Training

[Dangerjunkie]

One more day to  go til IDNet happiness  (assuming that Openreach work their magic as promised)

I've heard some people say that I should reset my modem every day (don't know what time of day) during the training period to get the best results. I've also heard other people say I shouldn't. What's the best advice on this please? My modem is going to be the new DrayTek Vigor 110 (arriving today with an ADSLNation faceplate.)

I think I'm going to leave my extension wiring and Sky+ box disconnected during the training period (I'm over my year contract with Sky so I don't have to keep it connected any more.) Is this the best way to go?

Thanks,
Paul.

edit: This is a new line being installed so I don't have an existing profile and will be training from scratch.

[Rik]

Hi Paul

Definitely leave the Sky box and any extensions disconnected if you can. While the 10 day 'training' period doesn't set your speed in stone, it does fix the fault threshold rate, and you want this to be as high as possible (because BT don't accept there is a fault on the line until speeds are below this figure).

I left my running through the 10 day period, but as you're using a modem, I'd suggest powering it down when you've finished at night, and powering back up the next day. TBH, it shouldn't make a huge difference either way.

Once the filtered face plate is fitted, you've effectively disconnected your extension wiring, btw.

[Dangerjunkie]

Thanks Rik,

I'm going to be using a modem and a separate firewall/router rather than an integrated modem router. It will be servicing more than one computer.

[Rik]

Hi Paul

AAMOI, why did you go for the separate router and modem, rather than the combined?

[Dangerjunkie]

I already had the firewall. It's IPCop ( http://www.ipcop.org ) and I really get on well with it. It does things like stateful packet inspection and Snort IDS and has (almost) unlimited routing table entries, Dynamic DNS integration, plugins and all kinds of great features.

It's currently fed over Ethernet from my Virgin Media modem  (Damn their service stinks now) I got the ADSL modem as a plug in replacement for the cable modem to save having to replace the firewall with a new one and rebuild all the routing tables. The only change I have to make is to change the access method from direct to PPPoE and put my IDNet login details in. I guess I perceived it as the path of least resistance (I liek to minimise the number of changes I make to a system at a time as it makes fault finding easier.) The firewall can handle multiple external IPs too if I decide to upgrade to Business Max later on.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rik]

Thanks, just curious.

[Dangerjunkie]

My modem and faceplate just arrived thanks to BroadbandBuyer and those nice people at Citylink.

I notice that the phone cable in the box with the modem is the flat kind. Should I get a piece of CAT5 and knock up a twisted one or is nit not likely to make a lot of difference?

Thanks,
Paul.

[Rik]

It won't make a huge difference, Paul, but if you can do it, it's worth it.

[Sebby]

Your modem may not actually disconnect when the computer is switched off anyway, Paul.

It doesn't really matter either way, anyway. Personally, I'd leave it on all the time. I think the powering down each day thing was a bit of a myth in the early days of max.

[Dangerjunkie]

The firewall runs 24/7 so the modem will always see a computer whether any of the workstations or servers is on or not.

What is the pinout of the cable from the ADSL faceplate to the modem? Which pins are the twisted pair?

Thanks,
Paul.

[Sebby]

Sorry, Paul, I'm not sure what you mean...

[Dangerjunkie]

Sorry, I'm not at my best and most eloquent today...

The faceplate to modem cable is an RJ11-4/6 crossover.

One end:   Absent-Yellow-Green-Red-Black-Absent
Other end: Absent-Black-Red-Green-Yellow-Absent

Traditionally I believe the Red-Green wires are a pair and will carry the signal and the Black-Yellow pair are unused. However I have seen some installations where the Black-Yellow pair are active and the Red-Gren pair are unused.

I just wanted to check the Red-Green and Black-Yellow are indeed pairs and whether I should take both pairs to the modem to get the best results or only one pair (and if so which one)

Cheers,
Paul.

Edit: fixed typo

[Rik]

Hi Paul

I'm not sure, but Dean will definitely know. I'll PM him and ask him to take a look at the thread. Of course, if Sebby knows, I'll be wasting everyone's time.

[Sebby]

No idea.

[Dangerjunkie]

Thanks guys

Next silly question... Does the amount of traffic I use affect training? Will I get different results if I leave the modem and firewall plugged in and don't use the line than if I hammer it? I still have my old provider line in so I can do either.

