Where-to when your ISPs and TDR can't help?

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301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#562831 30-Dec-2011 11:43

Thanks Shaun! I'll make sure I'm home all day then.

Any word on the other two matters raised, the cable map and the line cards in use in all the cabinets?

ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#562911 30-Dec-2011 15:04

Just got a txt, Jan 4th now?!

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#562927 30-Dec-2011 16:12

ChillingSilence: Just got a txt, Jan 4th now?!

WISP anyone?

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KiwiNick

11 posts

Geek

#562932 30-Dec-2011 16:41

Rolling back to the issue of a Line Tap ...

ChillingSilence: Unfortunately I've never heard of a line tap before

Also known as: a multiple. It's where one pair appears at more than one place. This can be with cabinets or CTs (on power poles). It was quite common in the 60's, but only in New Zealand if I'm not mistaken. Basically it's a Tee junction in the cable, which has no effect on voice frequencies, but at ADSL frequencies, it's diabolical.

I must admit though, I've never heard of one pair appearing at multiple cabinets (as seem to be alluded to by DonGould's first diagram). But his second diagram is much more of a possibility, for suburbs done in the 80's.

I'm not too sure what Telecom did past 1990, but they did try direct-buried joints in one or two locations, which seemed to work much better than the RLG (the grey pillar things sticking out of the ground).

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#562937 30-Dec-2011 16:59

KiwiNick: Rolling back to the issue of a Line Tap ...

ChillingSilence: Unfortunately I've never heard of a line tap before

Also known as: a multiple. It's where one pair appears at more than one place. This can be with cabinets or CTs (on power poles). It was quite common in the 60's, but only in New Zealand if I'm not mistaken. Basically it's a Tee junction in the cable, which has no effect on voice frequencies, but at ADSL frequencies, it's diabolical.

I must admit though, I've never heard of one pair appearing at multiple cabinets (as seem to be alluded to by DonGould's first diagram). But his second diagram is much more of a possibility, for suburbs done in the 80's.

I'm not too sure what Telecom did past 1990, but they did try direct-buried joints in one or two locations, which seemed to work much better than the RLG (the grey pillar things sticking out of the ground).

If you click on the diagram it will open in a new tab and then you can see it in full size -

I only drew 1 cabinet, but I did draw a number of road side distribution frames (what I'm guessing you're calling a CT). I confess I know bugger all about how the network is done in .nz having not worked for Chorus. I have a basic understanding from having worked on digital PABX systems (Ericsson BCS150 in the 90's) which did suffer from the same issues with cable T's.

The same issue does impact the voice frequencies as well, most people just don't notice the impact at all, as I understand it.

I'd like to know how you test a bit of copper to see if it's got T's on it without doing a physical inspection.

As I understand it, the problem is 'digital echo' from the far end of the pair which causes the problem.

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#562940 30-Dec-2011 16:59

ChillingSilence: Thanks Shaun! I'll make sure I'm home all day then.

Any word on the other two matters raised, the cable map and the line cards in use in all the cabinets?

pffft... as we're going to be living with the copper and these problems for at least another decade, that's stuff the minister should force into the public domain.

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ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564367 4-Jan-2012 15:12

OK so the 32nd Tech has just left, he's installed a second naked DSL line and Slingshot have been kind enough to supply me with a 1-port Dynalink RTA13220v6 (Maybe they don't trust mine?).

Initially when he wired it up, both lines (The new Naked DSL and the old regular DSL) were syncing around 6.7mbps (Absolutely terrible), so he went back to the cabinet to test. Sync at the cabinet at 20mbps. Back he comes, and long story short, there was a mix-up with the pairs, one was using one cable from one pair and one cable from another.

Anyways so at the end of the driveway the two lines are syncing at 12mbps and 13mbps respectively. Follow the cable 25 meters to my place and they're now syncing at 10191kbps and 9271kbps. Both under the 10mbps, and losing 4mbps over the space of 25 meters to the demarc point under my house. The speed loss from the demarc to the patch-panel and routers (Which is 100% CAT6 from the demarc) is negligible, less than 10K and not worth worrying about (As it should be).

So, this loss shouldn't be happening, but as far as he was concerned it was close enough and he had the DSL syncing so he didn't care, he was off. Might end up having to get that looked into as well coz it shouldn't be 9mbps (Here we go again) and I *shouldn't* have to go on a long-range profile when I'm <700m away as the cable travels. He confirmed that it goes to the end of the street and back again.

