EIRCOM ADSL2+ with Cisco 1841's

kneelo

Hey People,

I have a ADSL line from Eircom that has recently been upgraded to a 10meg ADSL2 line.

The Netopia modem that came with the line sync's at the full 10meg but the customer bought a Cisco 1841 with an HWIC-1-ADSL and the IOS to support it. This will only sync at 7616 which is the max ADSL 1 speed.

Eircom support insisted it must be hardware so we put in another HWIC which made no difference.

Another test I tried is I put a Cisco 877 ADSL2 (integrated) router onto the line and BINGO, it syncs at the full 10meg.

I put the 1841 back in and it goes back to 7616.

Below is the output of a sh dsl interface atm for the 1841 and the 877. The only thing I can spot is that teh attenuation on teh 1841 is a lot higher than it is on teh 877. The noise margin is higher on teh 1841 which is suppose to mean that the signal is stronger.

I would have thought that the attenuation and noise should be the same regardless of the device I put on the line. It leads me to think that the integrated ADSL2 modem in the 877 is of a higher quality than the HWIC.

CISCO1841#sh dsl int atm0/0/0
ATM0/0/0
Alcatel 20190 chipset information
ATU-R (DS) ATU-C (US)
Modem Status: Showtime (DMTDSL_SHOWTIME)
DSL Mode: ITU G.992.5 (ADSL2+) Annex A
ITU STD NUM: 0x03 0x2
Chip Vendor ID: 'STMI' 'BDCM'
Chip Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x6198
Chip Vendor Country: 0x0F 0xB5
Modem Vendor ID: 'CSCO' ' '
Modem Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0000
Modem Vendor Country: 0xB5 0x00
Serial Number Near: FOC12124S2DCISCO73993206
Serial Number Far:
Modem Version Near: 12.4(11)T2
Modem Version Far:
Capacity Used: 41% 100%
Noise Margin: 30.0 dB 11.0 dB
Output Power: 20.5 dBm 12.0 dBm
Attenuation: 25.0 dB 8.0 dB
Defect Status: None None
Last Fail Code: None
Watchdog Counter: 0x66
Watchdog Resets: 0
Selftest Result: 0x00
Subfunction: 0x00
Interrupts: 3844 (0 spurious)
PHY Access Err: 0
Activations: 1
LED Status: OFF
LED On Time: 0
LED Off Time: 0
Init FW: init_AMR-R-2.5.042_no_bist.bin
Operation FW: AMR-R-2.5.042.bin
FW Source: embedded
FW Version: 2.5.42

DS Channel1 DS Channel0 US Channel1 US Channel0
Speed (kbps): 0 7616 0 830
Cells: 0 16 0 113661
Reed-Solomon EC: 0 0 0 0
CRC Errors: 0 0 0 0
Header Errors: 0 0 0 0
Total BER: 0E-0 0E-0
Leakage Average BER: 0E-0 0E-0
Interleave Delay: 0 62 0 61

CISCO877#sh dsl int atm0
ATM0
Alcatel 20190 chipset information
ATU-R (DS) ATU-C (US)
Modem Status: Showtime (DMTDSL_SHOWTIME)
DSL Mode: ITU G.992.5 (ADSL2+) Annex A
ITU STD NUM: 0x03 0x2
Chip Vendor ID: 'STMI' 'BDCM'
Chip Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x6198
Chip Vendor Country: 0x0F 0xB5
Modem Vendor ID: 'CSCO' ' '
Modem Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0000
Modem Vendor Country: 0xB5 0x00
Serial Number Near: FCZ1212637S
Serial Number Far:
Modem VerChip ID: C196 (0)
DFE BOM: DFE3.0 Annex A (1)
Capacity Used: 58% 100%
Noise Margin: 21.0 dB 15.0 dB
Output Power: 20.0 dBm 12.0 dBm
Attenuation: 19.0 dB 7.0 dB
Defect Status: None None
Last Fail Code: None
Watchdog Counter: 0x38
Watchdog Resets: 0
Selftest Result: 0x00
Subfunction: 0x00
Interrupts: 28881 (0 spurious)
PHY Access Err: 0
Activations: 1
LED Status: ON
LED On Time: 100
LED Off Time: 100
Init FW: init_AMR-3.0.014_no_bist.bin
Operation FW: AMR-3.0.014.bin
FW Source: embedded
FW Version: 3.0.14

DS Channel1 DS Channel0 US Channel1 US Channel0
Speed (kbps): 0 10240 0 830
Cells: 0 2 0 72203
Reed-Solomon EC: 0 0 0 0
CRC Errors: 0 0 0 0
Header Errors: 0 0 0 0
Total BER: 0E-0 0E-0
Leakage Average BER: 0E-0 0E-0
Interleave Delay: 0 0 0 61

Just wondering if anyone has run into anything similar,

TIA,

Neil

Alun

Try upgrading the ADSL interface firmware.

