COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[PanBiker]

I am not clear how they can offer you a better service for more money with a bum connection. It will doubtless all become clear eventually!

Because at the point it comes out of the ground on Commercial Street there is full bandwidth. Its the infrastructure nearer my property that is the problem.

8.30 this morning I had Dean, Open Reach engineer number six. He want's to climb or access the first pole down from my house to have a look. Problem is it is marked as not safe as it it past its test date. There is a story attached to this, apparently pole installation is contracted out and the wooden poles should be buried 3m in the ground, they have a marker at the bottom to show this. Some contractors a long time ago worked a flanker by only sinking the hole 18" and cutting the rest off the bottom before installing the pole. They look good but are not safe for climbing, depends who installed it. The one Dean is interested in just needs to have its safety certificate updated by a pole test. In the interim he has ordered up a hoist which can only get in when the street is clear of cars, (rammed at weekend of course). I told him they would have a better chance during the week when everyone is at work so they will try next week.

He's interested in this one as previous test results show potential high resistance "near to the customers premises" and no one has been up that pole for years. The one that feeds it at the bottom is marked as having work done on it last November which is when my problem started, could have been the first port of call then I suppose but was found to be OK. I showed him the strained cable around the tree trunk and he wasn't unduly worried as it has armour reinforcement along the length of the cable that's contacting the trunk.

Seems like a plan and I'm glad someone is looking and thinking outside the box and actually doing something practical rather than relying totally on the instrumentation. I'm hoping the box with all the connection terminations at the top is cracked allowing water ingress or something

[Tizer]

My 18-month contract with Plusnet has just come to an end. We were on about £34 a month for 36 mbps fibre, line rental and AnyTime calls. It's just jumped to £43 a month due to coming out of contract. I'll have to look around and see what else is on offer. I notice that at the same time as my contract ended the download speed dropped from 36 to 25 mbps. Strange!

[plaques]

I notice that at the same time as my contract ended the download speed dropped from 36 to 25 mbps. Strange!

Not all that strange. When TalkTalk were pushing their 'faster fibre' our standard speed dropped from just over 6Mbs down to 2Mbs. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that this drop occurred at the promotion time but I doubt it.

[Stanley]

I share your doubts P and have said the same thing before.
Sounds promising Ian. Ask him if he can test the DVLA at the same time!
My dad's brother Alec was killed in Oz when he was a linesman and the pole he was on fell due to termites in that case.... They had just started using safety harnesses and it was thought he could have jumped clear had he not been tied on..... That was 100 years ago.....

[PanBiker]

When we were talking about poles he said the other potentially dodgy factor was that some suppliers didn't dry out the poles before applying the creosote. Unless dry there is no proper soak in, another problem was applying the preservative before the poles were fully dried out, in this case the creosote penetrates only the surface and the inside can rot then as it seals in the moisture. All can look good on the outside but be potential death traps. I don't know what a pole test involves, I will have to watch out for the guy that comes to do it.

[PanBiker]

I forgot to mention that I got a call from Open Reach yesterday afternoon. Barely intelligible, I think the woman was East Asian and very softly spoken. I picked up something about an appointment on Monday and would I prefer AM or PM. I asked for PM. As my original ticket was for Mon, Tue or Wed and Dean rocked up on Saturday, I'm not sure if this latest contact is related to what he has organised regarding the pole test or the hoist or it's a completely different ticket instigated by Talk Talk! If it's the latter I may have two teams next week. When you think about it, these foreign call centre operators must be costing some of the organisations they work for an absolute fortune. A lot to be said for clarity in communication.

[Stanley]

I share your problem with foreign call centres. Made worse of course by my age. I simply can't understand some of them and I often wonder if they simply put it down to racism which it certainly is not.
The pole that killed Uncle Alec was eaten out in the centre by termites.....

[PanBiker]

My line was down completely from 10.10 this morning until 11.35 when the router log shows it trying to reconnect. It had about 6 retries then has settled on 24mbps more or less same as it was before it went off. I had a wander round the area to see if anyone was working on it but no Open Reach guys to be seen? I agreed to an appointment this afternoon so will have to see who rocks up.

