ADSL newbie - attenuation, noise and speed help on Sky BB

[joelyuk]

Thanks all.

I tested the line (with the 1980s rotary dial phone we have) and listened really carefully after dialing 1.

I can't hear any pops or crackles at all, in fact I done it several times to check.

The faceplate/test socket I'll have to look at later as I'm off to work shortly for a few hours, but will that possibly affect the running of DLM (or am I so lucky to believe it could happen so soon as tonight?).

Also would there be a period of time to wait (10 days?) to see if DLM kicks in? Whilst I could contact the landlord, he's highly unlikely to be in a hurry to contact Sky for us as he doesn't really care what speed it operates at. Of course if DLM doesn't appear to be doing anything after X days, I could always try and claim it's so slow it's unusable or something and hopefully the landlord might endure a phone call to CS I guess.

[Isitme]

DLM can take up to 3 days to start initially, but after the training period it can kick in at any time. Your speed is so slow I would not worry about upsetting DLM, when you get things sorted out it will bring the line up to the correct speed. Your speed is about one thirtieth of the speed you should have and will almost be unusable so you are not telling fibs.. If he is on Sky Rental all calls to Sky are free.

[Shonk]

Every time i have forced a 15db margin or more dlm has kicked off within a few days
it took a family member around a week
so dlm should start up at some point in your case with 16db of margin

[Scubbie]

I agree with both Shonk and Tom about DLM kicking in, but just not sure about how long before it does.

Since your line is nice and quiet, it should now just be a case of waiting. Sorry about this. The alternative would be for you to ask your landlord as nicely as possible if he could call Sky for free from your place.

What should he say in order to get a good response?

"My tennants have made significant improvements to the wiring for the internal telephone line and ADSL connection, could you please restart the intial DLM training process".

The person at the end of the line will probably insist on going through everything, just get him to explain that you now have a "VDSL Filtered Faceplate" fitted and the router is connected to the "Modem socket".

I know that there are some little white lies in the above, but it is easier than explaining to your landlord that he plugged it into the wrong socket and now you have fixed it. This was an easy mistake to make if you are unfamiliar with the sockets and filtered faceplates.

For reference, I am already aware that a guide which Sky have put together for their site covers this and should make it easier for people in the future.

[joelyuk]

Thanks all again for your wonderful help! I'll try playing the waiting game for a week or so and hopefully some improvements might show. If not I'll nag the landlord to phone Sky hopefully. A computing student can't work under these conditions!

One last question... Is there any way to tell that DLM has started or doing its thing? Or would I just see the sync speeds hopefully change slightly each day? I understand it makes the changes overnight, so just wondering what to look out for each morning like an excited child at Christmas!

Thank you again

[joelyuk]

I would advise removing the faceplate and filter and plugging in the micro filter and router to the Test socket and taking the stats. If the noise margin goes up by anything much, then the filter plate is faulty. Removing the faceplate is quite easy, only tool required is a small screw driver.

I done this, and it seemed to offer identical results to the modem socket on the faceplate:



System Up Time: 00:01:48

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	1034	928	0	14272	17786	00:00:57
LAN	Down	0	0	0	0	0	00:00:00
WLAN	Up	1690	1588	0	179266	29754	00:01:22

Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	765 kbps	415 kbps
Line Attenuation	15.5 dB	9.9 dB
Noise Margin	16.3 dB	20.20 dB

Stats connected to modem socket on faceplate again:

System Up Time: 00:10:46

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	12956	14226	0	320	682	00:09:56
LAN	Down	0	0	0	0	0	00:00:00
WLAN	Up	15283	13824	0	182728	16629	00:10:20

Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	765 kbps	415 kbps
Line Attenuation	15.5 dB	10.2 dB
Noise Margin	16.2 dB	17.17 dB

[Isitme]

That's fine. If DLM does not kick in over the weekend, get your man to call Sky as Scubbie suggests.

[Scubbie]

One last question... Is there any way to tell that DLM has started or doing its thing? Or would I just see the sync speeds hopefully change slightly each day? I understand it makes the changes overnight, so just wondering what to look out for each morning like an excited child at Christmas!

Sadly for the present time this is what is required.

Log in to the router and check the stats. You should see a rise in both the download and upload figures quite soon. Also the WAN uptime will reset. If you look at the WAN uptime then it should work out that it was reset between 1am and 6am. Most find that it resets around 2am-3am.

[joelyuk]

Hi all,

I decided to take my chances with an online chat to Sky today as I couldn't get hold of the landlord. The online chap said he didn't have access to the line tools to change my speed, but gave me a number to call which answered straight away.

The rather awesome Irish chap kindly had a look at the line and has instantly sync'd it for me within like 30 seconds.... absolutely astounded it was so quick and simple, and they didn't need to access the account holders details to do it. Well done Sky

He said something about putting stabilisation on the line now for me as its syncd to 19mb down. Stats are:

System Up Time: 03:34:13

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	3236	4359	0	13240	44949	00:06:58
LAN	Down	0	0	0	0	0	00:00:00
WLAN	Up	192225	168910	0	190653	29082	03:33:47

Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	19176 kbps	1212 kbps
Line Attenuation	15.5 dB	9.7 dB
Noise Margin	7.1 dB	10.10 dB

Thank you massively to everyone here for your help again too! I'll be happy with anything over 765kbps to be honest, so hopefully this sticks out now!

[Isitme]

If he has left DLM training on the line, you will get a bit more. If he hasn't it will be set to sync with a 7db noise margin, in which case you will not see much more.