats from BT.

[pctech]

Right.

Have been taking advice from the good folks on TBB and been in communication with my ISP.

I've ordered a replacement ADSL Nation filter just in case its that and once that is in place the ISP is going to run some more tests, someone on TBB has suggested its an exchange fault that the engineer didn't pick up.

Provided I get the speed back ADSL provides all I need and don't really want to pay more as I currently pay 15 quid for unlimited.


Don't even want to entertain the idea of using BT Retail.

[Gary]

Right.

Have been taking advice from the good folks on TBB and been in communication with my ISP.

I've ordered a replacement ADSL Nation filter just in case its that and once that is in place the ISP is going to run some more tests, someone on TBB has suggested its an exchange fault that the engineer didn't pick up.

Provided I get the speed back ADSL provides all I need and don't really want to pay more as I currently pay 15 quid for unlimited.


Don't even want to entertain the idea of using BT Retail.

Im not that impressed about adsl nation filters, I think passive ones work well enough and have less to go wrong. I have had two Adsl nation faceplates fail, although their cables are great. tbh the standard mk2 vDSL filter (works on adsl) seems just as good and it has a rein filter built in. A RF3 filter may be better for you but its illegal to tamper with the wiring before the NTE5 so I would go for one of these, Mitch. If you have had a BT engeer out they should fit a RF3 just in case really. Hope it works out, REIN is a nightmare. http://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/btvdslfaceplate.html

[pctech]

Well filter replaced and no improvement

Downstream sync is up to 4395 Kbps.

ISP have gone back to their supplier who has in turn gone back to our favourite telco who say they can't see anything wrong remotely (getting to be a broken record as they said that last time) so they want to arrange visit 2.

meanwhile had a reply on TBB from a guy who seems to be a BT engineer who reckons its at the exchange but hasn't come back to me when I've asked what I should be asking to be done.

[pctech]

Visit 2 set for Monday

[pctech]

Appears OR likes engineers that lie to a customer's face.

Here's a copy of what I've just posted on TBB with some omissions as I know this is IDNet's forum, to say I'm annoyed is an understatement

This gets better and better.

Guy turns up this morning, runs tests, finds sync is fine and line is clear and announces "you should be getting 3.5 Meg"

I reply "well, that's why the fault has been raised, it literally dropped overnight"

Goes to telephone enclosure on side of the house and looks at cabling, disconnects other phone line and house alarm starts beeping as It thinks the line has gone down.

Puts line back and says he has removed a bracket that was crushing the wires and reterminated it.

I offer to start up the PC and run the tests I have been doing (here and speedtest.net), he observes the problem.

Plugs his own machine into my router (I noticed it was Win 8), he runs same tests and gets same result, he looks puzzled.

I ring ISP and go through to tech support and ask him to talk to them, he agrees and I hand the phone over, he asks them about the throughput which I gather they tell him they cannot see but have told him its talktalk business.

He rings TT who refer him back to their wholesale provider.

He says to me that he thinks its an issue at the communications provider and cannot find a line fault but he heads off to the exchange to look at the pairs as he reckons I'm on a slow line.

Comes back one hour later saying he's switched the pairs so I should get better sync and indeed I do but throughput still lousy.

I ring ISP to ask for a Mac as I've been going round in circles for three weeks now and am hoping that a line move might get rid of the issue or at least might cut the length of the chain of parties involved in order to try to get somewhere.

They tell me they .need to wait for the report which has just come back to them and apparently the engineer notes

eclipse test ok. pq test not working. jdsu in sync. rate 3963 kbps. snr 6 db . line attenuation 57.4 db. significant errors seen on d/s. network enhanced. e side changed. rein and shine detected. customer experiencing throughput problems. the customer has a sync speed of 3963 kbps and a throughput of only 0- 1 meg.

At no point did the engineer mention REIN or SHINE to me.
ISP have offered to push the issue back to BT for investigation but am going to try to move to another ISP to see if anything changes.

Any advice welcome on the best way forward if this doesn't work out as I'm getting the feeling OR don't seem to be keen to tackle this one and are quite happy to give several parties the run around but the difference with me being the end user is I have to take days off to deal with this stuff, its what OR and ISP do as their business.

[pctech]

Just to keep y'all up to date (I know this is edge of the seat stuff) further work was done at the exchange but to no avail.

My next door neighbour was kind enough to try switching various bits and pieces off for me in his house on Saturday but alas still nothing, I can't really ask anyone else round here.

Tomorrow I move back to Zen, if I suddenly see a speed jump up I'll know it was an MSAN config fault (I'm crossing my fingers that's all it is) and the REIN stuff was just so the engineer could justify his time.

If no improvement I've already been in discussion with one of their sales reps about FTTP and he's confirmed they don't insist you take a landline so it'll work out cheaper than I thought so will be getting that in motion.

It's so darn annoying though.

[Gary]

Its funny seeing all the code talk on the Zen forums about certain ISP's , TC.  Hope the REIN goes away, I never knew what my issue was, fibre cured it so it probably was REIN effecting me on my E side somewhere.

[pctech]

My move has cured the speed issue so I get the feeling someone somewhere basically didn't know and was just making stuff up to sound plausible and it was a misconfiguration somewhere.

I did drop person at ISP I left a courtesy message to let them know in the hope it helps them to avoid losing custom over screw ups by their supplier but said individual replied indicating he reckoned the line move might have cured the interference issue, yada yada.

After these few weeks of me having to do this that and the other and them not even looking into the possibility it was a configuration issue I can guarantee they won't ever be getting my business again.

Main thing is I'm up and running again, can work from home when required and didn't need to go to the expense of fibre.

@Gary, ah so you know my alter ego over the Zen forums then, nothing gets past you does it

[Gary]

@Gary, ah so you know my alter ego over the Zen forums then, nothing gets past you does it

Always good to have an alter ego Mitch