[plaques]

Talking TalkTalk routers do you know if the four ethernet outlets all enjoy the same output power that would be given to a single connection irrespective of how many are in use. I get the impression that as you connect more devices into the router then the power output to each one is reduced.

[PanBiker]

The RJ45 sockets are switched outlets and run at high frequency switching the data stream between them. Exactly the same principle as a network switch. Any devices connected will share the bandwidth negotiated on the router input side negotiated with the exchange. Having a device connected will only share in the output when it is switched on or in use. As an example I have one port connected to my satellite receiver for "on demand" and another into powerline adaptors for use on my machine upstairs. Either will only use bandwidth when in use. Devices connecting via WiFi also share the available bandwidth, (mobiles, tablets) etc.

[PanBiker]

Open Reach engineer number seven arrived around 1.15. He plugged his monitor gear into the pair coming into the house, then gave the drop line back to the pole a good bashing with a 30ft fishing pole. The noise level went up considerably on the quiet line test he had running. This feeds from the non climbable pole so he is waiting for a hoist to turn up. In the interim he has checked for noise at the pole at the bottom of the street that feeds the one at the top. Don't know the outcome of that test yet. His test gear showed a bit of a blip at 37m from his test point at the back door. That is the length of the feed pair back to the pole. Could at last be narrowing this down.

[PanBiker]

Hoist has arrived and the pole guy has inspected the one that directly feeds my property. I didn't hear properly but from gesticulations I think he indicated that he could hear noise there so that indicates a fault further back. He has taken the hoist down onto Commercial Street and will check the ones down there. This could turn out to be the tree line cable which is what I suggested last November. Anyway the line is getting a good going over and we'll see what the verdict is. First time anything practical and constructive has been done, everyone else has relied on the smart test gear at ground level.

[PanBiker]

My line dropped again shortly after they moved down onto Commercial Street so I would assume they would be remaking connections down there too. Line was disconnected but has now come back up, DSL has renegotiated and come back up with 25mbps although maximum download speed (which shows line capability) is showing 58584kbps. Maybe time for a router reboot rather than just restarting the DSL. May need this or a speed reset command at the exchange.

[Tizer]

Meanwhile, here at Tizer Towers broadband speed has suddenly dropped from 36 to 26Mbps. It coincided with my Plusnet (PN) contract ending so I'm trying to get the speed sorted before I commit to a new contract. The first PN person on the chat line was to give me an offer for a new contract. He offered the same but at about £1 less so I said that would be of interest - as long as we can get the speed back. He told me the speed drop was probably `BT updating its records', whatever that means, and that it wouldn't make any difference if i moved to another provider. So I asked to speak to a techie and got passed on. He tested the line from their end and says it's OK for 40Mbps and said the usual things about having to test it with the PC directly connected etc. I've checked the speed on 4 or 5 test sites and they all give the same result. My upload speed is normal but that's not important for me, it's fast download that I want. Both our PCs are showing the slower speed so it's not likely to be a fault at their individual Powerline connectors but could be the one connecting the router. I'll have to do the usual direct connection to the BT socket. Oh, happy days, the wonder of the digital age!

[PanBiker]

My first engineer of today came back to report what they found and have done. They chased the noise on my line 3 poles further back on Commercial Street which is where the network disappears underground and goes back to the cabinet at the bottom of Park Road. So, what he has done is swapped out my line pair in the cabinet onto a different circuit pair. Line is now clear of all noise and appears to be solid. He has run all tests again where it comes into the house and issued a speed reset as it was throttled at the exchange. My router stats below show the current status of my bit of the network. For the record, the maximum speed available is the best I have ever seen it, it is usually around 58mbps. He has asked me to report again through my ISP if there are any further issues. I am hoping they have nailed this, best I have ever seen it anyway. Only done by the guys not relying fully on the metering.



Just seen your post Tiz while submitting mine. You could have the same issue as me auto throttling due to a line fault. Do your router logs show anything?

