My Saga with Be* and Openreach

izools · #1 (**permalink**) 25-11-2008, 08:41 PM

Well peeps, I had my line installed on Firday gone.

Openreach chap was quite friendly he hawk tested the line once he'd got me hooked and confirmed the line was 2.8KM long.

Happy with this I placed my order for Be* - What a blinding service! My line was in sync the next working day!

Unfortunately some issues have started to unravel since yesterday.

Being a 2.8KM line I would have expected a 40dB looploss and an 8M+ sync rate. My old line in Taunton was 2.1KM long (and this included a 700M run of aluminium, 0.5mm stuff) and I got 34dB loss with a 16.6 meg sync rate, so I dont think that 8 meg was unreasonable to expect of a line 700M longer.

Nop. 3.5 meg. 61.5dB looploss. PSTN calls quiet. SNR dropping to zero if the phone is off hook and sync dropping if line ringing.

And this is with a filtered faceplate, no extension wiring, and quality STP RJ11 cable.

Can't class this as a PSTN fault unfortunately as there is nothing wrong with quiet line test, and although calls are a little on the quiet side BT retail won't consider this a voice fault.

Well my Be* Box arrived today so I thought that might be a bit better than my Linksys AM200 (which does admittedly use the dreadful TI AR7 chipset, but it gave me 16.6 meg on my old line)

So. Be* Box connected, yay! 4.1 Meg! still pretty darn poor but an improvement nonetheless. It doesn't loose sync if the line is off hook or in use, but the SNR does drop to 1.0dB and the errors on the line render it unuseable.

Here's my error count after less than six hours of being connected:

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 348 / 724,623
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 348 / 212
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 244 / 147

Oops. Something not good there.

Well, I found out that the E-Side feeding my local green cab is rated at 45.6dB, which means my D-Side from cab to pole is adding an astonishing 15.9dB which isn't good

I've also found out that there's another E-Side which feeds another cab, rated at 31dB, and this other cab with the lower loss feed has a link to the cab my line is on only 200M long. So if I can get Openreach out and butter him up I'm hoping (Praying!) for a re-route, which should reduce my loss to 40 ~ 50dB and improve the quality of my line no end.

Now that I know what can be done and how to do it I just need to find a way of getting it done.

The saga shall continue and I shall return

leondz · #2 (**permalink**) 25-11-2008, 10:46 PM

bribery. every time. slip him a 20 and a cuppa!

izools · #3 (**permalink**) 26-11-2008, 02:09 PM

Well I have to say I am absolutely blown away by the performance of BT Openreach.

Reported a PSTN Fault (Low transmission - quiet PSTN) at 11AM today

Openreach appeared on my doorstep at 1:30 PM today

I discussed the reccomendations for a re-route thanks to the information provided by openreachpeep over on digitalspy over a brew

Two vans (or should I say the cavalry) went out to do some fiddling and such like

And now here I am with 15dB less looploss and over twice the speed!

WOWZERS thank you Openreach!

izools · #4 (**permalink**) 26-11-2008, 02:30 PM

Even better. Tweaked it a bit

5M1L3Y · #5 (**permalink**) 26-11-2008, 02:34 PM

Lemme see your line stats! Lemme see 'em!

Was it an LLU SFI visit? Aren't your D-side poles replaced yet, they all have a 30 year lifespan after which BT/OR will replace them with the shiny stuff.

#

P.s. OR engineers prefer Hobnobs over digestives(openreachpeep told me lol...)

...but I prefer Maryland cookies...

izools · #6 (**permalink**) 26-11-2008, 02:35 PM

Before:

DSL Status: UP
DSL Modulation Mode: G.992.1 (G.DMT)
DSL Path Mode: INTERLEAVED
Downstream Rate: 3520 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 800 Kbps
Downstream Margin: 4 db
Upstream Margin: 6 db
Downstream Line Attenuation: 58
Upstream Line Attenuation: 63
Downstream Transmit Power: 16
Upstream Transmit Power: 11
LOS Errors: 0

After

Uptime: 0 days, 0:14:12
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,308 / 7,522
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 27.5 / 48.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 3.5 / 4.0

w00t w00t

5M1L3Y · #7 (**permalink**) 26-11-2008, 02:43 PM

DSL Connection

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:09:03
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,243 / 1,580
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 16.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 23.5 / 42.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 32 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 16 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 114 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 91,312
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 4,759,163 / 0

w00t w00t..