Broadband speeds - getting slower

Praetor

hellboy99 wrote:

Thanks Praetor, is it right to say then even when I am downgraded this won't solve anything.
(According to Eircom there is nothing wrong with the line and it's cleared for 3MB)

Oh no

Thats not correct. I will try to explain

When you downgrade your line, though your attenuation will remain the same, your Noise margin increases a few dB, which is always good. Giving you a much more stable connection.

I think in your case you might try downgrading to 2mb and see. On the other hand you will be affected by higher contention ratios but it should improve anyway.

Probably your Noise Margin will improve from 10-14 to 14-22, it will be interesting to see when they do that.

It normally takes 1 day for the downgrade to take place as they only need to change the NMS settings at the DSLAM, and normally they do that remotely.

Wait and see you might be lucky

Sponge Bob

Or else it may stop raining for a while and he will be fine , eh Praetor

I ****ing hate intermittents, I so do

Praetor

Sponge Bob wrote:

Or else it may stop raining for a while and he will be fine , eh Praetor

I ****ing hate intermittents, I so do

hehehehe

Dont worry, I believe that after the downgrade you will enjoy a much more reliable connection, trust me. I dont think it will be necessary to downgrade you down to 1mb

Faith!

Sponge Bob

I am quite sorry for a company like BT in this position because

1. they resell eircom
2. they rely on an eircom test database to tell them what the line will do
3. **** happens when they deliver the product

Historically eircom charge for downgrades (€30 + vat) and give upgrades free, therefore BT has

1. more support
2. imperfect information, they cannot test an individual customer
3. a margin hit on a downgrade they are forced into
4. a regulator that pretends that lines do not downgrade in Ireland owing to shoddy maintenance or no maintenance .

The poor resellers cannot win and cannot make eircom find out where the water is getting in , typically its a leak somewhere affecting the line , becasuse eircom provide no service level agreements of any sort on their lines. They do not give a **** and there is no linkage between the HIGHEST line rental on the planet and a consistent service.

If you are an eircom customer (not paying line rental to another carrier) eircom are equally dopey, I had no voice/dialtone for over 2 weeks in December but perfect data and COULD not convince eircom to check the voice jumpering in the exchange and that the perfect data meant the problem could not be between me and the exchange .

every conversation with eirocm was

E its the wind
SB how come my BB is still up
E its not up, its gone
SB it is up , do you want me to email you to prove it????
E its the wind
SB dont ****ing touch the outside lines they are working perfectly , check the jumpering off the mdf willye
E thats not affected by the wind
SB its not the ****ing wind I am TELLIN yiz.
E you couldn't have broadband

and so on. It was quite surreal and lasted 12 working days .

I did pay no line rental for 4 months though as the outage straddled 2 billing periods

Praetor

I agree with you, hopefully this will change one day.

hopefully.......

They problem is also that their main priority is not the customer, I mean, if one customer cannot get Broadband because of a bridge tap, a load coil, crosstalk... water leaks... they will see how much it costs to fix it and then decide if its worth it or not.

Another thing is that Engineers are normally not qualified to deal with Broadband issues, lack of training or equipment to test it, or maybe lack of interest, who knows.

Even if you get a professional to check your connection from your NTE to the DSLAM and he is able to detect where the problem is located, EIRCOM wont listen anyway...

At the end its just business...

Praetor

hellboy99 wrote:

Here you go Praetor & thanks

Modem : ZyXel Prestige 630-11 USB

All day Thursday the Downstream attenuation was between 50 - 60dB and the Downstream Noise margin between 7.5 - 10dB.
Last night my Downstream attenuation was at 50.5dB and the Downstream Noise margin was 14.5dB.

I've tried other various routers; wireless, ether and usb and still the same results and I've tried them all on a laptop so it's not my PC. As for internal phone wiring it's all new and the main socket is only 6ft away from my PC.

Hi hellboy99

I forgot to mention one thing.

Though Bit swapping normally takes care of bit losses/adjustments your line doesnt seem to handle well certain frequencies.

