GOT RID EXTENSION TO JUST A MAIN SOCKET -what speed now?

swoofer

Here is the reading after getting rid of wonky wiring. Forgot to keep a record before but line attenuation looks way better. Got 3.93mb after change and line is restricted to 4mb at the moment. I am 4.5km from exchange.

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoE 9649 16118 0 1275 18341 00:18:55
LAN 10M/100M 17602 10575 0 18586 1666 00:19:17
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 1138 0 0 191 0 00:19:14


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4096 kbps 384 kbps
Line Attenuation 15.5 db 23.0 db
Noise Margin 12.3 db 17.0 db

I am paying for the up to 7.6mb package. So would love to get as fast as possible.

Help!

gb

teddy b123

You should be able to get the ~7.6mb.
You'll need to ring eircoms tech support or go to their forum and tell them to put you on a higher profile

swoofer

OOH! that would be fab, I am with vodagroan, rang them and they checked line, said it can now take 7.6mb but they could not give me the upgrade there and then!! It has to be reffered to head office!!! I will hear Monday/Tuesday.

thank you for replying.


gb--

swoofer

Well blow me, Vodaphone just rang me back on my mobile and ..... yep they have upgraded my speed, got 6.10mb at 6.30pm!!! and synching at 7136mb. Upload says 672kb!! happy times if it lasts.

gb--

teddy b123

Woops, should have not made the assumption you were with eircom but at least you got it sorted.
What are the line stats now?

swoofer

No problem and you were right about 7.6mb. However, and this is what really gauls me, as the evening wore on someone or something kept downgrading my synching speeds but the router stayed on. I am now synching at 5888kbps and top speed is 4.95mb. Last night when they ugraded first I was well happy, 6.34mb, even 7.21mb. I know 4.95mb is better than 3.96mb but why have they throttled me back again??

Here are the stats. I know the attenuation rises downstream dependent on the speed and that can dictate overall speed but if it runs at 6.30mb for hours why degrade it? Maybe you know the reason.

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoE 86438 111921 0 332 2353 14:12:19
LAN 10M/100M 114966 103632 0 2422 519 14:12:36
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 14637 0 0 144 0 14:12:33


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5888 kbps 672 kbps
Line Attenuation 44.0 db 23.0 db
Noise Margin 11.8 db 12.0 db

I would be happy with 6mb.

gb-

lucernarian

Those line stats are bizarre. Attenuation is a fixed quantity dependent on how long and thick the line is, in a nutshell. One post says it's 15/23 and another says it's 45/23! I can't figure that unless a typo is the cause.

Anyway, usually a line will perform worse in the evenings for a few reasons but it shouldn't affect speed so much.

Also, the line speed should be higher than 5888 at that moment because the signal margin is at 11.8 dB. But it sounds like that's changing a lot over the course of a day.


I think the main thing throttling you at the moment is the laws of physics (and possibly indirectly your phone line's quality)

swoofer

No typo. The first reading was taken when the line was synching at 4086 mb. That limit is put on buy the provider. When I had all the 6 extensions connected attenuation was 44 I think, could have been 45/47. So when I took off all the extensions and joined the cable in the loft this meant I have just one cable running to the outside NTP.

I then checked attenuation and as I had dropped to 15.5 I knew they could up my speed but to be safe I posted on here first. So vodafone tech said when they increased speed the attenuation would rise and they dont allow it to go over 44. The then checked line and said it could take 7.6mb. The made me re-connect and it was synching at 7198 and I was delighted but as the evening went on it dropped to 6988 and then 5888. I rang today and they said they would double check and ring back. They never did. It has remained rock steady at 4.95 all day but I want more as I am paying. It defeats me why they are throttling.

You may have a different understanding of attenuation. All the house wiring is new and it goes to an integrated eircom socket ie I need no adsl filter. Outside wiring was replaced as well.

