What’s breaking my broadband… Openreacharound don’t know
Discussion
hi all,
Posting this as while Zen are being very helpful, we’re reliant on OpenReach and its a bit hit & miss so far.
Currently have BB from Zen, which I believe is FTTC - FTTP Isn't available yet. I should be getting c40mb download speeds however it sits around 12 and isn’t that stable.
OR have been out 4 times doing some playing and then replacing the line between the boundary and the master socket (fitting a new master socket), that was visit 3, it also cleared a noisy line issue.
Visit 4 ended up with them going round the local cabinets and remaking some connections (that’s what the OR chap told me however apparently Zen were told ‘all was good, no action needed’….).
Interestingly after each OR visit the speed returns to c40mb and will be happy for between a day and a week, then return to being iffy.
Zen say they think theres a high resistance joint somewhere, router logs show the same cycle each time (example below), this cycle could happen once or 5 times in a row until some type of connection is established.
So my question, as no doubt most of you know much more about this type of thing than I do!, is this type of thing something a dodgy line will cause? Anything I should consider in router settings? (I have no idea about this type of stuff other than usually ‘magic box goes flashy flashy and I can access a world of pornography at my leisure’).
Posting this as while Zen are being very helpful, we’re reliant on OpenReach and its a bit hit & miss so far.
Currently have BB from Zen, which I believe is FTTC - FTTP Isn't available yet. I should be getting c40mb download speeds however it sits around 12 and isn’t that stable.
OR have been out 4 times doing some playing and then replacing the line between the boundary and the master socket (fitting a new master socket), that was visit 3, it also cleared a noisy line issue.
Visit 4 ended up with them going round the local cabinets and remaking some connections (that’s what the OR chap told me however apparently Zen were told ‘all was good, no action needed’….).
Interestingly after each OR visit the speed returns to c40mb and will be happy for between a day and a week, then return to being iffy.
Zen say they think theres a high resistance joint somewhere, router logs show the same cycle each time (example below), this cycle could happen once or 5 times in a row until some type of connection is established.
So my question, as no doubt most of you know much more about this type of thing than I do!, is this type of thing something a dodgy line will cause? Anything I should consider in router settings? (I have no idea about this type of stuff other than usually ‘magic box goes flashy flashy and I can access a world of pornography at my leisure’).
Does sound remarkably like a bad line.
The fault on the line could be one of many and will mean an Openreach engineer getting in to all the joints and checking connections. They will likely take the easy approach and lift and shift you on to different pairs or connections in the cab. This can be good or bad depending on where you end up.
The fault on the line could be one of many and will mean an Openreach engineer getting in to all the joints and checking connections. They will likely take the easy approach and lift and shift you on to different pairs or connections in the cab. This can be good or bad depending on where you end up.
In my experience, it depends on the OR gadgy that they said. I had slow speeds and the first OR chap that arrived just lied to me. Said he was going to do a "lift and shift" and then f
ked off without doing anything. He also claimed they found no fault.
A "lift and shift" is where they wire your line to a new terminal in the roadside green cabinet.
Second OP chap did a lift and shift and it improved. A while later it dropped again. OR came out again, and this time they rewired the lot, using spare cores, so I ended to with a new set of unused wires from the green box to my house. That was a massive improvement, and stayed that way until I FTTP was available.
I'm also with Zen, and they are very good at telling OR to get their finger out and fix it.
ked off without doing anything. He also claimed they found no fault.A "lift and shift" is where they wire your line to a new terminal in the roadside green cabinet.
Second OP chap did a lift and shift and it improved. A while later it dropped again. OR came out again, and this time they rewired the lot, using spare cores, so I ended to with a new set of unused wires from the green box to my house. That was a massive improvement, and stayed that way until I FTTP was available.
I'm also with Zen, and they are very good at telling OR to get their finger out and fix it.
If it's environmental, then it can be luck that the fault occurs when an OR engineer is there and/or that the OR engineer can be bothered to investigate properly.
In a previous IT job I got involved with some broadband faults. I remember one problem which was eventually traced to a DP / junction box which wasn't sealed properly so needed a wet spell to cause the problem. That needed an enthusiastic engineer working back up the line.