694.31 Mhz
720.18 Mhz
746.06 Mhz
754.68 Mhz
763.31 Mhz
810.75 Mhz
862.50 Mhz
879.75 Mhz to 1.1 kHz

I wouldnt worry much about highest frequencies as you attenuation is very low but check for anything that could be using these frequency, 694.31 Mhz, 720.18 Mhz, 746.06 Mhz, 754.68 Mhz, 763.31 Mhz.

AM Transmissions, Electrical equipments, train railroads...

Hope it helps a bit.

Sponge Bob

Praetor wrote:

Another thing is that Engineers are normally not qualified to deal with Broadband issues, lack of training or equipment to test it, or maybe lack of interest, who knows.

Lack of training and equipment mainly. Instead of training and using the linesmen a separate team does the jumpering for bb/voice in the exchange .

The guys wandering around to my house were probably not allowed to access the area in the echange itself around the dslam/voice cards which is where the problem was.

There was no problem between the MDF and my house .

Praetor

Sponge Bob wrote:

Lack of training and equipment mainly. Instead of training and using the linesmen a separate team does the jumpering for bb/voice in the exchange .

The guys wandering around to my house were probably not allowed to access the area in the echange itself around the dslam/voice cards which is where the problem was.

There was no problem between the MDF and my house .

Yeah! For what you told me happened I would say that the problem was between the MDF and the POTs as Broadband was working ok.

What clearly shows a lack of interest, helpdesk dont normally tend to listen to the customer as they assume that they dont know what he is talking about....

Sponge Bob

Praetor wrote:

I wouldnt worry much about highest frequencies as you attenuation is very low but check for anything that could be using these frequency, 694.31 Mhz, 720.18 Mhz, 746.06 Mhz, 754.68 Mhz, 763.31 Mhz.

Humm, thats an MMDS downconvertor / UHF TV spectrum range is it not ?? Does Hellboy have MMDS or a Video Sender or an amplifier on his TV aerial ??

Is there an amplified TV aerial anywhere near his phone line ??

Its possibly used for DTT in Dublin and Louth or along the border. 738Mhz is one Dublin multiplex for example, a note on specific Dublin DTT frequencies here . DTT was only switched on in August September and only in those locations .

.....and for Louth here

I think this doc below is the most recent frequency plan for Ireland if its any help to anyone although specific information on the UHF band is not in there.??

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0477.pdf

If you are being interfered with by DTT then do send Noel Dempsey an email thanking him, DTT is Noels big idea for 2006 .

Praetor

Sponge Bob wrote:

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0477.pdf

If you are being interfered with by DTT then do send Noel Dempsey an email thanking him, DTT is Noels big idea for 2006 .

Thank you for that link!!! I was looking for something like that!

I am not familiar with frequencies used in Ireland but know I am a bit more hehehehe

Sponge Bob

Hellboy is in County Louth so I STRONGLY suspect a DTT trial from the Clermont DTT transmitter north of Dundalk . BT Ireland are responsible for the trial technically , funny that , but Comreg set the spectrum parameters

There is a DAB trial ongoing too but thats either side of 200mhz or above 1450mhz and is not the cause of the interference.

Clermont could also screw up DSL north of the border in Rostrevor or Kilkeel ..by the same logic.

I think that Clermont uses channel 53 for DTT which is between 704 and 710 mhz , that woud not explain everything save that interference around 704mhz _may_ convince the DSLAM in the exchange that the entire band from 700Mhz up is equally impaired which would not be the case as the interference is localised around there .

There may be a DTT relay around Newry which provides additional interference but I do not have info on this.

hellboy99

I'm in North Dundalk, so you guys think my problem could be this DTT transmitter , how would you go about finding out if it's that ?

I have no Video Sender or TV aerial, just SKY, there is a lot of MMDS dishes around my area but majority of them have been up for years.
What about the Digiweb Metro wireless service, a lot of people down my way got it installed round Xmas, would that do anything ?

Sponge Bob

I just told you how, look at what praetor told you and look at the evidence I found to possibly support his assertion that you line is sub optimal at and above the DTT frequencies .