And I am waiting for eircom to check outside line as BT said it appeared SPLIT coming into house!!

Is 5.01mb now.


gb-

Galen

You must have very good copper between you and the exchange to get speeds like that. I joined Eircom for five minutes (Bohola exchange) and got 1.66meg out of a 3meg package. I canceled it an hour later. I have a 1meg connection with a local wisp but that hasn't been the most stable lately either or I wouldn't be checking out what Eircom can do.

swoofer

@galen, did you check your house wiring and how many extensions do you have. The way electricians wire sockets is totally wrong or useless for BB. Say if you have extensions.

gb--

lucernarian

GBCULLEN wrote: »

No typo. The first reading was taken when the line was synching at 4086 mb. That limit is put on buy the provider. When I had all the 6 extensions connected attenuation was 44 I think, could have been 45/47. So when I took off all the extensions and joined the cable in the loft this meant I have just one cable running to the outside NTP.

I then checked attenuation and as I had dropped to 15.5 I knew they could up my speed but to be safe I posted on here first. So vodafone tech said when they increased speed the attenuation would rise and they dont allow it to go over 44. The then checked line and said it could take 7.6mb. The made me re-connect and it was synching at 7198 and I was delighted but as the evening went on it dropped to 6988 and then 5888. I rang today and they said they would double check and ring back. They never did. It has remained rock steady at 4.95 all day but I want more as I am paying. It defeats me why they are throttling.

You may have a different understanding of attenuation. All the house wiring is new and it goes to an integrated eircom socket ie I need no adsl filter. Outside wiring was replaced as well.

And I am waiting for eircom to check outside line as BT said it appeared SPLIT coming into house!!

Is 5.01mb now.


gb-

The line speed is not exactly set by the provider as you claim. And there is only one correct understanding of attenuation. As an example, http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm#attenuation. DSL attenuation is purely determined by the frequency of the signal, the thickness of the cable, properly-made and functioning cable joins, and good quality cabling which maintains the correct impedance. The quality of the DSLAM and modem affect attenuation slightly, but affects signal margin more. Oh and line distance of course, including extensions unless the whole extension is filtered at the split like with the special eircom master socket.

So, do you only use the modem at the NTP with the filter built into it? The NTP is the master socket usually in the hallway, sometimes with a filter in it which I think you're referring to. Eircom have responsibility up to the NTP aka master socket. If it's plugged into the master socket, with the faceplate removed (thereby disconnecting extensions), try turning it off and on so that the line can sync at the highest speed possible. Post the results of that.

That Vodafone tech was talking garbage I suspect. Attenuation would only rise a bit with increasing speeds, but signal margin is the key and it drops quickly with increasing speeds.

swoofer

The way I have it now is the cable going direct from the outside eircom NTU joined in loft ie one pair twisted together and that goes to the socket in office. All extensions are now gone forever and will not be wired back up. Router goes into main socket with integrated socket and in the telephone point I have 2 adapters the first adapter part convets an irish socket to a UK socket, the second adapter then plugs into that and allows me to use a uk answering machine/phone and a uk fax machine. Its quite hard to get to I am going to unplug the phone bit in a moment and then post back.

As for attenuation, I cut and pasted both and Voda tech said when they increase speed the attenuation goes up! I am only repeating what they said. I dont really care all I want is best possible bb speed. I am ex BT and apparently I am now on contention 12:1. It is fine now for 2 days and not gone off once.

By the way the cable from the NTU is bog standard cat 3 telephone cable and I am thinking of replacing that with Cat5e when I get time. I asked for cat5e cable from the outset but cest la vie. I am just glad I checked cable now and not find out years down the line!!!(sorry) I'll read your llink in a bit.

Here are latest stats ie as of NOW!!

