Who knows a lot about ADSL?

I was getting a slower speed than I thought I should from my broadband, so I called up Orange aka EE and finally got through to someone technical to see if they could ‘reprofile’ my line. The guy went through his checklist then told me to plug the router into the test socket for 72 hours.

Since I did that I’ve had no faster connection (going by reading the sync speed on the router config) but it’s been awfully intermittent. Some sites are ok but some are unusable. STW and Facebook are fine, but Google Maps doens’t really work at all and my work VPN is a disaster, email is barely usable.

So wtf? Is it part of this ‘reprofiling’ process or have they done something to mess it up?

“He thinks he has a poor connection”
“Get him to plug it into the test port and we’ll show him what poor really is”

EDIT it’s a Yiddish folk tale I’m thinking of

Test port bypasses the internal wiring to rule it out. They will also be monitoring your connection for any errors over 24 hours. You shouldn’t see any improvement, but shouldn’t see a loss either. Re-profiling will be done once the test is over and all that will be is a attenuation adjustment.

Right, so will reprofiling help?

Both Orange and teh internets suggest that with 58 attenuation I should be 4km ish from my exchange and expect to get about 2.5mbps, I was only getting 1mpbs.

However it was really consistent and reliable, now it’s flaky as hell.

I’m visiting family currently and have been sorting out their broadband “issues”.

They had a dodgy wiring setup in the house (loose connection) which causes flakey ADSL sessions with the local exchange. This resulted in BT automatically throttling the line speed down to try and compensate for what they viewed as a poor/unstable connection.

Once I’d identified and rectified the dodgy cable then the slow speeds continued as the BT line speed profile was locked down. A couple of calls to the ISP and the BT profile is unlocked. Line speed is now 10Mpbs (was 1Mbps with the BT profile lock).

You can see the BT profile applied to your line by visiting the following page and running the FTTC diags. On the result page look for the “IP Profile” value.

http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

It should get better. They have reset your profile, now it will work its magic to find the best attenuation for you. It can be anywhere from 4 hours to 5 days for an improvement, 3 days when I had it done a few years ago.

Already plugged into the test socket, so house wiring isn’t an issue.

Plus, it’s far far worse now AFTER I have plugged into the test socket. It’s inconsistent, which it never was before, and sync speed, noise and attenuation are the same.

Not sure I understand why my sync speed is still the same – surely it’d have set it high and then monitored for errors, lowering it until it was stable?

Your line attenuation is quite high and is a direct reflection on the actual physical length of the line, you cant change this.
The other thing you should look at is the downstream and upstream signal to noise ratio (or SNR). It needs to be a minimum of 6dB up to about 12dB. The higher it is, the more stable the connection will be, but it will be slower as a result. Too low and the connection will drop out.
When you log into the router it will have something like a system uptime (how long the router has been powered up) and also something like WAN connection time. If the WAN uptime is lower than the system uptime, your connection may be dropping, hence the speed is throttled back to stabilise the connection.

SNR aka noise margin is 5 down and 6 up.

The speed tester says my ip profile is 750kbps.

Uptime is not listed on my router page.

All the info Orange gave me and that I can find online suggests that attenuation of 58 should give me 2.5mpbs.

Have
You
Tried
Turning
It
Off
&
On
Again

EDIT it’s a Yiddish folk tale I’m thinking of

Make it some chicken soup then.

A new ADSL installation will test the line over time to try and negotiate the fastest stable speeds; this used to be over ten days (for BT provisioned lines at least), not sure if that’s still the case. It’s called “DLM” – dynamic line management. This then sets a “profile” based on the DLM results which is used to configure your connection. It’s aiming for a SNR of 7dB, IIRC.

If they’ve set it to “re-profile”, that’s presumably what it’s doing, they’re running DLM again, so it may drop out occasionally whilst it sorts itself out. However, you can also amend the profile manually to override DLM, and I wouldn’t put it past your average ISP to have done this and made a right pig’s bladder of it.

Incidentally, I’m struggling to see how plugging into the test socket could ever give you worse results, unless that’s just coinciding with the re-training.

Just a thought: has plugging it into the test socket involved moving the router?

i.e. is it possible what you are seeing is actually a more flaky wi-fi reception now that your router is tucked away somewhere, rather than a more flaky connection?

On a serious note I had BT throttle my connection, though they managed to do the whole cul de sac at the same time. Turned out a New Build down the road caused issues with the local BT “Box” and they’d trimmed our connections down whilst fixing, turned out 11mths later before they figured out the New build had long since finished..