Thanks,
Paul.

[Rik]

Hi Paul

These might help:

http://www.chaminade.org/MIS/Tutorials/Cat5Cables.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJ11,_RJ14,_RJ25

[Rik]

Traffic doesn't affect training - the latter is essentially looking at sync speed for the most part. I was able to be away for a chunk of my training period, with just the router connected.

[LesD]

Red & Green are the pair put them on the centre pair of pins (of the six possibilities) on both the RJ11 and/or RJ45, crossed or uncrossed it doesn't seem to matter. This is the standard arrangement for a modem cable. I made one up just last evening to lengthen the one for my backup dial-up connection and it worked a treat.

You could use the yellow and black ones provided you put them on the centre pair of plug connectors at each end.

[Dangerjunkie]

Thanks *Reaches for his crimp tool*

I'll keep my amateur radio off for the 10 days too, want to keep the fault threshold as high as I can

Is there any way to know when the training has completed and what the final threshold is?

Thanks,
Paul.

[LesD]

Is there any way to know when the training has completed and what the final threshold is?

Run the BT SpeedTest this will show you what your IP Profile is:

http://test.speedtester.bt.com/

After the 10 days this should have settled to a stable value.

[Sebby]

Is there any way to know when the training has completed and what the final threshold is?

A common misconception is that the training period is actually different to once it's finished. In fact, nothing is any different during the training period; the connection is as rate-adaptive as it will always be. The 10 days is literally to establish the values mentioned earlier in this thread, and so that BT don't have lots of work during the early days of a connection when things may be settling.

The only problem is that sometimes the profile gets stuck when you move from a fixed-rate product to a max product, but generally this clears after 5 days, i.e. within the training period. Therefore, as such, there is nothing to look at once the training has officially ended.

[Dangerjunkie]

Thanks Sebby. My concern is that I want to make sure my FTR is set before I do anything like operating a radio transmitter near it. I don't want to end up with an FTR so low that it becomes difficult to report faults.

Cheers,
Paul.

[g7pkf]

Red & Green are the pair put them on the centre pair of pins (of the six possibilities) on both the RJ11 and/or RJ45, crossed or uncrossed it doesn't seem to matter. This is the standard arrangement for a modem cable. I made one up just last evening to lengthen the one for my backup dial-up connection and it worked a treat.

You could use the yellow and black ones provided you put them on the centre pair of plug connectors at each end.

keep HF off definately.  above is correct centre pair are the used pair. keep cable as shorrt as possible, if you want to really belt and braces it use screened and earth the screen.

dean

[Dangerjunkie]

I've arrived

Initial BT speed test showed me syncing at 5920/832 so if that keeps up it looks like I'm on track for a 5000 profile. 

I've got a 2000 profile now and I can't believe how much faster and more responsive it is than my Virgin Media 4MB package. I just got a speedtest.net of 1450/64 on that! (Yes - sixty four) It was down to less than 512 download on Sunday. 

Thanks everyone. Life is good

[Rik]

I take it you're not connected from home, atm?

[Dangerjunkie]

I'm at home but I'm on VM at the mo. Only my laptop in my office is on IDNet right now.

I'm going to change the house network over when I get the time. It's going to be a bit of a job tho as I'm overdue for changing the IP subnet and I need to reconfigure all the statics and rewrite my DNS zone files.

[Rik]

You had me worried, I could see it was a VM connection and I was beginning to think something had gone wrong...

[Simon]

Great news, DJ! 

[Dangerjunkie]

Nothing wrong here  *logs in from a real address*

I can't believe how much better "real" 2meg is than "pretend" 4meg. Syncing lower this morning at just about 5100. Should still end up with a heathly profile at the end

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rik]

You seem to be looking at a 4000k profile, Paul, so may actually get what VM merely promised.  

[Sebby]

Yep, you'll probably find that the SNRM deteriorated too much at night so the router re-sync'd. A sync of ~5100k is good and will give you a 4000k (or if it improves a bit more a 4500k) profile.

[Dangerjunkie]

You seem to be looking at a 4000k profile, Paul, so may actually get what VM merely promised.  