Did this problem start last august/september when the broadcasts started.

If you line is mainly overground and fairly long , thereby being more at risk from interference from Clermont Carn , then find others in the same situation as you (long and overground DSL lines not short and underground ones ) and see if they have a similar frequency problem. It should be easy to replicate.

your best bet once you collect the evidence is to drop into the local eircom hq bunker and find an engineer in there and have a natter about it and get him to escalate within eircom.

Its not really eircoms fault this is happening and there are ways around the problems such as increasing the power above 715mhz which is not being interfered with thereby improving your thruput.

I also suggested other potential interference sources like MMDS and TV signal amplifiers if you or a neighbour are boosting TV signals from an aerial .

Metro should not have this interference , it uses very different spectrum

Praetor

hellboy99 wrote:

I'm in North Dundalk, so you guys think my problem could be this DTT transmitter , how would you go about finding out if it's that ?

I have no Video Sender or TV aerial, just SKY, there is a lot of MMDS dishes around my area but majority of them have been up for years.
What about the Digiweb Metro wireless service, a lot of people down my way got it installed round Xmas, would that do anything ?

Well you are loosing a bunch of kb because of that but believe me is not that bad... I calculate that is costing you around 323 kbps of your total bandwith but if you consider that you are already loosing around 4 mb on the highest freq because of your distance to the exchange, any improvement is always welcome .... though I am afraid that there isnt much you can do.

hellboy99

Sponge Bob wrote:

Did this problem start last august/september when the broadcasts started.

No, it only started two weeks before Xmas.

Sponge Bob

Dunno so, something changed somewhere , see this and this

from the latter

. This phase will be used to test the stability of the network and the technologies involved at a network and user level.

and the DTT trial "phase 2" is starting any day now .

this is the announcement about BT
who conduct these broadcasts and there are some contact details in there should you choose to inform the minishter of the oul interfeerince. BT would have messed with power levels , they had to.

but it could be a water leak , plain and simple.

hellboy99

Sponge Bob wrote:

and the DTT trial "phase 2" is starting any day now .

My BB may be crap but on the plus side I'm now receiving DTT through a 3 foot length of aerial wire

Sponge Bob

I would also contact Comreg and ask them what spectrum has been allocated to the mobile carriers for DVB-H trials in Dundalk which could explain the rest of the interference. They were looking at 700mhz + or 1450mhz + or both for the trials.

At least one carrier was looking at composite DTT / DVB-H units which can only be realistically trialled in Dundalk or Dublin .

Note and Note and note , oh and possibly one of these lads Note

HTH

hellboy99

Downgraded this morning from 3MB to 2MB and seems to have done the trick

actualBitrateFarInt= 256 kbit/s
actualBitrateFarFast= 0 kbit/s
actualBitrateNearInt= 2048 kbit/s
actualBitrateNearFast= 0 kbit/s
relCapacityOccupationUpstr= 34 %
relCapacityOccupationDnstr= 32 %
noiseMarginUpstr= 19.0 dB
noiseMarginDnstr= 16.5 dB
outputPowerDnstr= 8.0 dBm
outputPowerUpstr= 0.5 dBm
attenuationUpstr= 29.0 dB
attenuationDnstr= 48.0 dB

Praetor

hellboy99 wrote:

Downgraded this morning from 3MB to 2MB and seems to have done the trick

actualBitrateFarInt= 256 kbit/s
actualBitrateFarFast= 0 kbit/s
actualBitrateNearInt= 2048 kbit/s
actualBitrateNearFast= 0 kbit/s
relCapacityOccupationUpstr= 34 %
relCapacityOccupationDnstr= 32 %
noiseMarginUpstr= 19.0 dB
noiseMarginDnstr= 16.5 dB
outputPowerDnstr= 8.0 dBm
outputPowerUpstr= 0.5 dBm
attenuationUpstr= 29.0 dB
attenuationDnstr= 48.0 dB

Much better indeed!!

Happy for you

hellboy99

Thanks for all the help guys

You are both right too about the risk from interference from Clermont Carn transmitter, Esat TS agree.