Also I had to try the Test Socket routine, also proved I’d a knackered line in too…

Also, don’t mount your (wireless) router near a Radiator.

Incidentally, I’m struggling to see how plugging into the test socket could ever give you worse results, unless that’s just coinciding with the re-training

That is what I am thinking is happening. Is re-training going to cause inconsistent connections? I could understand if it was trying a higher speed and getting flaky results, but it’s not – it’s slower than before AND less consistent.

is it possible what you are seeing is actually a more flaky wi-fi reception

Possible, yes, but not in this case – signal strength still excellent.

The thing is, I’m not that confident that Orange/EE are going to be properly able to sort this out, based on the people I spoke to on the phone. They sounded clueless.

Possible, yes, but not in this case – signal strength still excellent.

That doesn’t always matter – i.e. you could have moved it closer to a source of interference, so you still get a strong wifi signal but it is now competing with another strong signal.

Stick an ethernet cable in and see how it compares.
The fewer variables the better.

I’m confident it’s not the internal wireless. Internal network for instance works very well.

I always insist any end user run speed tests are done through LAN, never wireless.
Retraining a connection could make it flaky in the short term. Dont be restarting the router every day either, just causes more issues as the DLM thinks its dropping out.
Attenuation MAY give you 58mbps, but other variables can affect this. Line quality being the main cause. Is the actual phone line nice and clear with no noise or interference?

Dont be restarting the router every day either, just causes more issues as the DLM thinks its dropping out

Oops, too late. I need to leave it on all the time?

When I said attenuation was 58 I meant that’s the figure reported on the router for attenuation. Sync speed is currently 1084kbps.. will this creep up on its own?

Phone line is fine, but it’s a wireless phone so it may be masking noise.

If you are out of contract it’s pretty easy to switch ISP’s

Switching provider is pointless until you’ve got to the bottom of the problem tbh.
Under normal circumstances the router should be left powered on at all times, unless instructed by the ISP. A couple of times is ok, but dont do it lots and lots.

I think at my exchange Be operate ADSL2 but Orange ADSLMax. There’s some suggestion that ADSL2 would give higher speeds on my long line.

First of all you need to realise that there are really two key speeds.

1: Sync speed – the speed that your router/modem synchronises with the DSLAM in the exchange.

2: For any BT supplied ADSL services (in most cases ISP’s utilise a resold BT service, unless you are with an ISP who utilises LLU and has their DSLAM co-located within the BT exchange) an IP Profile. This profile based on 20CN exchanges is usually based on your lowest sync speed over a period of time, about 3 days usually. On 21CN exchanges it is 88.2% of your sync speed.

In theory then your ISP should be giving you a throughput based on your IP profile, however if their backhaul from the DSLAM or their own network is congested (I’m including their Transit/Peering within this) you will be seeing speedtest results lower than your IP profile.

So once the line is stable, note your sync speed, then go to http://test.speedtester.bt.com and follow the instructions there. This will give you your IP profile and what your line is capable of to the Exchange.

Then do some speed tests to the likes of speedtest.net etc and see what you get there. If there is a big difference between the two then its likely to be congestion on the ISP’s network. Getting them to then admit there is depending on ISP can be quite a challenge, I’ve had quite some discussions with friends/family ISP’s in the past and the advice I offer is don’t buy the cheapest…

profile schmofile. dslam, blah blah, speed shaping/ trimming, transit/ peering.. all bollox

sounds like you have an issue with your line, mol.

plug a normal wired phone into the test port on the NTE (ALL your other kit disconnected) and listen for crackling/ buzzing. do you have any recent examples of your phone ringing but no-one there? rings once and stops? crossed lines? people trying to call but cant get through?

tried swapping filters and the lead from socket to router? is your house fed via a pole outside or underground? if overhead,what colour is the wire to your house?

slow speed can be the result of a line fault.. the exchange kit is talking to your router but is having trouble being heard.. so it slows down in order that the data can get through.. a bit like trying to talk to your deaf granny.. slow and steady.

once the problem is cleared, the exchange kit will eventually see that the line is better and will jack up the speed to suit.

resetting the speed without fixing the issue will not work in the long run.

speedtester is crap. will not help you resolve your issue.

the phone network is a living thing. it is constantly under attack from the elements and other factors. if you had 2.5meg before and it has got slower, the elements or some other factor is affecting it and can be fixed.

It could also be BT making changes to the routing of the line, perhaps making it longer, thus slower.
Changing to ADSL2 may help, but the improvements in speed (if any) would be marginal at best, at worst your connection could worsen. I’d be inclined to stay on ADSL Max.