Wi-fi conflict?

[aesmith]

Any increase would help, but I'm mainly hoping there will be better stability. It's the dropping out (or choking down <0.1 Mb) that's the problem.

ADSL2 would improve things. But what you describe really sounds like a line fault, or possibly external interference. Unfortunately you're up against a mass market ISP who's likely to either slow your line to try and ride out the issues, or claim it's external interference and wash their hands of it.
Did the Openreach guy say anything like doing a "lift and shift" or "tie pair modification"? Both are effectively swapping you onto different equipment at the exchange, although I'm not clear on the difference.

 

[ajlelectronics]

ADSL2 would improve things. But what you describe really sounds like a line fault, or possibly external interference. Unfortunately you're up against a mass market ISP who's likely to either slow your line to try and ride out the issues, or claim it's external interference and wash their hands of it.
Did the Openreach guy say anything like doing a "lift and shift" or "tie pair modification"? Both are effectively swapping you onto different equipment at the exchange, although I'm not clear on the difference.

'Twas ever thus with the big ISPs, which is why I finally saw sense and went with Zen. Not as cheap but far better value for money. Now the new tenant has gone with BT and the same old issues are back and of course she cannot get anything done about it. "But they are cheaper".

 

[sako243]

Another issue with 4G is that most of the carriers (certainly EE) run carrier grade NAT which means that you can't get a public facing IP address. Perhaps not an issue for most but as I run a small electronics business I have servers and equipment that I need remote access to installed from home. We investigated the 4G route but that snippet which I eventually gleaned killed it off.

Our copper broadband is fine - 25Mbps down and about 0.75-1Mbps up. It would be nicer to have a higher upload speed but at the moment it's nice and reliable which is the main thing.

 

[Guineafowl]

4G is an option, then, as is switching to another provider. Before all this business, I didn't know it would make that much difference. That A&A provider sounds right up my street.

I'll see what happens when (and if) I get switched to ADSL2/2+. If we can get a stable 4-5 Mb/s for the £30/m we're paying, that would tide us over nicely until the fibre comes in.

 

[Guineafowl]

When they switch me over, should I keep the 9 dB margin and interleaving?

 

[aesmith]

When they switch me over, should I keep the 9 dB margin and interleaving?

No, start off at 6dB. Your line should be fine at 6dB, ours is and it's a longer higher loss than yours. If there's a fault if should be fixed, not papered over by slowing you down.

 

[aesmith]

Another issue with 4G is that most of the carriers (certainly EE) run carrier grade NAT which means that you can't get a public facing IP address. .

Three gives a real IP address if you use the "3internet" APN.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Three gives a real IP address if you use the "3internet" APN.

There are plenty of IP trackers like Dyndns.com which locks a domain name to the dynamic internet facing address. I can always access all my equipment at home that way. My Synology NAS and my CCTV NVR look after that issue by themselves too.

 

[Guineafowl]

No, start off at 6dB. Your line should be fine at 6dB, ours is and it's a longer higher loss than yours. If there's a fault if should be fixed, not papered over by slowing you down.

Ok. They wouldn't make the ADSL switch today, as there's an open order for a new hub (SH2), the logic of which eludes me.

No, neither engineer suggested swapping anything round.

 

[sako243]

There are plenty of IP trackers like Dyndns.com which locks a domain name to the dynamic internet facing address. I can always access all my equipment at home that way. My Synology NAS and my CCTV NVR look after that issue by themselves too.

Those don't help in the situation where the provider does carrier level NAT like EE as there's no route back to your router from a generic device on the public Internet.

Note some things (e.g. Reolink) have a sneaky way where they push a connection through their servers. Basically your NVR connects to their server and then they can route the traffic through their servers back to your NVR as the NVR is what initiated the connection.

 

[sako243]

Three gives a real IP address if you use the "3internet" APN.

Useful to know if they had any coverage down here

 

[Guineafowl]

New hub has arrived. I'm pretty sure it's another hub 6, and they still haven't switched the ADSL.

 

[Guineafowl]

To continue, for your amusement: onto another BT guide who doesn’t know what ADSL means. Kept wanting to send me a new filter.

Now to Team Leader - never heard of switching ADSL. Trying to bounce me to Openreach.

Senior O/R engineer coming tomorrow.

Got through to a nice lass in Connections who had half a brain - agreed the DSL checker shows ADSL2/+ available, but no option to change on her Homeview. Might be a confusion about which cabinet I’m connected to.

https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm?xid=121175&cabinets=10792

 

[aesmith]

Got through to a nice lass in Connections who had half a brain - agreed the DSL checker shows ADSL2/+ available, but no option to change on her Homeview. Might be a confusion about which cabinet I’m connected to.

https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm?xid=121175&cabinets=10792

Shouldn't be relevant for ADSL as the equipment is in the exchange not cabinet.

 

[Guineafowl]

Shouldn't be relevant for ADSL as the equipment is in the exchange not cabinet.

3 O/R engineers out yesterday, including the most senior bloke in the area.

The old copper lines are crappy and there's a dodgy junction somewhere under the floor. Not worth tearing everything up with fibre (conduit, anyway) being put in 'soon'.

Cancelled the BT contract, early exit fees waived, switching to Andrews & Arnold SOTAP in two weeks' time. Even the sales woman there knew more about copper broadband than BT tech support.

A&A will address the ADSL1/2/2+ stuff when they connect me.

 

[sickpup]

21CN is a BT acronym for 21st Century Network which provides for the moving of the phone system from PSTN to VOIP and ADSL2+.

More details can be found here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_21CN

An oddity I remember from a decade or so back is not all routers could handle ADSL2+. Talktalk were for a time upgrading customers on rural lines to ADSL2+ as it became available but the router they provided reverted to ADSL. Caused some very odd problems.

 

[Guineafowl]

Update: Connected to A&A ISP last night.

As far as I can see, I'm on ADSL2+, full 6dB profile with interleaving off. I can fiddle with the settings, but should probably leave it alone for the 10-day training period?

Max line rate is 1.13/4.58 Mbps.

From the DSL bit chart, it looks like the higher frequencies aren't being used (yet). Is that right? There are no bits indicated above the 240 mark, which is just under halfway along.

 

[aesmith]

The higher frequencies,th difference between ADSL2 and 2+, don't travel far so you're probably not going to see them. We don't connect at any different speed whether I enable 2+ or not ..