The Quest for the Holy Grail

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › The Quest for the Holy Grail - aka VDSL

cynnicallemon

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#205064 28-Oct-2016 11:54

So a few months back I was with Orcon and their website showed I could get VDSL. I applied and was immediately turned down as Orcon said Chrous was not showing it as available at my location. They were correct and was a little disappointed.

I recently joined Bigpipe I wondered if I should have a look at the Chorus Broadband Map again and see if anything has changed. Suddenly I had a feeling like those big lotto winners must have - YES! Great, I am just on the edge of the VDSL zone now - thanks Chorus, and yes, I know it's not a given...

So sent an email off to Bigpipe asking nicely for VDSL and... NO, WTF!

Turns out the result was negative for VDSL and Chorus gave no further explanation when asked by Bigpipe. Anyway, here's the prequal

Serving LWC Name WW - MDF
HDB3 Present in Binder No
Line Attenuation 15.2 - 16.2 dB
Download Rate Range EUBA 180: 12.5 - 12.6 Mb/s
Upload Rate Range EUBA 180: 1.0 - 1.1 Mb/s
Upload > 300kb/s Yes
Result Positive For BUBA FS/FS, EUBA 0, EUBA 180, EUBA 40, EUBA 90
DSL Available at LWC Yes
Access Types Copper
Messages ADSL2+ and ADSL1

Yep, no mention of anything VDSL there :(

What kinda confuses me is that a house located behind me (about 35 metres away) seems to have VDSL connected according to the Chorus map and I would assume we're on the same loop of copper. Also, being now with Bigpipe and have a 12dB SNR I would assume I'm on Chorus gear but when I look at my details on the Chorus site its say I'm not currently connect to the Chorus network so cannot determine my connection or speed.

Putting these things together could I be correct In assuming that the cabinet I'm connected to has run out of VDSL ports maybe?

BTW, Bigpipe have been awesome as the messenger in this issue and I must say, in the 21 years I've had internet, these people are the best helpdesk I've dealt with by far.

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#1659660 28-Oct-2016 12:05

Please do not assume with the copper network.

I had a cabinet outside my driveway, 1m to the left and my pillar was 50CM from the cabinet. Long story short the copper loop went 200M down the road and 200M back to the pillar then 30M down my driveway.

Its not always as the crow flies is what im getting at. I saw many examples in Mt Eden and Ponsonby where one half of the street was served by a cabinet and got max line speeds and the other was on the edge of the exchange area and got <8Mb/s

I have a little tool that can help estimate your service equipment and distances.

PM me if you want me to look further into.

Cheers

cynnicallemon

370 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1659669 28-Oct-2016 12:10

TimA:

Please do not assume with the copper network.

I was "mildly assuming"...

Sure, I will send you a PM shortly.

sbiddle

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#1659673 28-Oct-2016 12:13

What are you current ADSL sync speed and stats?

Just because a house next to you can get it means very little, MPF routing isn't always as logical as you may think it is.

cynnicallemon

370 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1659712 28-Oct-2016 12:50

sbiddle:

What are you current ADSL sync speed and stats?

Just because a house next to you can get it means very little, MPF routing isn't always as logical as you may think it is.

I know I can't take anything for granted with copper. Below are my current stats from a Huawei HG630b, yes attenuation down is 24dB and that would appear to be a killer but having seen the prequal at 15-16dB I thought I might just squeeze it. Funnily my Draytek 120 shows attenuation at 30dB so I'm not too sure that modems are that accurate. I know that if I got VDSL here it's not going to be much faster than ADSL but I'm more wanting a lift in upstream speeds.

jonb

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#1659717 28-Oct-2016 12:54

Yes, would've thought 14 down would be enough for VDSL..

DarkShadow

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#1659740 28-Oct-2016 13:15

cynnicallemon:

..

Line Attenuation 15.2 - 16.2 dB

...

when I look at my details on the Chorus site its say I'm not currently connect to the Chorus network so cannot determine my connection or speed.

Putting these things together could I be correct In assuming that the cabinet I'm connected to has run out of VDSL ports maybe?

As your prequal attenuation is more than 15 you're not getting VDSL. If your area does actually have a shortage of VDSL ports, you would still see VDSL in the prequal. It just means there's a wait after you place the order for VDSL.

Also that Chorus site takes a while to get updated.

hio77

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#1659743 28-Oct-2016 13:20

jonb:

Yes, would've thought 14 down would be enough for VDSL..

unfortunately in the OPs case, attenuation is the key factor here not the distance inwhich the bits can travel.

in a more noisy bundle, likely the OP would not be hitting 14.

One of those situations where while in theory it should work, chorus have drawn the line in the sand and there is simply no way to bypass that aside from somehow shortening below their limit. - Speaking from personal experience.

