ADSL Problems

[stickyb]

I have had a good reliable adsl connection for quite a while, but just recently it has become very intermittent. I have tried calling the telephone company/ISP and they say they have checked the line, and not their problem, but there is a distinct language problem as none of the technical staff speak good english.

Looking at the router logs the messages are intermittent "Loss of Synchronisation" and less frequent "LCP down"

........................Down Up
Speed ...............3072 512
Line Attentuation 16db 3.5db
Noise Margin....... 27db 22db

COuld someone interpret the above figures and messages, and point me in the likely direction of the problem.

Thanks

[Jofm5]

There are a number of reasons that can present problems like this.

Usually its noise on the line, this can be present in a number of ways.

1) Pick up the phone - check for static noise on the line
2) Does your modem drop the connection when a phone call is made.

One of the common problems is poor filters on the line - this is the little box that you plug your adsl modem into along with your actual phone. If either of the above are being experienced try changing your filter as cheap ones of these can be problematic (and they do fail).

If you dont get the above ring your telco back and demand an engineer come out. It is not unlikely that when an engineer has been working on cabling to another premises they have disturbed your cabling in the street cabinet and your contacts are not great.

It may be worth changing the filter if access to your telco is not easy as its an easy and cheap way to prove its not your problem. Ideally you want to be able to show any engineer that comes the exact problem so they can realise there is an issue to be dealt with - so if you can find a way of reproducing the drop out all the better.

[al446]

Says to me that line is OK, but I'm no expert. Speed seems good but that is only a snapshot, you need plot over time. Monitor regularly and use that in your fight. Separate out telco and ISP, they are different animals, only 1 is to blame. Anybody else on ISP get outages? Or could be whoever owns the bits in the exchange. Not simple. Good luck.

[stickyb]

Thanks for the pointers so far.

Yes, there is some static noise on the telephone. This is present when only one telephone is connected, with no adsl filter or router connected.

No, the dropouts are not co-incident with making phone calls.

What do the db figures mean? Are they good or bad.

[Jofm5]

If there is static noise on the phone line speak to the telco as there should not be any - sounds like a bad connection. This noise will impair the service and reduce/disrupt your dsl connection.

[jimtherev]

Thanks for the pointers so far.

Yes, there is some static noise on the telephone. This is present when only one telephone is connected, with no adsl filter or router connected.

No, the dropouts are not co-incident with making phone calls.

What do the db figures mean? Are they good or bad.

As to your last question, 27/22 sound pretty good to me. The time to get suspicious is when the margin falls into low double-figures.

They're both better than mine, (around 15) and I'm consistently getting 6000 Mhz download & no dropouts for months now.

[green granite]

A couple of sites explaining the figures.

Tutorials - ADSL > Understanding Line Loss and Measurements (http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/12)

::. Kitz - ADSL Router Line Stats .:: (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm)

[Saab Dastard]

Have you changed anything at your end - new phone, new socket, new router?

SD

[BOAC]

Also a good idea to put your phone into your basic master socket and see if the noise disappears - it may be your wiring.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Switch to cable modem, you don't get any of this bollocks that you get with ADSL.

[stickyb]

A couple of sites explaining the figures.



Thank you, most informative.

Have you changed anything at your end - new phone, new socket, new router?

SD

No, the problem "just appeared" However, having taken the advice about bad connection I have disconnected all the internal house wiring apart from the router, and the noise problem is still there.

[Jofm5]

As I mentioned previously it was probably your wiring in the cabinet in the street that has been disturbed when the telco was doing something for someone else.

This is outside your control and requires the telco to deal with. Push to escalate it till you get someone off of first line support - second line will probably undestand more if you tell them there is noise on the line even though you have disconnected everything.

[wiggy]

Back to the top with a possibly similar problem.

We're Rural (France), 1km'ish of copper wire between us and the exchange. ADSL has been fine for previous 5 years but started having problems about six months back when we frequently lost internet access and the internet "box" was claiming no-sychronisation. Problem would then usually self heal after a few minutes or hours. Original ISP diagnosed the problem as a faulty box which was changed but didn't improve matters. We then changed ISPs (to Orange) but the problem continues - drop outs and then after a period of time of what might be seconds or hours it'll "self heal" again.......

Engineer came out last week, thought he'd fixed it by fiddling with some of our telephone wiring in the house but the problem has kicked in again this weekend.

Now it seems to me :ooh: that the problem is at it's worse just during/just after we've had a wet and windy spell (and we've had a lot of those this winter spring)..and now the (to me) really mysterious bit: we've just discovered that we seem to be able to recover the ADSL within about a minute if we use the landline to dial out to a number( any number)...almost as if the act of dialing out on the telephone kicks the ADSL into getting back into sync, clears a line fault..or something.

Anybody out there got any thoughts on this problem - engineer coming back out on Tuesday, it's now sunny and calm and ASDL has been rock solid since last night.....:uhoh:

[green granite]

There's a loose connection between you and the exchange by the sound of it, it gets disturbed by the wind.

[BOAC]

One recent example of BT's fine engineering standards came to my notice recently. A customer was being connected to a fibre ('Infinity') cabinet. In order to make the connection to the fibre cabinet the (contractor) engineer had to pull reasonably hard on the customer's wires, and in doing so broke the (corroded and patched) 'E' (Exchange) side connection for that line. Down to the house he gayly trotted, set it all up and declared "32mb Sir" and off he went. Said customer then picked up the phone to tell a friend he was on 'Superfast broadband' to find...........no dial tone. To give then their due, the 'real' BT man was round the same day to put an extra piece of wet string in.

You never know what is going on, do you.......................

[wiggy]

Thanks gg;

FWIW fewer drop outs today all apparently cured almost instantly by dialing out on the telcon phone.....WTF????

[FullOppositeRudder]

It almost sounds like a poor connection (corrosion perhaps) somewhere in the service cables.

We had a similar problem a couple of years ago. Eventually the service people from the phone company arrived and a series of tests confirmed curious and indeed puzzling cabling problems. Finally he swapped our connections at both the street hole in the ground and at our connection box over to the unused pair in the original house service installation. Problem solved at no charge :ok:

We don't know what it was, and it won't matter unless we ever need a second line - which we won't.

For the purposes of clarification I am in the great south land.

FOR

[wiggy]

Thanks

Same again this AM. I'm certainly convinced by the idea we have a loose connection, which is why we're dropping the ADSL. I'd be interested if anybody has any thoughts as to why dialling out on the landline/non-ADSL phone consistently leads to the ASDL resyncing.

[BOAC]

A random un-educated guess? Dialling out puts extra voltage on the line and 'makes' the poor connection that was 'breaking' at lower volts? However, 'why' is less important than gettig it fixed at FOR says.:)

[wiggy]

Dialling out puts extra voltage on the line and 'makes' the poor connection that was 'breaking' at lower volts?

A FWIW; That was the ISP engineer's best guess on Tuesday and since then we've discovered a "legacy" :mad: connection buried in render on an external wall that was getting nicely soaked by the record rainfall we've beeen experiencing "chez nous". Line engineer came out earlier today and installed a completely new line from the roadside pole to the first socket in the house and despite the fact it is now seriously hissing it down the connection is solid....that said the next 24 hours will be a real test of the line and connections.

[ MétéoFrance ] (http://france.meteofrance.com/vigilance/Bulletin?ZONE=DEPT09)

Thanks again for all the advice - if you don't hear from me again you'll know the new line failed it's first test..:{