It's started...

[Bill]

Possible FTTC cross-talk, that is.

Lost internet briefly about half an hour ago, BQM showed a rise in ping time so thought it might just be a change in routing for some reason.



Just in case, I ran a BT speedtest (that's the yellow spike a little later)... profile is down to 33598 from 38717

Interestingly though, the DSL light on the modem didn't go out

[Rik]

Anything in the logs, Bill?

[Bill]

Nothing useful, just the "Disconnected" and "Connection established" times. No info available from the BT modem.

I've been getting these brief disconnects for a while now (but no drop in profile), around one every day or two. I've been assuming it was PPP as the DSL light didn't go out, but I'm beginning to wonder if they were actually sync losses and the DLM is getting nervous.

[Rik]

It's always possible, Bill. If you ask support, they'll tell you what they see from their end.

[Bill]

I'll do that, but I'll see how it goes for a few days first... one thing I want to do is change the grotty bit of flat twin phone cable that BT supplied for a length of Cat5

That'll have to wait until it's been up for while, don't want to give the DLM anything more to worry about.

[Rik]

DLM worries terribly, Bill, I dins putting diazepam in the phone socket helps. 

[Bill]

Rather than shoving diazepam into the socket, I'd rather shove the DLM somewhere else

It caused me serious grief on ADSL2+, it only got sorted when Simon put me on the trial and got it switched off!

[Rik]

Same here, Bill. Without it, I can maintain 6db target, interleaving off and 4M+ sync.

[Bill]

I've seen nothing definite, but one or two posts over on tbb have rather implied that the trial has been ended and DLM control on ADSL2+ rolled out to ISPs, do you know anything about it?

And maybe whether the same option has been extended to other protocols?

(Not that I have any particular one in mind, of course... )

[Rik]

AFAIK, they are now able to exercise more control, Bill, and BT have 'de-sensitised' the DLM so banded profiles should no longer happen.

[Bill]

Thanks Rik, good riddance to banded profiles...

I've only just realised that the increase in ping I saw was probably the DLM putting me on interleaved... I don't mind that, and I might be able to get the profile back up with a judicial re-sync when the line is quiet. Bit risky without being able to see the line stats though.

[Rik]

Which will be worse soon, as BT are withdrawing the ability to look at line stats from all ISPs on Monday.

[Bill]

That doesn't sound promising, you don't hide things if they look good...

It's time somebody developed a hack into that BT modem, the installation engineers can get the figures so they must be in there somewhere!

[Rik]

Couldn't agree more on both points, Bill. Would Andrew be in a position to help?

I'm left with the feeling from this after all BT have done to IDNet and other smaller ISPs this year, that they are trying to create an environment in which the ISPs can't add value to the wholesale service.

[Bill]

Andrew has a lot of contacts at BT, but I'm not sure about his detailed knowledge of the technical side of what they get up to.  It needs someone with an FTTC connection, a thorough knowledge of Ethernet from the bottom up, good programming ability and ermm, shall we call it an enquiring mind

I was interested to see that TalkTalk were getting into fibre, which means that Opal were, and they're alternative wholesale carriers to BT... I'm not going to ask because nobody would tell me anyway, but I'm sure Simon and Tim will have noted it

[Rik]

Little escapes their notice, Bill.

[Bill]

Another resync... but profile has gone up this time, from 33598 to 33865

Every little helps

[Rik]

You get your ADSL from Tesco? 

[pctech]

It does all seem a little orchestrated doesn't it.

[Rik]

Though I'm not sure who's conducting, Mitch.

[Glenn]

Or even if they are on the same music sheet.

[Rik]

No chance, they're playing it by ear.

[Technical Ben]

Thankfully you did not get this!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/14/bt_infinity_slowdown/

(Not sure if it's worth an extra thread)
[edit]
Found a great comment!
"The technical fault caused a limited(*) number of customers to see their speeds reduced to 2Mbit/s at certain times.

(*) Limited may be unlimited"

[Bill]

Looking at the time El Reg posted it, they nicked it from tbb

[Rik]