Router stats - confusing plots....

[Lee 4459]

Spoke to soon....

Latest stats show noise margin all over the place again and getting lots of drop outs. (See traces below)

Contacted Sky again and this time it was escalated to the Customer Solutions Team.

After carrying out lots of tests and monitoring the line, they have decided that the fault is not broadband but rather a fault on the phone line itself.

There is one further test they want to do; put the old router on to see what the errors are like on that. I will do this Thursday evening and will discuss with CST on Friday afternoon so we can agree on a way forward - basically which type of BT Engineer Sky will request visits the house to do testing.

[Isitme]

It looks like you may have a bad case of REIN, with a quiet period followed by excessive noise. If this repeats every 24 hours this is almost certainly the problem. Have a look at this piece by Kitz which will give you an idea of what may be happening.
::. Kitz - REIN .::

[Lee 4459]

Thanks for the suggestion. This SNR level seems to change over fairly randomly, though that said recently it has been in the middle of the night.

During the tests carried out by SKY CST it was noticed that when I answered the home phone on an incoming call the SNR got better and when I hung up the SNR got worse.

While I agree that it could be REIN it seems that for it to happen during the middle of the night seems very odd - no street lamps coming on or going off at that time, no Xmas tree lights as they have been switched off. Tried with a "normal" wired phone just in case but no change noted.

Also during a call with the CST the engineer could hear noise on the line. I must admit that I couldn't hear it at first but when he rang me back again later I could certainly hear it.

[Isitme]

During the tests carried out by SKY CST it was noticed that when I answered the home phone on an incoming call the SNR got better and when I hung up the SNR got worse.

That suggests a high resistance fault, ie water ingress or a loose joint on the line somewhere. If Sky pass this information to BTO they should be able to locate and fix it. BTO have new equipment for detecting this type of fault on LLU lines, so very soon it may be a thing of the past.
UPDATE BT Improves High Resistance Fault Testing for UK Unbundled Broadband ISP Lines − ISPreview UK News

[Franchise_mark]

Sorry that the matter seems to be getting worse, but the fact that there is now noise on the line convinces me that you have the same problems that I experienced, as stated in my posts in November and December.

While all the other comments are very interesting, your problem is unlikely "to fix itself". Open Reach need to check the line to find the fault. I guess the question is are you happy to pay over a £100 per year for a substandard service? The threat of being charged for the engineer's visit puts many people off. If the worst happens and you are charged, pm me and I will tell you how to get your money back.

Good luck, and don't give up.

Mark

[Lee 4459]

I have had the line checked by Tier 2 at Sky (~1hrs worth of checking) and they reported an imbalance of the wires (external to the house). BT Engineer visited last Friday (sods law the noise margin reported from the router was rock steady from about an hour before he arrived) He checked but could not find any fault on the line - he spent over 2hrs checking (all the way back to the exchange) but all was OK.

2 days later problem returned. Contacted Sky again and they carried out some more checks - the outcome is that the BT Engineer is booked to visit again this Friday so I will let you know what he finds.

If there is no fault when BT carry out their checks then they can't do anything. This, being an intermittent fault, means that they will have to come back again and again until they spot the problem.

[Isitme]

During the tests carried out by SKY CST it was noticed that when I answered the home phone on an incoming call the SNR got better and when I hung up the SNR got worse.

Mention this to the engineer when he comes. It should give him an idea of what is wrong.

[Lee 4459]

Sorry, long time since I posted.

All is now well. After many (and I mean many) vistis from BT the fault was finally traced to a bad connection just outside the house. BT changed the cable and now I am receiving 19Mbps with no problems or drop outs at all :-)

In all of this I was passed through the hands of many Sky Tier 2 people - only one was persistent enough to finally ensure that the fault was traced and corrected. Thanks for your patience and persistance Susan

Thanks to all the other contributors to this thread - your help and guidance is appreciated

[gymno]

Nice one.

Déjà Vu brother: http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-b...ift-shift.html