Download ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/access/800/adsl_alc_20190.3-0-33.bin

Rename it to adsl_alc_20190.bin, copy it to flash: and reboot.

You may as well do the same on your 877's too.

When you then do a sh dsl int atm0 you should see the following ...

Init FW: init_3.0.33_nobist.bin
Operation FW: AMR-3.0.033.bin
FW Source: external
FW Version: 3.0.33

P.S. In case you're worried, the upgrade isn't 'permanent'. If the file is present in flash: at boot time it's loaded in preference to the embedded firmware, so to revert to that if you want to, just delete the file and reboot. AFAIK the upgrades have to do with interoperability with various different types of DSLAMs.

preilly79

Try manually setting the DSL operating mode, ie, force it to adsl2:

Configuring an ADSL HWIC
To configure an ADSL HWIC, complete the following steps:
SUMMARY STEPS
1. enable
2. configure terminal
3. interface atm interface-id
4. ip address IP-address
5. pvc [name] vpi/vci
6. protocol ip IP-address
7. vbr-rt peak-rate average-rate burst
8. encapsulation {aal5autoppp | aal5ciscoppp | aal5mux | aal5nlpid | aal5snap}
9. exit
10. dsl operating-mode {ansi-dmt | auto | itu-dmt | adsl2 | adsl2+}
or
dsl operating-mode {etsi | auto | itu-dmt | adsl2 | adsl2+}
11. no shutdown
12. exit
13. exit

numb

What IOS version are you using? Some IOS versions are not compatible with eircom's DSLAM?

You should be on 12.4.11XJ8 + ... I had this same problem a while back, upgrading the IOS fixed it.

It doesn't matter if you specify an operating mode of ADSL2/2+/auto, although leaving at auto tends to take longer for it to train up after a reload / interface reset.

Alun

numb wrote: »

What IOS version are you using? Some IOS versions are not compatible with eircom's DSLAM?

You should be on 12.4.11XJ8 + ... I had this same problem a while back, upgrading the IOS fixed it.

Probably because that IOS version has an updated version of the Alacatel ADSL chipset firmware embedded in it rather than any changes in the IOS itself. The latest version embedded into any 800 series IOS version is 3.0.14 which is what the 'sh dsl int atm0' output for the 877 router (the one that worked OK for him) in the OP's post shows. The embedded version on the 1841 was pretty old .. 2.5.42 which has a number of known problems with certain DSLAMs.

There is a slightly newer version (3.0.33) on Cisco's ftp server for free download which you can install without upgrading the IOS version.

Anyway regardless of all this, the OP dosen't seem interested any more as he hasn't logged in since the day after he posted his question .. why do people do that?

HashSlinging

I'm trying to install an 877 router at the moment does anyone know what settings I need for eircom, I've never put in one of these boxes, so apologies for sounding stupid.

I'm configuring via the SDM software that comes with the cisco kit.

Alun

@HashSlinging - what part of the configuration is it you're having problems with? The relevant eircom specific parts (from my own config) are for the interface ...

interface ATM0
no ip address
no atm ilmi-keepalive
dsl operating-mode auto

interface ATM0.1 point-to-point
pvc 8/35
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 1

and for the dialler ...

interface Dialer0
ip address negotiated
ip mtu 1492
ip nat outside
ip virtual-reassembly
encapsulation ppp
ip tcp adjust-mss 1452
dialer pool 1
dialer-group 1
ppp authentication chap callin
ppp chap hostname eircom
ppp chap password broadband1

You should be able to recreate the same thing using SDM. Personally I use SDM to create the basic config framework and then get in and edit it myself. Let me know if you need any more help.