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cynnicallemon

370 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1659792 28-Oct-2016 13:46

hio77:

jonb:

Yes, would've thought 14 down would be enough for VDSL..

unfortunately in the OPs case, attenuation is the key factor here not the distance inwhich the bits can travel.

in a more noisy bundle, likely the OP would not be hitting 14.

One of those situations where while in theory it should work, chorus have drawn the line in the sand and there is simply no way to bypass that aside from somehow shortening below their limit. - Speaking from personal experience.

If by "14" you are referring to my download speed, I was sitting on a 18.5Mbps sync rate at 6dB SNR previously or, by "noisy bundle" do you mean VDSL itself?

hio77

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#1659794 28-Oct-2016 13:48

cynnicallemon:

hio77:

jonb:

Yes, would've thought 14 down would be enough for VDSL..

unfortunately in the OPs case, attenuation is the key factor here not the distance inwhich the bits can travel.

in a more noisy bundle, likely the OP would not be hitting 14.

One of those situations where while in theory it should work, chorus have drawn the line in the sand and there is simply no way to bypass that aside from somehow shortening below their limit. - Speaking from personal experience.

If by "14" you are referring to my download speed, I was sitting on a 18.5Mbps sync rate at 6dB SNR previously or, by "noisy bundle" do you mean VDSL itself?

14 i was referring to your sync speed as per the quoted comment, Yes.

18.5 on 6dB is very nice, but was that still on Wholesale gear?

as for the bundle, i'm talking about the cable bundle your in where the neighboring lines all cause a small amount of noise upon each-other.

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cynnicallemon

370 posts

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#1659821 28-Oct-2016 14:13

hio77:

14 i was referring to your sync speed as per the quoted comment, Yes.

18.5 on 6dB is very nice, but was that still on Wholesale gear?

as for the bundle, i'm talking about the cable bundle your in where the neighboring lines all cause a small amount of noise upon each-other.

That was with Orcon so I'm assuming that was wholesale.

hio77

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#1659829 28-Oct-2016 14:20

cynnicallemon:

hio77:

14 i was referring to your sync speed as per the quoted comment, Yes.

18.5 on 6dB is very nice, but was that still on Wholesale gear?

as for the bundle, i'm talking about the cable bundle your in where the neighboring lines all cause a small amount of noise upon each-other.

That was with Orcon so I'm assuming that was wholesale.

and your speed dropped when changing to Spark/bigpipe?

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

cynnicallemon

370 posts

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#1659845 28-Oct-2016 14:41

hio77:

cynnicallemon:

hio77:

14 i was referring to your sync speed as per the quoted comment, Yes.

18.5 on 6dB is very nice, but was that still on Wholesale gear?

as for the bundle, i'm talking about the cable bundle your in where the neighboring lines all cause a small amount of noise upon each-other.

That was with Orcon so I'm assuming that was wholesale.

and your speed dropped when changing to Spark/bigpipe?

Correct, I'm assuming that I was transferred to Chorus gear at 12dB SNR when joining Bigpipe. Only reason why I changed is because I was having some weird interleaving issue with Orcon where interleaving was turned off but the router and several other routers I tried still showed it was on and it was applying an interleaved depth of 64/8 and my ping shot up from 12ms to 30ms. Orcon claimed nothing was wrong and basically said what was my issue. I just had enough of their useless helpdesk and switched to Bigpipe knowing I'd take a downstream speed hit.

hio77

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#1659907 28-Oct-2016 16:10

cynnicallemon:

Correct, I'm assuming that I was transferred to Chorus gear at 12dB SNR when joining Bigpipe. Only reason why I changed is because I was having some weird interleaving issue with Orcon where interleaving was turned off but the router and several other routers I tried still showed it was on and it was applying an interleaved depth of 64/8 and my ping shot up from 12ms to 30ms. Orcon claimed nothing was wrong and basically said what was my issue. I just had enough of their useless helpdesk and switched to Bigpipe knowing I'd take a downstream speed hit.

that implys you switched back onto wholesale gear, dont count those previous values.

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cynnicallemon

370 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1659920 28-Oct-2016 16:46

Can someone confirm that with a prequal, is the measurement done from the cabinet to the demarc point at the end of my driveway?

Also is the prequal done at that moment in time when requested or are these done on a schedule like monthly or yearly?

hio77

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#1659923 28-Oct-2016 16:56

cynnicallemon:

Can someone confirm that with a prequal, is the measurement done from the cabinet to the demarc point at the end of my driveway?

Also is the prequal done at that moment in time when requested or are these done on a schedule like monthly or yearly?

prequal is a bit of an 'average' it can be slightly off.

You will likely need to pay for a call out to get anything tested any further.

I would recommend a chat with @Chorusnz Gerard & Matt where both great to deal with when i went through the initial planning of this if your looking to go down to route it seems like..

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