[Pluggy]

Talking TalkTalk routers do you know if the four ethernet outlets all enjoy the same output power that would be given to a single connection irrespective of how many are in use. I get the impression that as you connect more devices into the router then the power output to each one is reduced.

Power ?

There is no power on domestic ethernet, If you mean bandwidth then no its shared as panbiker says.

[plaques]

Pluggy and PanBiker, I was using the term 'power' in a very lose way. If the bandwidth to my router is fixed and I am sharing this Mbps with five outlets, WiFi and four RJ45 sockets, then each has its own reduced bandwidth when switched in. What I have noticed is that the powerline exit unit has along with the RJ45 a WiFi extender. Without the YouView box switched on this unit shows both the RJ45 and extender to be available. Switching the YouView box on (via its RJ45) the extender drops out. IE: it looks like since I'm now putting bandwidth into the Youview box the share going to the extender drops below its operating level.
My next query on this tack is if the Powerline has a fixed share then the loses to this share will be the sum of ALL the small resistances in ALL the ring main circuit wherever mains power is drawn from it. The result being the TV picture pixelates when the bandwidth drops below its required value.

Please accept my lack of expertise on this subject, after all I'm only an ageing nut strangler.

[PanBiker]

Your bandwidth will be throttled at the exchange to the tariff that you are on and your router will negotiate the best that it can over the network that it is connected to the exchange be it copper or fibre or a combination of both.

All devices however they are connected will share this bandwidth but only when they are in use.

The transition between connectors etc is handled by the speed of the processing within the router so from the users point of view is transparent as the internal electronics will be running at many MHz or even GHz depending on the processor doing the switching.

If you only have one device connected and in use it will get the full bandwidth two will share it but not necessarily equally, it will depend on the demands of each device. The switching circuitry in the router will serve as much bandwidth as it can to each port as they come into use. If you have a high demand with lots of devices in use at the same time you need more bandwidth to serve them all efficiently.

Your assumptions above are basically correct.

[PanBiker]

Just found this which is a very good explanation of the differences between hubs, switches and routers.

What''s the difference - Hub, Switch, Router

You are looking at the modern router described for what you generally get from most ISP's. The TalkTalk Huawei meets that spec.

WAN and LAN Interfaces. NAT translator, built in DHCP server feeding 4 port switch and WiFi interface.

[plaques]

Thanks for the link. I'll probably have to read it several times before I understand it.
You may have guessed that I'm having some problems maintaining a good reception. I think we all know that TalkTalk can be frustrating difficult to deal with when you are told everything is OK when you can see it isn't. Then there is always that doubt it is something at your own end which is aggravating the situation. Gradually I'm beginning to think that a possible solution to my problem is to run a cat6 cable directly from the router to the YouView box and reduce the weaknesses in the powerline system. A small expense and a bit of work but probably worth it in the long run.

[PanBiker]

I use a cable connection from my router for on demand services on the Freesat Box. Powerline for my radio station PC in the loft.

[Stanley]

I'm glad you seem to have got a result Ian. Just done a speed test 54ms ping, 37.8 down and 9.38 up. That looks normal for me.... Reading all that tech info made me insecure!

[chinatyke]

Whilst I was out walking this afternoon I happened to look up and Ian's problem instantly sprang to mind. There was an internet joint connection in a tree neatly protected by a pop bottle, all to IP67 ingress standards! It's a little difficult to see what's happening in the photo, but the bottle is to the right of the coil of cable. This cable seems to be feeding the smart bus stops along the road.

Glad to hear you have your problem sorted, Ian.

[Tizer]

Just seen your post Tiz while submitting mine. You could have the same issue as me auto throttling due to a line fault. Do your router logs show anything?

What's a router log?

[PanBiker]

I take it you can log into the router that your ISP supplied? If so have a look round the maintenance area probably. You may find an area that logs various aspects of the throughput of the router. Look for system logs or debug information. The logs can show you about line integrity and DSL connectivity and the like.