Furp

This is an excellent thread. I have been with BT for the past 3 years, and generally the service has been excellent as long as I never called customer service.

Last year I upgraded from the 2mb service to the 3mb service from around May, unfortunately my speed never increased and it wasn't until around Christmas when I was replacing the Zyxel modem with a Netopia that I discovered that my line was not even connecting at the 3mb speed.

Cue many calls to tech support eventually I was told that my line would not support the 3mb service and that this was noted on my account last June, it did not stop BT charging me for the service since then, anyway I just got a refund on my latest Bill.

I think that the noise on my line is quite high I never kept a record of these and the Line Attenuation is currently at 59/31 dB, is this good or bad?

Although my speeds are generally ok as below I find that the latency can be terrible, with very long pauses. Its all the more noticeable for me as for the first 1.5 years the speeds and latency where excellent so I think that some of the current problems I have are to do with contention.





[HTML]Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
20/01/2007 19:49 1670 kbps (204 KB/s) 129 kbps (16 KB/s) 90 % 24 ms 115 ms
11/01/2007 21:40 1700 kbps (208 KB/s) 123 kbps (15 KB/s) 94 % 19 ms 113 ms
03/01/2007 21:24 1737 kbps (212 KB/s) 148 kbps (19 KB/s) 95 % 37 ms 102 ms
21/12/2006 00:37 1695 kbps (207 KB/s) 163 kbps (20 KB/s) 93 % 22 ms 106 ms
15/12/2006 11:08 1710 kbps (209 KB/s) 126 kbps (16 KB/s) 92 % 25 ms 89 ms
15/12/2006 02:28 1754 kbps (215 KB/s) 103 kbps (13 KB/s) 99 % 25 ms 72 ms
13/12/2006 21:35 601 kbps (74 KB/s) 130 kbps (16 KB/s) 59 % 128 ms 324 ms
31/10/2006 23:20 1731 kbps (212 KB/s) 172 kbps (21 KB/s) 95 % 27 ms 195 ms
10/10/2006 21:12 1497 kbps (183 KB/s) 169 kbps (21 KB/s) 72 % 21 ms 275 ms
13/09/2006 22:02 870 kbps (107 KB/s) 147 kbps (18 KB/s) 99 % 25 ms 83 ms[/HTML]

Praetor

Furp wrote:

I think that the noise on my line is quite high I never kept a record of these and the Line Attenuation is currently at 59/31 dB, is this good or bad?

Thats pretty bad

You shouldnt be on 3 mb at all with that Attenuation, if your connection doesnt drop probably is because your SNR Marging is quite high, probably over 16 dB.

I think you are on a long loop though its hard to tell unless you post your DMT/SNR chart.

Furp

Cheers I wil post this later on this evening when i get home hoW do I go about getting those figures on a Netopia 2247NWG.

I almost must mention that my modem is not plugged directly into the eircom port on the wall, rather its on an extension lead and connected upstairs.

Does anyone know where I could get an address for my local exchange I'd be intersted to find out exactly where it is.

Sponge Bob

you should downgrade straight away and then demand a refund for being sold a pig in a poke.

lucernarian

I wrote a post earlier but the forum logged me off while I wrote it and I lost the entire post:mad:

Anyway, this thread is spouting out misinformation which I'm astonished hasn't been pointed out yet.I've read 20 odd posts detailing how UHF TV is possibly playing around in DSL. Many towns and nearly all of the cities have a transmitter in them or near them. Longford has an 800 kW transmitter 5 miles away yet I haven't seen any complaint threads on boards.:rolleyes:

Similarly, Summerhill in Co. Meath (which has DSL I believe) hosts Ireland's MW and LW transmitters. Both of them broadcast in DSL frequencies (unlike Clermont Carn or Three Rock for that matter). I haven't heard complaints from there either.

How in the name of god can transmissions above 700 Mhz be blamed for signal dropout above 700 Khz?? Praetor in his post failed to notice the mistake of mixing up Khz and Mhz.

