Unstable FTTC to our estate and line IP profile removal question

[revaido]

Hi,

I moved to a new estate in 2016 and surprisingly the builder had forgotten to engage BT so it was all cabled up in 2015 via BT / Openreach so in theory all new cable.

The ECI cabinet is around a max of 500m away (330m as the crow flies) but we've never had great performance here and I've tried a variety of kit over the years. I'd had 80/20 at the previous address so carried Infinity 2 over but downgraded to 40Mbps as we weren't getting the higher speeds here.

Initially we had the HH5, then a Smart Hub, then the Openreach HG612, the Openreach ECI modem, a Draytek 2760 and currently a Zyxel VMG1312-B10A. Basically all MCT approved kit - I only replaced the ECI when I read it had been removed.

Over time the speeds have slowly fallen down and down which was why I tried the options above to gain speed back but over time it gradually dropped (possibly crosstalk from people moving over to FTTC) and we see line instability with random drops and even disconnections if someone is walking around outside.

If I do the BT wholesale speed test it shows an IP profile of 31.36Mbps - not sure if this is just dynamically based off the current negotiated speed or whether DLM has applied this over time due to noise etc.

It's an old ECI cabinet with no vectoring support and it has had stability issues in the past where the entire area connected to this cabinet has lost internet access for more than 7 days at a time. A new side pod was added and it's never really seemed 100% stable since then and I guess cross talk gets worse as new lines are connected to VSDL.

I've replaced all the cabling this week in our house end including replacing the NTE5 with an NTE5c with MK4 faceplate and a new VDSL cable to the modem and it's as quick as I've seen for a while but still right on the handback threshold.

Is it possible to check and remove any line profiles / do a DLM reset now or do we have to sit and wait for weeks / months for DLM to do anything?

Alternatively is it a call straight in to try and get an engineer with it being right on the handback threshold please to see if there's a dodgy cable join somewhere?

I've just started DSLstats logging as well to try and get a picture of what's happening over time if that helps.

A screenshot of the availability checker is below.

With thanks in advance

[imjolly]

Your IP profile is based on your connection speed and not the other way round. To get. Higher profile you need a faster connection speed.

Can you post hub/router stats.

Did you check for any line noise. Dial 17070 option 2 should be silent and best with corded phone

[revaido]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Yes I had read it was based off 96.8% of the currently syncced speed so that confirms it thank-you.

These are the stats below from the Zyxel - I have noticed the Draytek 2760 seems to show a higher max attainable speed and have a 2862n on the way to see how that fares as it's a newer Intel / Lantiq chipset in there.

We did get around 45Mbps when we first connected and this has slowly come down over time. There are newer firmwares for the Zyxel but this is running the SIN498 approved version.

DSLAM type / SW version: IFTN:0xb206 (178.6) / v0xb206
Modem/router firmware: AnnexA version - A2pv6F039o1.d26a
DSL mode: VDSL2 Profile 17a
Status: Showtime
Uptime: 22 hours 6 min 37 sec
Resyncs: 0 (since 16 Jun 2021 15:06:53)

Downstream Upstream
Line attenuation (dB): 24.8 0.0
Signal attenuation (dB): Not available on VDSL2
Connection speed (kbps): 32400 4203
SNR margin (dB): 6.7 6.1
Power (dBm): 1.8 1.8
Interleave depth: 1039 1
INP: 3.50 0
G.INP: Not enabled Not enabled
Vectoring status: 5 (VECT_UNCONFIGURED)

RSCorr/RS (%): 0.0354 0.0006
RSUnCorr/RS (%): 0.0000 0.0000
ES/hour: 0.40 0.13

------------

adsl info --stats
adsl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Last Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 4273 Kbps, Downstream rate = 42376 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 4203 Kbps, Downstream rate = 32400 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 6.8 6.2
Attn(dB): 24.8 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 1.8 1.8

VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: 30 33
B: 31 131
M: 1 1
T: 64 5
R: 10 16
S: 0.0314 0.9966
L: 10704 1188
😧 1039 1
I: 42 148
N: 42 148

Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 26316724 773043
OHFErr: 14 3
RS: 1515561665 1709655
RSCorr: 535464 10
RSUnCorr: 230 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 30 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 665532483 0
Data Cells: 365813617 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 8 3
SES: 0 0
UAS: 23 23
AS: 79627

Bearer 0
INP: 3.50 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 8 0
PER: 3.02 16.25
OR: 95.19 19.18
AgR: 32494.78 4221.77

Bitswap: 7846/7851 13/13

Total time = 22 hours 7 min 30 sec
FEC: 535464 10
CRC: 14 3
ES: 8 3
SES: 0 0
UAS: 23 23
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 7 min 30 sec
FEC: 3785 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 3141 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 22 hours 7 min 30 sec
FEC: 535464 10
CRC: 14 3
ES: 8 3
SES: 0 0
UAS: 23 23
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 22 hours 7 min 5 sec
FEC: 535464 10
CRC: 14 3
ES: 8 3
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
NTR: mipsCntAtNtr=0 ncoCntAtNtr=0
>

[Starwire]

I stopped reading the when saw, ‘The ECI Cabinet’.

ECI is not fit for purpose, your only hope is they put in FTTP sooner rather than later.

[revaido]

We've only got a DECT phone so I've tried the 17070 and it seems fairly quiet on there with nothing obvious showing up.

I think all the local dog owners let their dogs pee on the cabinet in the hope we'd one day get a Huawei 😂

[Starwire]

Even if they did put a Relief DSLAM in, the which would most certainly be Huawei it’s not just a case of moving your service from the ECI to the Huawei as your OGEA is built off a specific Head End, that being the one the DSLAM is connected to.

So if say your ECI Port went faulty they’d just Lift and Shift you onto another one of the ECI Ports, not the Huawei one and if there are no spare ECI Ports then you’d have to wait for a Port Repair to be done by an NGA Engineer, regardless of there being spares on the Huawei.

The only way you could get moved to the Huawei is either Cease and Reprovide the service and or get a second line but when an order is placed it usually allocates the first available DSLAM Port, which could be on the ECI one.

[revaido]

Hopefully BT can try and improve this one, if not we've got Virgin cabling our local area so they could be seeing a mass exodus soon.

[The_PIT]

Sounds a bit like my issue declining speeds gone down from 72mbps to 43 mbps the biggest decline in the last few months. My cab is ECI as well.

Don't go with virgin there okay if everything works but if it doesn't there tech support is dreadful. At one time their forums used to be good but now they tend to ignore you if they can't fix the issue.

I had a known cabinet fault with them and would they do anything no.

In that time my back up BT line was rock solid so I ditched virgin had a second broadband connection fitted then started getting issues. So far BT tech support have much much better.

[revaido]

I hooked up a Draytek 2862 to see if the slightly newer modem in that would help and with the MDM2 firmware it gets a higher uplink than I normally see but unfortunately doesn't support baby jumbo frames. 

With the BT firmware (optimised for Huawei cabs) it does support baby jumbo frames but the uplink drops 20% like other devices. I've dropped Draytek a message to see if that's a mistake, it's bizarre that the SIN 498 approved firmware is better for just Huawei cabs. 

It will be interesting to see if anything improves.

[revaido]

OK Draytek came back and said only their specific BT firmwares support baby jumbo frames and the others are locked at MTU 1500.

It really does feel like anyone on an ECI cabinet is a second class citizen when it comes to FTTC.

Is there anyone from BT here who could check if DLM is applying restrictions to our line please and reset or is it an hour or two on to support to try and sort it?