Slow Speeds since I got the 8meg Max service

[MoHux]

...... 2 Apply 5Kv Flash tester Megger to incoming cables.!!

That would make somebody's eyes light up at the exchange! 

Mo

[g7pkf]

That would make somebody's eyes light up at the exchange! 

Mo

think i might try that BT are stalling on my fault.

I know why-there's no pairs left!! 5KV what damage would it really do?

[Rik]

It might even make a few joints work properly...

[Inactive]

It might even make a few joints work properly...

It would melt your aluminium stuff Rik.

[Rik]

Perfect. 

[g7pkf]

Now where's that old camera flash gun.

Only kidding i wouldnt really do it.

Neither i think would you Rik.

My lines getting worse only a matter of time before it totally fails.

[Rik]

I wouldn't, Dean, I'd be too worried there might be someone working at the other end. 

[hairyman]

Statement---  are  work and BT/Openreach are compatible words?

My cable outside is really rotten , the gray plastic coated armoured item come out of the ground and travels  just up 6 inches up my outside to just above my damp course into the gray box , the thin pair of pairs then goes straight through the wall right there then into my mastersocket right the other side of the cavity wall , the Router is there and the PC above it so minimal cable run.

Inspecting the grey box outside I can see from the old now unused wall plug holes above the box that it has been moved down at least once to overcome the fact that the plastic outer and armouring can be peeled of by hand!! Next rework will entail lowering the grey box into the ground I guess.  Its only 25yrs old max heaven knows what the underground section is like. The above ground bit id in full shade so it not sunlight doing it, I guess the armouring corrodes, expands and bursts off the plastic bit.

The Flash Tester at work will go up to 12Kv DC I have just remembered. Makes the hairs on yr hand stand on end when you get near it!!

As a matter of interest ( I am sure I used to know but my brain cell seem to be on the retreat these days) what DC voltage comes from the exchange to a phone on and off the hook these days. I sort of remember that pulse dialling open circuited the loop during dialling. Tone dialling came along but I guess there are are old phone out there so the system must still cater for them.
I happened to measure 12 volts across the twisted pairs when I was plugging into the test socket for the recent tests.

Ref my Slow Broadband , Idnet were very helpful today and reported that last week my profile was stuck down at 800kbps due to the disconnects it now sits at 5 meg , my actual throughput seems to have improved to between 1 meg and 2.5mbps showing the exchange contention? BT dont seemed to have done anything physical just waited for their software to up my profile after a clear 72 hours with minimal disconnects. Lets see the disconnects go from now.

Idnet imply that BT usually have 20meg of capacity for every 50users so if all my fellow townfolk download at the same time we get 300kbps ish.

Seems fair in this unfair world?

Ref 2meg service is this profiled like 8meg Max?

As a note Idnet say my SNR margin has been pegged at 12db to help overcome the instability on the line , I guess this  sets my Sync at the 6meg I get? This was done over two years ago so nothing new there.

Loads of questions . Sorry!!

[hairyman]

Hi G7pfk

Are you a radio amateur with a user name like that ? ( my call is G8TFI not radiating much these days though )

Hairyman

[Lance]

Hi Hairyman,

The 2mb service is just that, a 2mb service - there are no profiles.

By having the noise margin set at 12db, rather than the default of 6db, this will mean that your router can't sync as high as it otherwise would, but it does mean that you are less likely to suffer when there is a lot of noise about (due to having more headroom before hitting 0db).

And G7PKF is just Dean's car numberplate!

[g7pkf]

Yes i am.


phone line between a&b should read circa 45Volts ish....48 to be precise but 45 is good 12 is rubbish and i am surprised it works at all.

there again who am i to comment cant get a decent line myself

[hairyman]

Dean

Thanks for the info on phone line voltage 48V came to mind but I was in doubt when I found 12V , I will check again , pretty sure my Fluke 87 is Ok as I work in industrial elec calibration. I was grovelling behind the PC by the mastersocket at the time or maybe I had my bifocals on upside down!

When I was a radio ham I  used to run 2 times 4CX350 on 144mhz or 4CX1500 when I could find a fat enough mains supply to  power the 3.2KvDC at 1.5 Amp PSU, gave up the hobby when ALL the neighbours picked up my radio signals on ALL their electronic equipment!! Bet I could have stopped a router at 100 yards if they had existed then. No after 25yrs I moved onto pastures new and took up mountaineering with this computer stuff filling in between trips.

Hairyham?

[hairyman]

Hi Again
So soon?

I have just done a Speedtest.net test see below, this is the best I have ever got mostly it is 500-600kbps down and 80-90 up.   I live 400mtrs from the exchange also my voice line is low volume and often noisy as well.