As for bridge taps and loading coils and other "DSL blockers" which are exclusive to american websites, well I've only seen 4 loading coils in my life, 2 in Cavan and one each in Cos. Monaghan and Donegal. They would make a line automatically fail for broadband.

About bridge taps, I've never heard of them in the eircom network and have probably died out since the network modernisation in the 80s and the use of pairgains to provide extra phone lines.

Water is a small possibility as the DSL worked intermittently but if the problem resolved itself in a couple of hours then the water would have quick access to the cable. Yet the cable was able to handle some sort of DSL signal which extensive water damage would have stopped completely, along with phone service too most likely.

Look at Furp's post. As expected of eircom DSL, if the attenuation is too high then the line syncs at a lower speed until the SNR rises to about 10 dB or thereabouts. It looks like his line is operating at about 2Mbits, which is about right as I've seen a boards user reporting 2 Mbit with 61 dB attenuation and no problems.

Oh and for the record, no relay in NI broadcasts DTT and Kilkeel analogue is 15 miles away from Dundalk beaming out at 500 Watts, with the Cooley mountains in the way.

If Esat TS agree to that bull, then the staff involved should be sacked.

Sponge Bob

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I wrote a post earlier but the forum logged me off while I wrote it and I lost the entire post:mad:

Anyway, this thread is spouting out misinformation which I'm astonished hasn't been pointed out yet.

AH ITS Khz is it

Praetor

To_be_confirmed wrote:

How in the name of god can transmissions above 700 Mhz be blamed for signal dropout above 700 Khz?? Praetor in his post failed to notice the mistake of mixing up Khz and Mhz.

Hi!

I am trying to find where did I said that UHF was the cause of that interference.....

I am a bit tired so it might be I am loosing sight! lol

Anyway its right to say that "my mistake" Khz instead of Mhz

Sorry!

Furp

Well I have logged onto my modem with Telnet but was unable to find the commands to give the DMT/SNR table. All that I as able to get where the basic stats.

The Zyxel modem I used to use gave a lot more stats but it had to be rebooted every day:mad: the Netopia is much more stable.

True To_be_confirmed when I was upgraded to the 3Mbit service my modem never synced higher then 2048.

Sponge Bob just got my latest bill from BT and I was genuinely shocked that they had in fact credited me for over 6 months of overcharging for the 3Mbit service.

Any ideas how I would get the modem to log all of the other DSL parameters

Ideally I'd like to know where my local exchange is in Navan I'm quite close to an ESB substation but not sure if the Eircom Exchange would also be there I live in a fairlynew estate 4 years old So I would think that the local cables are good.

ADSL Line State:        Up
ADSL Startup Attempts:  2
ADSL Modulation:        DMT
Datapump Version:       DSP 5.2.2.0, HAL 5.2.2.0

                        Downstream  Upstream
                        ----------  ----------
SNR Margin:                   8.50       15.00 dB
Line Attenuation:            59.00       31.50 dB
Output Power:                17.19        2.21 dB
Errored Seconds:                 0           0
Loss of Signal:                  0           0
Loss of Frame:                   0           0
CRC Errors:                  18264         155
Data Rate:                    2048         256

VCC #  Type  VPI   VCI   Encapsulation
-----  ----  ---  -----  --------------------------
  1     PVC    8     35  PPP over Ethernet (LLC/SNAP encapsulation)


ATM Circuit Statistics: VCC-1

  Rx Frames     :    2628195           Tx Frames     :    1721868
  Rx Octets     : 3184691865           Tx Octets     :  179656331
  Rx Errors     :          0           Tx Errors     :          0
  Rx Discards   :          0           Tx Discards   :      11483

Praetor

Well you are close to disconnection rates. You SNR Margin is 8.5 when your Netopia reaches 6 it will "adapt" you speed to avoid disconnection but I think you are paying for a service you are not getting.

Base on those readings I can tell u that your line will hold speeds between 0.8 - 1.4 mbps no much more, max 2

I strongly suggest you be downgraded to 1 and check. BT Will not charge you for that downgrade as it is part of TS.

It takes 1 working day to downgrade you to 1 mb maybe even less. If you have problems let me know.