Is this acceptable...

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simon14

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#12536 22-Mar-2007 14:16

I've been having problems with my ADSL line for over a week now with frequent disconnections and syncing to the exchange at between 64kbps to 1000kbps.

I've been in contact with Orcon and Telecom. I've had two Telecom technicians come around and look at the exchange but they haven’t solved the problem. The Telecom technician then told me to get Orcon to get Telecom to send out an ADSL technician to fix the problem.

I called Orcon and they said Telecom would call me back to organise a time to have an ADSL technician come out and look at the problem. I didn't receive a call back so called Orcon again today. Orcon advised me that Telecom wont send an ADSL technician out because Telecom don't consider around 5 disconnections per day, low syncing speeds and hours where i can't connect at all to warrent a technician coming out.

Orcon told me in order to get a Telecom technician to come out, I'd have to be getting between 20 and 30 disconnections per day, the low syncing speed doesn't come into consideration at all.

Orcon advise me to manually reset my router between 20 and 30 times a day for the next few days, then call them back and they will try to get Telecom to come out.....

This seems ridiculous to me, every day I’m being cut off the ADSL without any reason at all and syncing at extremely low speeds and Telecom doesn’t consider this a bad enough fault to come out and get sorted....

Do others think this is acceptable?

grant_k

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#64693 22-Mar-2007 14:25

simon14: Do others think this is acceptable?

HELL NO!!!

Before this started happening, what sort of Sync Speed were you getting?

simon14

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#64694 22-Mar-2007 14:30

I have had ADSL at this house for over 4 years and my sync speed has always been around 2100kbps.

Now it's no higher than 1048kbps, going as low as 64kbps and even sometimes, wont connect at all with the status "DOWN" on the router.

Hypernova

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#64695 22-Mar-2007 14:34

Orcon is basically telling you to fool Telecom into think you are getting 30+ disconnects a day on their logs. Wonder how telecom would feel if they find out.

grant_k

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#64697 22-Mar-2007 14:59

simon14: I have had ADSL at this house for over 4 years and my sync speed has always been around 2100kbps.

Now it's no higher than 1048kbps, going as low as 64kbps and even sometimes, wont connect at all with the status "DOWN" on the router.

It sounds like something has gone seriously wrong with your line. Could be that water got in, a faulty joint, or it could be a fault in your house wiring, faulty splitter etc.

You need to eliminate some of these possibilities first:

1) Disconnect all phones and splitters in your house (unless hard-wired) leaving just the ADSL router plugged in.
2) What is the Sync Speed now?

If you see an improvement, it is a phone or splitter to blame.

Then you need to eliminate your ADSL router by taking that to somebody else's house (with a known good line) and trying it there.

Once you have done those tests, post the results and it will be clearer what is going on.

Cheers,
Grant.

pland

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#64698 22-Mar-2007 15:12

Check your filters ...I felt like a right wally after having a vent at the XTra guy as mine line was going on the blink every 15 mins . Then go and check to find the Sky link was not filtered.

simon14

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#64703 22-Mar-2007 15:57

I'm way past all the testing.

I've unplugged everything, tried pluggin in the router directly, i've even tried a different router and still the same results.

cyril7

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#64708 22-Mar-2007 16:40

When the service is sync'd and running what attenuation and S/N figures does the modem report. If you are down to 2Mb/s for a best connection speed then I would suggest that you are on the edge of service. Do you know how far you are from the exchange.

Cyril

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simon14

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#64755 22-Mar-2007 21:08

Statistics	Downstream	Upstream
Line Rate	896 Kbps	640 Kbps
Attainable Line Rate	1056 Kbps	756 Kbps
Noise Margin	15.9 dB	15.0 dB
Line Attenuation	55.0 dB	31.5 dB
Output Power	14.4 dBm	11.9 dBm

Line rate used to always be around 2100kbps, The above line rate is very good considering it goes as low as 64kbps and even cuts out.

PING TEST:

Pinging www.orcon.co.nz [60.234.1.8] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 60.234.1.8: bytes=32 time=1125ms TTL=61
Reply from 60.234.1.8: bytes=32 time=999ms TTL=61
Reply from 60.234.1.8: bytes=32 time=782ms TTL=61
Reply from 60.234.1.8: bytes=32 time=569ms TTL=61

Ping statistics for 60.234.1.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 569ms, Maximum = 1125ms, Average = 868ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Simon>

grant_k

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#64787 22-Mar-2007 23:27

Simon:

According to this table (originally provided by Whistleblower), you have severe problems with attenuation on the downstream frequency range of your line:

SNR Margin
In general, a higher signal to noise ratio will result in less errors.