We do have a Rail line betwwen the exchange and me but its not electrified   ( BT might be soon though,I can feel the Flash Tester being borrowed from work!!)

Goodnight for now.

[Lance]

If you report the voice fault, but make sure you don't mention broadband, then BT should come out and sort it (and hopefully in the process, the broadband).

I personally reported a intermittent crosstalk fault, knowing that the standard cure was to swap the pairs and this sorted my line for me. Obviously, the BT engineer found no fault when he came to check, but as I reported the fault as intermittent, they had no choice but to swap the pairs (he did the exchange to cabinet pair).

[hairyman]

Hi Lance

I have tried the intermittant noise and low volume on BT and all they do is a remote test say it shows Ok and then threaten a huge bill if an engineer is sent.

Speed s now back to sub 1meg again at 600kbps see attached speedtest.net.

I actually got nearly 24hrs with over 1mbps throughput !!! Back on yr heads lads!

SNAFU as they used to say.

[Rik]

Don't report intermittent noise, Hairy, but intermittent crosstalk, ie you can hear other people's conversations. It's that which BT tend to respond to.

[hairyman]

Hi Rik

I will report intermittant crosstalk later this week and see what happens. BT did actually call me back on my last complaint to my mobile at exactly the time they said that they would call. But the result was they said there was no fault.
400mtrs from the exchange and and I get 600kbps at best still syncat 6000kbps though, SNR on the downstream is now 16 to 17db, IDnet reported that BT had fixed my SNR at 12db seemslike it has actually maxed out at 15db.

Guess the slow throughputs are maybe down to all these weirdos watching timeshifted TV from some far away police state? Roll on the closing ceremony. Imagine what will happen when the roadshow moves to poor old London town in 2012. Should I save up and go away for a month then?

Are others seeing slow actual rates right now , the very big pipe to the net from work seems slow and I think they block streaming stuff. ??

[Steve]

Yep down to 200kb/sec this evening from usual 400-600kb/sec hopefully this will improve next week

[hairyman]

Hi stevethegas

Are we talking kilobits or bytes here . I am getting around 600kbps ie 0.6mbps on throughputs which equates to about 70kiloBytes/sec allowing for overheads etc. This is only slightly better than I got 5 and a half years ago on broadband when I first got connected on the original 512kbps service.

Locally I know on other exchanges people sync at 7 to 8 meg and get actual downloads around 6500kbps ie 720KBytes/sec to my 70 !

I will ask around amongst my neighbours who might have bb what they get, only one in my road has bb and they just use it and just know it works.

There is a small PC repair shop in town I will pop in and see what they know as well.

BT seem to regard anything over 0.4meg on a 8meg service to be in spec.

I did try dialup internet just to remind me how it used to be 10/12 yrs ago and make me grateful that what I have now is still about 12 times faster than then!!

Funny thing then I had a state of the art Pentium 75 ( the first Pentium I think ) now I have one running at over 3000Mhz which cost less than a third the price to build as the P75 did but is 40 times faster in clock cycles terms.

The net still arrives via exactly the same ( well over a decade more corroded actually) pair of wires.

Isnt progress a challenge. Still I find the fact I can have 400songs on my thumbnail size Mp3 player a consolation.

[hairyman]

Hi again

Just did a final check before putting the telephone and router cables back in tidy fashion. I checked the Dc volts coming down my incoming pair of BT strings and it was 50.0volts "on the hook" and 12.73volts "off the hook" I seem to remember this is normal? Both seemed quite stable.

I am 400mtrs from the exchange in a straight line and well under a 1000mtrs by the likely cable route.

I did love those Post Office stepper type relay/selectors on the pulse dial network I wonder where they all went!

PS I am on gw5 at Idnet if that makes a difference.

[Steve]

I was quoting in kilobytes.

[Rik]

Are others seeing slow actual rates right now , the very big pipe to the net from work seems slow and I think they block streaming stuff. ??

There's no shaping or throttling going on, it's purely a congestion/capacity issue.

[hairyman]

Hi All

Waited until the olympic thingy was over ( managed to miss it all , except what was shown on the news, phew, I prefer to participate rather than watch, (I do mountain/hill walks and climbing, play badminton and go to the gym, when I am not in the garden or on the PC).

No sign of an improvement here still stuck at one meg downwards throughput. only two disconnects in five days. Sync at 6meg SNR margin sits at 15db in the downstream all as per before.

Any ideas?

[Rik]

What do support say?

[hairyman]

Rik
I will call then tommorrow , last week they said my profile was at 5meg and I should get good throughputs but that BT did only place 20meg bandwidth per 50 customers on average so avarage rates can be poor.
If an exchange was heavily contended or missing full servicability it could be less than a meg all the time.