Strange stats and some advice please

[Dazeon]

Hello,

I'd be grateful if someone could take a quick look at these stats and give me some advice.

During the last week my internet connection has been pretty much awful, Sky Player is useless, even on the lowest bandwidth, BBC iPlayer crawls and buffers constantly, uploading to CrashPlan has been terrible, and daily browsing is extremely slow.

I decided to take some stats and investigate, firstly here are my stats from my master socket using my XTE-2005 filtered faceplate:

DSL Connection Details
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT2+ Annex A
Downstream Rate: 3072 kbps
Upstream Rate: 796 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 8.4 dB (Downstream) 9.6 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 61.0 dB (Downstream) 38.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 16.6 dBm (Downstream) 12.0 dBm (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0xB5} Vendor: {BDCM} Specific: {0x89A1}
PVC Info: 0/38

Next, here are the stats from the test socket:

DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT2+ Annex A
Downstream Rate: 3072 kbps
Upstream Rate: 796 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 8.9 dB (Downstream) 9.8 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 60.9 dB (Downstream) 37.9 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 16.6 dBm (Downstream) 12.0 dBm (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0xB5} Vendor: {BDCM} Specific: {0x89A1}
PVC Info: 0/38

Oddly enough, you'll see that my test socket stats are actually slightly better, where I would have expected the stats from the faceplate to be better.

I have no extensions at all, simply one phone and my router plugged in at any one time. No Sky boxes are plugged in, nor a fax machine or anything else.
I wouldn't dare attempt it given my already dire connection speed.

I have used Google and Bing Maps and plotted the absolute furthest possible route by road from my exchange (Lemington) to my house and the maximum I can come up with is 3.2 km, hence why I cannot understand my attenuation.

I originally thought I had an XNTE but have since been told I actually have an old style DP?

The length of wire from the DP outside to my master socket inside is no more than 2 meters.

I had Sky rerun DLM around a month ago and I think they may have capped me, however I don't know enough to be able to tell.

Anyway, I just wanted to know what everybody thought before I ring Sky.

I have a fairly large family and home network and it's gotten to the point where we are basically unable to do much at all.

I'm on the Max package if that helps.

Also, I am seeing an awful lot of errors in my router diagnostics, but I don't really understand them, therfore I am unable to tell whether they're normal or that there is something wrong?

Here they are:

Since Reset Current 24-Hour Interval Current 15-Minute Interval Time Since Last Event
ATM Cell Header Errors: 4 4 0 0:27:17
ATM Loss of Cell Delineation: 1 1 0 0:27:17
DSL Link Retrains: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Training Errors: 1 1 0 0:41:58
DSL Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Framing Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Signal Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Margin Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Cumulative Errored Seconds: 3 3 0 0:27:17
DSL Severely Errored Seconds: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Corrected Blocks: 76 76 7 0:02:03
DSL Uncorrected Blocks: 4 4 0 0:27:17
ISP Connection Establishment: 1 1 1 0:01:02

Sorry in advance for the long thread, I look forward to your responses.

Thanks.

[Dazeon]

Just found these stats from an earlier post shortly after we moved in, as you can see, for some reason, noise margin has dropped and attenuation has risen.

As of March this year:

Protocol: G.DMT2+ Annex A
Downstream Rate: 3072 kbps
Upstream Rate: 797 kbps

Current Noise Margin: 9.9 dB (Downstream) 12.3 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 59.3 dB (Downstream) 34.9 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 17.1 dBm (Downstream) 12.1 dBm (Upstream)

[PaulSky]

Your attenuation is high, line distance doesn't always equal road distance and also the condition/ age of the line and the equipment attached to it can impact things. Have you got a standard faceplate or a pre-filter, how old is it and when you tested in your test socket how old was the filter you used?

[Smithy99]

Even with your stats from the test socket I don't think you will get much more. If the problem is only just occuring, could it be wireless interference or are you connected by ethernet?

Also, you say you have a large network, is someone using torrents and have you checked for viruses on all PC's connected?

The easiest way would be to remove all devices and just hook up to the one clean PC and try again.

[Isitme]

What are your stats like with the Sky router?

Some routers show G.DMT2+ Annex A instead of ADSL2+ so I think that is what you are on. You may do better on G.DMT with your long line. You might want to phone Sky and ask them if they can try your line on that mode instead of ADSL2+. If it does not do as well they can always change it back.

For information, you should always get a better result from the Test socket than you do from the faceplate, especially if you have extensions.

[Dazeon]

Your attenuation is high, line distance doesn't always equal road distance and also the condition/ age of the line and the equipment attached to it can impact things. Have you got a standard faceplate or a pre-filter, how old is it and when you tested in your test socket how old was the filter you used?

I was using an XTE-2005 filtered faceplate, now I'm using my test socket.
The line itself was new as of around 2007, the faceplate I bought in 2009.

The filter that I am using in my test socket was brand new out of the box as of last night.

It's currently an ethernet connection but the problem has been present for a few months now.

I'm the only person that knows how to download a torrent, not that I do, and every PC comes up 100% clean with Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.

Sadly my stats are essentially the same using the Sky router, which I can't as it doesn't work very well with two Xbox 360's and Windows Home Server (Vail).

The whole estate has been here less than four years, and there was nothing here before that, all the BT cabinets and wiring should be brand new.

I'd love to know what route the main line from the exchange is taking, because if not road, then it would be over or under fields that would make the overall length even shorter.

I'm going to have to ring Sky I guess.

[simonmpoulton]

I believe the fault your having is your getting errors building up on the line, this could indicate an external line fault, faulty router or faulty filter. With your sky router do you get the same poor thoroughput?

[Dazeon]

I believe the fault your having is your getting errors building up on the line, this could indicate an external line fault, faulty router or faulty filter. With your sky router do you get the same poor thoroughput?

Yeah, it is certainly looking that way.

I've tried two brand new filters in the test socket, same result.

Using my Sky router gives me the same result also.

I'm convinced that there is something wrong with the line somewhere.

[Dazeon]

Just been having a quick look at the various errors via Google and a lot of them seem to suggest an open ground, whatever that is?

[Dazeon]

Your attenuation is high, line distance doesn't always equal road distance and also the condition/ age of the line and the equipment attached to it can impact things. Have you got a standard faceplate or a pre-filter, how old is it and when you tested in your test socket how old was the filter you used?

If line distance doesn't (always) equal road distance, and they don't run 'as the crow flies', then how exactly do they run?

I'm actually quite interested in how BT actually do this, because unless they have decided to do several random loops or a pretty pattern, or the engineers were drunk, then my line simply cannot be any longer than 3.2 km...



If I get (albeit slightly) better results from my test socket, is it OK to leave this as a permanent option? I don't use any extensions so they aren't a problem.