Another circuit had periods of drop-outs and then perfect stability. OR made several site visits and said nothing was wrong. One day when it was up/down I drove the two hours to site (on the Welsh coast). The cause? On a windy day, the overhead line to the building would move in the wind and the line would drop.
Is there any correlation with the weather or anything else for your fault?
In a previous IT job I got involved with some broadband faults. I remember one problem which was eventually traced to a DP / junction box which wasn't sealed properly so needed a wet spell to cause the problem. That needed an enthusiastic engineer working back up the line.
Another circuit had periods of drop-outs and then perfect stability. OR made several site visits and said nothing was wrong. One day when it was up/down I drove the two hours to site (on the Welsh coast). The cause? On a windy day, the overhead line to the building would move in the wind and the line would drop.
Is there any correlation with the weather or anything else for your fault?
Is your router plugged into the master socket? I had a similar issue when I went over to bb. Turned out it was because the router was connected to a wall socket which was daisy-chained from the master socket. OR type explained it lost a bit at each intermediate socket, called bandspread or similar. Strangely it wasn’t an immediate drop as I would have expected but took place over several days. I only noticed because I did a random speed test, wasn’t impressed with the result and the next one was worse!
OR bloke rewired so that the router socket was now upgraded to a 5c master socket with a direct connection to the original master socket. The other sockets now hang off it.
Worked fine. Then I got FTTH.
OR bloke rewired so that the router socket was now upgraded to a 5c master socket with a direct connection to the original master socket. The other sockets now hang off it.
Worked fine. Then I got FTTH.
Thanks all.
OR came out again today, a very enthusiastic guy who was very helpful - makes a change from visit #4!
He played again but this time with the gubbins under the pavement and said he’d run a new line further up near the cabinet (or something like that).
All seems to be well at >50mb.
Since the first visit the cabling our side has been simple - the nest of wires and 5 extensions are gone (we never used them, previous owners had lines everywhere!), new router courtesy of Zen.
All seems well, what could go wrong
OR came out again today, a very enthusiastic guy who was very helpful - makes a change from visit #4!
He played again but this time with the gubbins under the pavement and said he’d run a new line further up near the cabinet (or something like that).
All seems to be well at >50mb.
Since the first visit the cabling our side has been simple - the nest of wires and 5 extensions are gone (we never used them, previous owners had lines everywhere!), new router courtesy of Zen.
All seems well, what could go wrong
This might sound strange but....is your Zen router plugged in on an extension lead and if so, what else is plugged in next to it?
I had exactly the issue you're having back when I was on FTTC - line would would be reset by Plusnet but the speed would tail off over the course of a week or so to tragically-slow numbers. The Openreach guy tested the line all the way into the property - it was fine all the way to outside but showed faults from the master socket. He asked if I could turn off the mains power which I did - the line faults went away immediately. We turned things back on one at a time - no line faults. He then asked what had been on that wasn't now back on - turns out an essential oil diffuser I'd been given as a gift had been on prior but was off now; it was plugged into the same extension as the router... We turned it back on and the errors on the line soared immediately.
Bascially the st power supply inside the diffuser was creating so much dirty electrical noise back through the extension lead it was actually affecting the router and creating faults on the line. Every time the ISP saw those faults, the DLM would drop the line speed.
The diffuser - nice as it was - went in the bin!
I had exactly the issue you're having back when I was on FTTC - line would would be reset by Plusnet but the speed would tail off over the course of a week or so to tragically-slow numbers. The Openreach guy tested the line all the way into the property - it was fine all the way to outside but showed faults from the master socket. He asked if I could turn off the mains power which I did - the line faults went away immediately. We turned things back on one at a time - no line faults. He then asked what had been on that wasn't now back on - turns out an essential oil diffuser I'd been given as a gift had been on prior but was off now; it was plugged into the same extension as the router... We turned it back on and the errors on the line soared immediately.
Bascially the s
t power supply inside the diffuser was creating so much dirty electrical noise back through the extension lead it was actually affecting the router and creating faults on the line. Every time the ISP saw those faults, the DLM would drop the line speed.The diffuser - nice as it was - went in the bin!
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