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoE 688986 1003239 0 1113 33951 11:25:30
LAN 10M/100M 1261481 923737 0 13201 971 35:25:55
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 36706 0 0 144 0 35:25:52


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5888 kbps 672 kbps
Line Attenuation 44.0 db 23.0 db
Noise Margin 11.5 db 12.0 db

Any thing you can suggest I can do to improve line I will gladly do.

gb--

Galen

I removed all but what eircom put in twenty years ago (junction box and phone socket). I'm around 3.3km from the exchange and do get 47kbitps with dial-up on that line.

lucernarian

Galen wrote: »

I removed all but what eircom put in twenty years ago (junction box and phone socket). I'm around 3.3km from the exchange and do get 47kbitps with dial-up on that line.

That line should be able to do about 3 mbps. Why did you cancel it so quickly? Sometimes lines run a little slow in the evenings. if the line was connected at 3072/384 on the modem's page then it was probably some contention issue that gave slower speeds or else the speed test website you used was inaccurace for some reason.

I live in a rural location and I've used both Wireless and DSL. The line can only handle 1 mbps I understand, yet it gives a solid performance at any time of day. We get 42kbps on dialup. The wireless 1 mbit connection was better at night but it often worked at about 200 kbps in the late afternoon and evenings right up to 1am. Even though the digiweb mast covered a rural area, eircom DSL availability was poor because most of the localities covered were quite a distance from various exchanges and the mast covered a very large area. So there were quite a lot of customers sharing speed on the one transmitter.

swoofer

@galen can you confirm that you have an unbroken line from the eircom NTU to your main phone socket, ie are you positive, does it go down ducting, across loft, and at phone socket are you unplugging phone when you test.

gb--

swoofer

WOW and WOW. I took phone socket out ie those adapters, rebooted the router and it synched at 7232 kbps = great

here are stats

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoE 11138 16673 0 4427 31680 00:10:48
LAN 10M/100M 17486 11968 0 31716 4942 00:11:10
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 229 0 0 163 0 00:11:07


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7232 kbps 672 kbps
Line Attenuation 44.0 db 23.0 db
Noise Margin 7.6 db 12.0 db


noise margin way down.

I dont know yet if this is down to removing adapters, too scared to try in case i muck it, this is great over 6mb.

gb

Galen

I connected the router into the main phone socket and thanks to Pogmothoin's advice, I tested my connection and got the following results;

SNR 23.6 down 18 up, Att 48.5 down 27.5 up, downlink 8480k uplink 1192k

I'll test again tonight when the phone line is cold and wet.

lucernarian

@GBCULLEN: I've mentioned this earlier. The NTU is the main phone socket itself. Check this document. http://www.reci.ie/Portals/0/RECIDocuments/technicalinfo/eircominterface.pdf It also shows some installation standards for eircom home wiring. However, I've seen wires connected to the external cable to serve "extension sockets", which effectively bypass the master socket. This is bad for DSL as I think you're pointing out.

Anyway, the higher speed is probably because of the modem reboot taking advantage of the higher signal margin. This is the case if you put the filtered face plate back on and re-check the modem when it's connected again.

Assuming your line does have attenuation of about 45 dB, that's extremely long for 7 mbps and having it manually fixed at 6144/672 would more than likely leave you with a fairly solid service. A signal margin of around 6 or 7 dB is too close to disconnecting, especially because the values appear to fluctuate a lot on your line. It appears Vodafone have set your line to max speed if you're able to sync at over 7 mbps sometimes. I doubt that your line will be able to sustain >7 mbps over a number of days. A lower sync speed would also allow lower interleaving which would help with online gaming and skype etc. Congrats anyway!



@Galen: I thought you didn't have an eircom line? Those statistics look crazy, are you on eircom's ADSL2+ service? I don't think it's possible to get those results unless you're checking on a business package.

swoofer

ok so I am learning the hard way, often the best way. I do play xbox 360 not a lot yet but will occasionally. I tried it now and normally I get games at <50ms and this was when I had 4086 synching and 3.5mb. Now it wont find a game at < 50ms but dont play a lot so dont know if this is,

a) its a sunday

or b) my fast speed is ruining ping speed. All a bit confusing and then you mention latency/interleaving.