Not getting PPP on the new Naked DSL so I'm on hold to Slingshot to confirm the details , but then I guess I'll need to setup some monitoring to keep an eye on them both and confirm the differences in uptimes.

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ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564393 4-Jan-2012 16:34

OK after 50 minutes on the phone to Slingshot, I'm finally active :D

Now to setup some basic ping-monitoring to see when they go down.
EDIT: Pingtests up. Every 60 seconds it'll write the date & time, then ping my colo server IP for 56 seconds with a timeout of 100ms. Hopefully we'll see if one goes down and the other doesn't, or we'll see them both go down.

ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564410 4-Jan-2012 17:35

So far both seem to lose packets around the same time, which is odd. Testing to two servers, so I know it's not my colo box.

Ragnor

8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#564859 5-Jan-2012 15:31

This is becoming quite an epic saga, 3-4Mbit loss over 25m sounds pretty suspect.

ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564862 5-Jan-2012 15:37

Haha yeah you're telling me, but his stance was "Nope, you're syncing, and it's pretty close to 10mbps so I don't really care".....

I'm not allowed to pull a new cable coz it's not my network, but I have a feeling I would *honestly* be better to run myself some CAT6 from the demarc to the consolidation point at the end of the driveway, and then again to the top of our shared driveway. (There's about 7 houses off the main drive, and two off our smaller driveway)

Anyways I'll see how things go tonight etc in terms of disconnections, but the packet loss is somewhere around 2-3% which is concerning to say the least. It shouldn't be. What's cool though is both have interleaving turned on, yet the Naked connection has 12ms to my colo server, whereas my main internet takes 28ms to it. Quite the difference :D

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#564875 5-Jan-2012 15:48

ChillingSilence: there was a mix-up with the pairs, one was using one cable from one pair and one cable from another.

Opps... split pairs, there's one I over looked. Really need a check list for this stuff.

I know in guy in .au who did a whole project on removing split pairs from Telstra's network. Line guys there just didn't understand the impact.

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ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564877 5-Jan-2012 15:51

Yeah the guy was quite shocked it had been overlooked by so many, he said unless the last guy deliberately did it to try and get around the issue and fix it, but he wouldn't have thought so coz it wasn't marked off as being that way in their records.

RunningMan

8954 posts

Uber Geek

#564880 5-Jan-2012 16:08

ChillingSilence: Anyways so at the end of the driveway the two lines are syncing at 12mbps and 13mbps respectively. Follow the cable 25 meters to my place and they're now syncing at 10191kbps and 9271kbps. Both under the 10mbps, and losing 4mbps over the space of 25 meters to the demarc point under my house. The speed loss from the demarc to the patch-panel and routers (Which is 100% CAT6 from the demarc) is negligible, less than 10K and not worth worrying about (As it should be).

Interesting that it's taken so long for a sync speed comparison between these two points. Given the large drop in a short distance, it would appear to be a good place to start looking closer for a physical fault. I would have thought at least one of the 30 odd Chorus techs swapping pairs would have noticed this difference, and highlighted this as an area for closer examination.

I take it this cable is buried, not overhead?

ChillingSilence

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

#564884 5-Jan-2012 16:16

Correct, it's under a driveway. I honestly couldn't care less if they pulled a new one alongside the driveways edge, hell I'll supply them the outdoor CAT6 if they really want... It's honestly like 25 meters and dropping that much is a *lot*.

One thing the guy did note which I seem to recall somebody else here noted was that this particular Chorus tech had experienced a similar issue previously where a small business was having dropouts like I explained to him (We got talking while he was wiring, about WHY I'm getting another line). He said their cause was power fluctuations and them putting in a UPS fixed it. I've had issues since before AND after the UPS went in, so he suggested there could be some external power influence. If it's something like the neighbours flicking on or off lights, or their oven, or hot water cylinder or something (I wouldn't have a clue, I have bugger all experience in electrical). It would make sense because it's *only* me who is affected. I've had a chat with some of our other neighbours, turns out the ones in front of us are also in IT, and they do a bit of after-hours work. They would have definitely noticed if theirs was dropping.

All related? I don't know, but it seems coincidental, and in many ways logical that if there's a fault that it's *there* it's being influenced. Now I just gotta wait for the Slingshot team to get back on-board and I'll see if they can arrange something. I spent 50 minutes on the phone trying to get Slingshot to activate my account properly the other day, it was a mission and a half and I just can't be bothered dealing with that kind of thing at the moment.

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