This topic

Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 08:58:25 GMT

Hiya,

We're pretty rural and have grown to accept our connection for what it is.

Broadly, we manage approx 10Mb down and a little under 1mb up but that all went to hell yesterday.

From about 7pm last night we were getting disconnects every 3-10 minutes and would reconnect anywhere between as low as 3.4 and as high as 11.1.

It settled through the night and this morning was sitting at 5.7mb/0.8mb with the SNR at 13/12 respectively.

Our previous connection of 10/1 usually sat around 6/5 and has been like this for a couple of years. It dipped slightly 6 months into lockdown but recovered a few months later.

I suppose the other thing worth noting is that the router I'm using allows you to 'change' the SNR (I know it's a bit more complicated than that) but it allowed us to renegotiate the connection speed up or down and was quite successful in the past to try and get the most from the meager connection speed.

This no longer is having any effect either. I've tried making small adjustments but the reported values are coming back exactly the same which makes me wonder if theres some sort of restriction or capping in effect for some reason.

Please see attached the BT line check report and a couple of pages of router stats from later night and this morning.

I've raised a complaint last night so we'll see where that goes but can anyone shed any light on whats going on and what might be done? Theres two of us working from home and it was already touch and go sometimes but this might just break it. 😕

Since it also falls below the handback threshold (impacted, 6.8) does this trigger anything else from their end or how/what does that signify?

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:25:50 GMT

have you checked for line noise dial 17070 option 2 should be silent and best with corded phone

have you tried using test socket with a filter to see if that helps connection and stability by eliminating faceplate and any extension wiring form causing problems

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:48:47 GMT

The master socket was fitted when the line was setup and we've never a phone installed. I don't even have one.

I will install the filter to the test socket however and get back to you, cheers.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:31:33 GMT

So, removing the faceplate and plugging the filter into the socket behind gets no connection at all.

The plug insert on the faceplate is quite long so I suppose the plug in the filter isn't long enough to reach the connections.

On reassembly, connection goes back to exactly what it was previous.

I also tried the SNR adjustment to the maximum value but again, the connection re-established at exactly the same rate.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:57:51 GMT

which master do you have

the one place you should get a connection is the test socket so something not right

the most basic test for connection problems is to check for line noise. although you maybe not use the landline you still have a copper landline with a phone number

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 12:26:29 GMT

It's the second one.

I'll give it another go, see if I've another filter somewhere.

Ok, no other filter but I removed the faceplate again and checked again to the same result, no connection.

Put it back together and resynced at exactly the same previous values.

Weirdness with the faceplate aside, I'm certain it's something supply side rather than at home. It's been exactly the reported values now and hasn't dropped connection today at all. So ok, it's stable compared to last night but it's nearly halved my already not brilliant connection speed and no attempts from this end to alter it by tweaking the SNR has changed anything.

Although I did notice that the reported information on the Availability checker showed that the max observed downstream had risen to 12.55 reported today, just after I tried to make a max adjustment to SNR which by previous experience would have maxxed out the connection speed but would have been pretty unusable due to the extremely low SNR values.

So I'm back to wondering that it's an exchange side change to my line where either the connection speed or noise values have been 'Set' for some reason.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

pippincp — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 13:07:15 GMT

Are you sure your scocket doesn't have an I-plate which also needs to be removed to reveal the test socket?

Just pull the I-plate off. The front plate screws hold it in place.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 14:36:56 GMT

It's this one..

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 14:42:38 GMT

that is a new style master which clips in place not screwed. But from your description you do not have 2 sockets on front - 1 for broadband and 1 for phone ( I assume front of master does not look like number 6)

your broadband should work with the filter inserted in test socket. do you have any extension sockets with wiring

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

pippincp — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 15:16:06 GMT

The test socket should still work when you connect a filter to it as it connects directly to your incoming cable.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 17:04:17 GMT

yes, yes it should and I can't see any reason for it not to since the face plate simply extends a metal strip connection from the 'socket' where the plug from the filter goes in, and the 'plug' extruded behind the face of the plate that goes into other socket .

As I mentioned, I'm just assuming that theres a slight mismatch in a contact strip somewhere between the plug on the filter and the internal socket that the faceplate which is why it doesn't work.

It's setup thus,: socket -->filter -->supplied router cable (a meter maybe) -->router

I appreciate checking the basics but theres no other extension cords and nothing had changed last night when it started playing up. No foul weather, no lightning, no storms, nothing.

Theres no reported outages that I can see and nothing when I query the phone number.

The router stats report a theoretical maximum which is consistent with my previous experience and I'm surmising that if it's suggesting these kinds of numbers then it's not physical damage anywhere. Surely if there was damage then the reported theoretical would be lower?

I'm just basing this on the assumption that those values are the speed that they could probably get negotiating between the router and cabinet but that they then settle on something that would be reliable and consistent. Thats fine, and I know we were sailing pretty close to the wind sometimes with SNR values that were low but for the last 2 and a bit years this has worked fine.

To have the connection speed halved to bring up the SNR to a more 'reliable' level is not a 'reliability feature' I'm not very happy with. Sure, there has been no disconnects today but then there weren't any for the last few years either.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit **bleep** off but it's pretty frustrating!

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 17:12:47 GMT

I assume you have nothing connected to terminals 2&5 beneath the blue connector on left of socket

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 18:00:38 GMT

It' a clear connector in this case and there is.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 18:08:32 GMT

That explains why you cannot get connection at test socket as 2&5 under clear plastic is where any extensions would be connected whereas the main connection is on the back of that plate in terminals A&B. So when you remove the faceplate you disconnect the test socket

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 18:23:03 GMT

Well that's one thing cleared up.

Cheers!

Still stuck with the much reduced line speed though. Any thoughts as to what might be going on or what to do about it?

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 18:33:17 GMT

I can't believe the openreach engineer connected the socket like that unless you have something else connected as well mY e nearer wher the line comes into your home.

If there is nothing then if it was mine I would rewire the socket so the incoming openreach wiring connects to the correct terminals A&B on the back and see if that helps

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 09:05:00 GMT

There is another socket thats an extension of this one but AFAIK it was disconnected. The line in is on the outside of the same wall the socket is attached to.

I'd be tempted to make the changes you mention but I really can't afford to have even the limited connection we've got stop working if something went wrong.

Besides, it's been fine for years so I'm not sure how or why this has happened now.

The only change to the setup here was adding an AP (a couple of weeks ago) but again, I don't see how that results in a substantive restriction in the line from the cabinet. It worked fine from installation till a few nights ago.

The line dropped last night and reconnected at 3:30am to exactly the same values as previous, 5797/800

The only other thing I'd like to check is plugging in the original BT broadband hub to see if the numbers are the same so I could at least rule out my own hardware but I'm not really sure where it is.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 10:01:01 GMT

So another update.

Spoke to BT but at the time they were unable to do anything as it's not one of their routers.

They agreed to send another one out that arrived this morning .

On plugging that in, same speeds and SNR values (and reporting the same maximum values) as my previous router.

Actually the downstream is slightly different reporting 5.8 but thats likely just rounding. Upstream exactly the same at 0.8

So back to BT and onto Openreach I suppose.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

imjolly — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 10:19:53 GMT

have you tried the other 'extension' socket to see if it has dial tone

Re: Sudden drop in conection speed and connection stability

dam_01 — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 11:11:20 GMT

I've not.

Since I've another (mobile) router now and the family are away out I'll give that a try as well just to see what happens but based on everything thus far, if it is still connected the story will be the same.