If I plug back phone etc and do a reboot and the sync speeds goes back to 5888 will I get better pings/latency/interleaving?

When you say manually set does that mean I ring vodafone and stipulate 6144/672??

All the help is greatly appreciated.

gb--

PogMoThoin

Galen wrote: »

I connected the router into the main phone socket and thanks to Pogmothoin's advice, I tested my connection and got the following results;

SNR 23.6 down 18 up, Att 48.5 down 27.5 up, downlink 8480k uplink 1192k

I'll test again tonight when the phone line is cold and wet.

Thats not a proper sync profile, 1192kbps upload??? Don't heed that
The 48.5 attenuation is the important figure here, this says You're about 2 miles from your exchange. You can get upto about 4mbit unless it changes and rises into the 50's in the nighttime, keep an eye on it

swoofer

I have checked router a few times ie did a refressh as opposed to re-boot and it has dropped the synch speed to 6880 so it does change automatically. Note to self before doing any new checks make a note of current.

I get pings of 39 to Dublin but with xbox server could be anywhere???

waiting for spurs to score, please, chelsea spurs good ports chelsea not good.


gb

dave1982

GBCULLEN wrote: »

OOH! that would be fab, I am with vodagroan, rang them and they checked line, said it can now take 7.6mb but they could not give me the upgrade there and then!! It has to be reffered to head office!!! I will hear Monday/Tuesday.

thank you for replying.


gb--

Were you told first your line could not handle 7.6mb and they upgraded it so they now can supply 7.6mb.?I'm stuck at 3mb heres hoping an upgade for me also

swoofer

@dave yes but I was advised to check the telephone wiring "myself" and what Ifound was a disgrace so I joined the main socket corectly and bingo the line was now suitable for 7.6mb. So my advice, dont believe etc etc. I was told by Vodafone that my wiring was wrong but as it was put in 18 months ago I would not beleive them. How wrong I was.

When I got rid of all the wrong wiring I did a reboot on router and clicked on stats and as the attennuation plummeted I had a good idea I could get faster and fair play they did act quickly. However superfast is not always better apparently. I now have to find the optimum setting but too much sport to watch at the moment.

well pleased though.

gb--

Galen

I'm sorry it took me so long to reply but my wisp's wimax connection died for the second time this weekend.

I tested my phone line last night and got the following; SNR 20.5 down 18 up, Att 48.5 down 27.5 up.

MunsterCycling

GBCULLEN wrote: »

@dave yes but I was advised to check the telephone wiring "myself" and what Ifound was a disgrace so I joined the main socket corectly and bingo the line was now suitable for 7.6mb. So my advice, dont believe etc etc. I was told by Vodafone that my wiring was wrong but as it was put in 18 months ago I would not beleive them. How wrong I was.

When I got rid of all the wrong wiring I did a reboot on router and clicked on stats and as the attennuation plummeted I had a good idea I could get faster and fair play the did act quickly. However superfast is not always better apparently. I now have to find the optimum setting but too much sport to watch at the moment.

well pleased though.

gb--

eircom have nothing to do with your internal wiring, their interest in your line ends at their NTU.

swoofer

You misunderstood. I went back to the people who did the internal wiring and said I was having a few problems and asked " Did you put main socket in office etc and was re-assured yes we did this we did that etc etc. " I forgot to ask " Do you know how to wire a main socket?" It was by actually going into loft space myself and tracing cable from NTU under loft insulation etc that I found the mess. It was all very neat but WRONG. If I asked anyone else they would find cables and say " Looks fine to me" . It never dawned on me to check work. I am just so glad I have found the problem. I know eircom stop at NTU.

GB--

lucernarian

Broken record here but eircom master socket is NTU. Nothing else.