6bB. or below = Bad and will experience no line synchronisation or intermittent synchronisation problems.
7dB-10dB. = Fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions.
11dB-20dB. = Good with little or no synchronisation problems
20dB-28dB. = Excellent
29dB. or above = Outstanding

Attenuation Rates

In gerneral, attenuation is the loss of signal over distance. Unfortunately, dB loss is not just dependent on distance. It also depends on cable type and gauge (which can differ over the length of the cable), the number and location other connection points on the cable.

20bB. and below = Outstanding
20dB-30dB. = Excellent
30dB-40dB. = Very Good
40dB-50dB. = Good
50dB-60dB. = Poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB. and above = Bad and will experience connectivity issues

Distance
For distance, the equation I have seen suggests that downstream attenuation divided by 13.81 will roughly equal KM from the exchange. You have a downstream attenuation of 55dB...

55dB / 13.81 = 3.983 KM

At almost 4km, you are getting up towards the limits of ADSL. The puzzling thing is that you used to get much better connect speeds in the past.

Given that you are "way past the testing stage" having unplugged everything and even having tried a different router, I would say that there are 4 possibilities according to the figures reported by your modem:

1) Maybe you have a hardwired splitter that is faulty (we have had 3 of those fail at various times)
2) The wiring in your house could be at fault
3) Your line to the exchange has developed a fault
4) Your port on the DSLAM at the exchange is faulty

You haven't yet confirmed whether possibility (1) is the case, but it should be easily determined by looking inside the wall socket where your ADSL router plugs in. The case enclosing the wall socket will be larger than normal and it will have a splitter inside. If you do find a splitter inside the box, then you will need to disconnect it in order to eliminate possibility (1).

Possibility (2) can be eliminated by connecting the router directly to where the Telecom line enters your house, with all wiring inside your house temporarily disconnected. Getting access to this point could be difficult due to the special screws used by Telecom to fasten the cover to the Point-of-Entry box.

Possibility (3) could have occurred due to more ADSL users being recently connected in your street i.e. increased cross talk on the line, or it could be that the cable and/or joints on your line have deteriorated due to water ingress, cable damage etc.

As for possibility (4), we had that happen a few years back i.e. the DSLAM port we were connected to died completely. The Telecom tech. commented that most of the ports on that particular DSLAM had failed over the preceding few months and it was now up for replacement.

There's a few ideas for you anyway Simon. Obviously you need to get some action on this fairly quickly, so if you are convinced that the fault is either of possibilities (3) or (4) i.e. Telecom's responsibility, then do whatever it takes, even if it involves manually resetting your router 20 or 30 times per day. I would suggest power cycling so a complete cold reset is done each time.

I hope the above explanation has been helpful to you, but I won't have any time to spend here on GZ for the next couple of days, so...

Good Luck with it!

willnz

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#65106 27-Mar-2007 07:49

Hi Simon,

Sorry about the late reply...

I would be extremely interested to know who told you to manually reset your router to try and cause more disconnections. Telecom can see this when they run the analyser anyway, so that wouldn't help at all. Low sync speed certainly comes into consideration if you've had faster speeds before.

If you're still having connection issues, please email me direct, and I'll do my best to get it sorted for you. Please also let me know who you were speaking to if you can remember.

Thanks :)

Will Steele
Orcon

[Moderator edit (MF): removed e-mail address to prevent spam harvesting robots. Please use Private Message instead]

simon14

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#65145 27-Mar-2007 13:15

Just to let everyone know, this issue seems to have been resolved.

Will Steele at Orcon managed to fix this issue that 3 Telecom technicians couldn't resolve.

He got Telecom to change me to a different ADSL profile and i'm now syncing at the rate i used to sync at before i started having these issues.

Thanks Will and geekzone.

willnz

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#65152 27-Mar-2007 13:34

Glad that it's working ok now Simon, I'm sorry it took longer than it should've to be resolved for you. I've requested that the person you spoke to have some further training into how to correctly handle ADSL faults, so that we don't have a similar occurrence in the future.

Please let me know if you have any further difficulties.

Thanks Simon :)
Will