Thanks guys

NTL were good, I used to max my modem out to 4meg with almost any download from a major site. Ever since VM took over things have got rapidly worse. My hypothesis is that they started upgrading everyone to higher speeds for no extra charge and offering the 20meg "fastest broadband in Britain" package. Unfortunately they didn't seem to have enough money from what the subscribers were paying to upgrade their network to cope with the traffic that the kind of people that buy a 20meg package will generate. Either that or the marketing people didn't bother to ask the engineers (no surprise there really) what the infrastructure could actually support.

The result... Yesterday my stats were down to 11kbps down and 64k up for a period and I don't think I've seen over 500k down in the last month. Everything is getting throttled and they still want to introduce Phorm to try and make enough money to stay afloat. Thank Mark Shuttleworth (or a deity of your choice) I'm out of there as soon as my IDNet training is done.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rik]

I think you're right, Paul, like the other big ISPs they sold capacity they didn't have and hoped no-one would notice.

[Danni]

Thank Mark Shuttleworth (or a deity of your choice) I'm out of there as soon as my IDNet training is done.

Ubuntu user as well? Or just liking African spacemen?

[Dangerjunkie]

hehehe... Kubuntu Gutsy on my laptops and Debian Etch on my server.

I can't worship Steve Jobs but I don't own a Mac or an iPhone.

[Tacitus]

I can't worship Steve Jobs but I don't own a Mac or an iPhone.

I use Macs because they work (Unix underneath), not because I worship Steve Jobs.   

That said I need to have a WinTel box for occasional work use. I was thinking of putting in another drive and having a play with either Kubuntu or Suse, which is the one the local LUG suggest.  Suse (Novell) is a little bit tainted though by its association with the evil empire..   

[Dangerjunkie]

Hi,

I'd give Kubuntu a go. I've never been totally sure about the Kubuntu CD. I always install Ubuntu (comes with the Gnome window manager which is a little more like Mac than Windows) then install the package "kubuntu-desktop" in the package manager. (then select "kdm" as the login manager when it prompts you.) That way you'll have both Gnome and KDE (which looks a litle more like Windows and doesn't frighten converts) and you can try them both out and decide which you like more.

Training update: Just starting day 3 and my profile just lifted to 4000. Things are good

Good luck,
Paul.

[Sebby]

Training update: Just starting day 3 and my profile just lifted to 4000. Things are good

[Danni]

I've never had problems with the Kubuntu CD. Installing Ubuntu then adding KDE just clutters up my menus and drive with programs I don't want. That's my personal experience though (used Kubuntu for a couple of years now).

[Dangerjunkie]

Hi,

I think I'm seeing some instability. My download sync rate goes up to 5200, stays there for 48 hours then my profile goes up to 4500 to match. The next night the sync seems to drop down to low 4000s and my profile goes down to 3500.

Is there anything I can do to stabilise this? I'm using a Draytek Vigor 110 and a Netscreen firewall and I can't seem to work out how to get the stats out of the modem yet.

Thanks,
Paul.

[Rik]

It sounds like a classic noisy line issue. How many phone sockets do you have and what's connected to them? Do you use any extension leads? Have you removed the ring wire from terminal 3 on all sockets (if you have more than 1)? I've not found the Drayteks to be the best modems for Max.

[Sebby]

As Rik says really. Removal of the ring wire may help, or a filtered faceplate if feasible. A new router could also be the answer (the 2Wire 2700HGV is probably the best at the moment).

[Dangerjunkie]

Hi,

I'm starting to wonder if the speedtester is telling me porkies. Last night it reported my profile was higher than my sync rate and today everything is back as it was with no hit on my profile due to the lower reported sync last night.

I have a brand new NTE5A socket with an ADSLNation XTE2005 faceplate and a modem cable made from CAT5. I haven't connected the extensions yet and there's a single (cr*ppy) phone plugged into the voice port on the master socket.

I chose the DrayTek because I needed a device that could be used as a modem rather than something that always did NAT internally.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rik]

It is possible to have a 'stuck high' profile, Paul. They're rare, but they do happen. The other possibility was that the lower speed didn't last long enough to trigger a change in profile.

Given the wiring you have, any noise issue should be external, so whether anything can be done about it will depend on what your FTR is set to.