BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Caged · 28 Jan 2020 at 20:53

Does anybody know of any decent brands of reasonable looking cabinets designed for these ONTs to be installed into? Openreach have done away with the combined Huawei ONT and battery backup in a reasonable small box and now you just get a smaller single port ONT stuck on the wall and they leave a loop of fibre flapping around underneath it and call it a day. Back when the installations were a 4 port ONT and a battery backup without any sort of enclosure some house builders would chuck everything into a box, like the below image I stole off the Internet:

I guess that's 19" across and the holes are threaded in case someone wanted a patch panel, but it doesn't really matter. There's a couple of metal options with holes cut in them available which look pretty awful, and I'd rather not try and adapt something from Ikea because then people will say "why is there obviously a medicine cabinet so low down on the wall in the hallway".

The USA and Australia seem to have had the concept of a structured media panel from people like Leviton which never really caught on here, I guess because cable TV isn't generally as common. Anyway, if people know what the above box is called I would be grateful.

Edit: And of course what happened was my next search found the exact product https://www.prysmiangroup.com/sites...ownloads/datasheets/WM038-08 Home Hub Box.pdf

It's a bit huge though, so I'm still looking.

apachegoose · 29 Jan 2020 at 12:42

What you are looking for is a shallow depth 10" network cabinet, they are the European / UK equivalent to media panels. Most of them aren't shallow depth though, but there are a few around. The shallow depth ones aren't at all cheap though £80+. If you can just get a normal 10" cabinet, will give you more options long term to put all your network cabling, router, etc all on one unit.

RSR · 30 Jan 2020 at 11:40

So BT engineers 7/8 have been still no change, there are no faults on the line yet it still falls below the minmium speeds. I've taken pictures from the engineers testing tool and passed them back to Zen. The latest update I have had has been "I'm currently waiting to hear back from Openreach escalations as to how we can progress this issue as the engineer states he was unable to find a fault. We have argued that this line has seen 74mbps historically and you are currently below you minimum estimates."

So I have asked for a FTTPoD survey and if that's too much ill push the button on a leased line (300/300).

Edit: Looks like my lines reset and I've lost another 10Mb, so I am now over 11Mb below the BT handback threashold.

Shawreyboy · 30 Jan 2020 at 13:30

RSR said:
So BT engineers 7/8 have been still no change, there are no faults on the line yet it still falls below the minmium speeds. I've taken pictures from the engineers testing tool and passed them back to Zen. The latest update I have had has been "I'm currently waiting to hear back from Openreach escalations as to how we can progress this issue as the engineer states he was unable to find a fault. We have argued that this line has seen 74mbps historically and you are currently below you minimum estimates."

So I have asked for a FTTPoD survey and if that's too much ill push the button on a leased line (300/300).

Sounds like you have a potential dodgy fibre port in the cab. Have you pushed Zen to get OPENREACH booked for a Lift and Shift?

Shawrey

RSR · 30 Jan 2020 at 13:32

Shawreyboy said:
Sounds like you have a potential dodgy fibre port in the cab. Have you pushed Zen to get OPENREACH booked for a Lift and Shift?

Shawrey

That's been done already.

Meatball · 31 Jan 2020 at 10:41

Meatball said:
My address is showing ‘FTTP coming soon’ on Openreach.com, don’t think these are Fibre?

I just noticed we appear to have a new addition on our telephone pole:

Does this look like a fibre splitter?

RJC · 31 Jan 2020 at 10:51

RSR · 31 Jan 2020 at 11:30

So I have had a update from Zen this morning after the my line dropped another 11Mb, so they now want to send a 9th BT engineer out. I should be getting 80-60 on a clean line, as the line is 350-400m (BT have confirmed this as well) from the green cab and historically is always been 80/20. Its now syncing around 47Mb, every time Openreach say the line doesn't have any faults and Zen keep sending Openreach engineers out.

I've just had my FTTPoD desktop survey come back in at £10700 ex Vat, so I will proceed with a full site survey as my local aggregation node is 250-399m away. So I can see the final cost being a lot less.

My last option for a leased line (300/300) with free install works out at £3700 ~ PA

ChrisD. · 31 Jan 2020 at 11:40

Can't you be switched over to another pair from the cab?

RSR · 31 Jan 2020 at 11:41

ChrisD. said:
Can't you be switched over to another pair from the cab?

That's been done twice.

ChrisD. · 31 Jan 2020 at 11:42

What does their test device sync at?

RSR · 31 Jan 2020 at 11:54

ChrisD. said:
What does their test device sync at?

80/20 at a test from the cab and then 48~/20 from the NTE

ChrisD. · 31 Jan 2020 at 13:00

Sounds like some serious crosstalk perhaps. Or any joins in the line need redoing but normally a pair switch would eliminate that.

MissChief · 31 Jan 2020 at 13:07

ChrisD. said:
Sounds like some serious crosstalk perhaps. Or any joins in the line need redoing but normally a pair switch would eliminate that.

Depends if the engineer has tried a new line or just changed the port in the cabinet.

RSR · 31 Jan 2020 at 14:03

Ive been swapped to the best copper pair and the port has been changed a number of times, so I am out of options on this one.

Dangerous Dave · 31 Jan 2020 at 15:02

RSR said:
So I have had a update from Zen this morning after the my line dropped another 11Mb, so they now want to send a 9th BT engineer out. I should be getting 80-60 on a clean line, as the line is 350-400m (BT have confirmed this as well) from the green cab and historically is always been 80/20. Its now syncing around 47Mb, every time Openreach say the line doesn't have any faults and Zen keep sending Openreach engineers out.

I've just had my FTTPoD desktop survey come back in at £10700 ex Vat, so I will proceed with a full site survey as my local aggregation node is 250-399m away. So I can see the final cost being a lot less.

My last option for a leased line (300/300) with free install works out at £3700 ~ PA

My neighbour had a very similar issue after multiple engineers, moved to another port,other pair etc they advised the line was fine and nothing more they could do and lowered the handback threshold for his line.

He discovered about a year later when he got a new kitchen it was his fridge/freezer causing line noise when the compressor was on and is back at a solid 80/20

TheVoice · 31 Jan 2020 at 15:18

Dangerous Dave said:
My neighbour had a very similar issue after multiple engineers, moved to another port,other pair etc they advised the line was fine and nothing more they could do and lowered the handback threshold for his line.

He discovered about a year later when he got a new kitchen it was his fridge/freezer causing line noise when the compressor was on and is back at a solid 80/20

My parents had a somewhat similar issue a number of years back caused by fairly generic LED bulbs that they were provided by the company who installed their solar panels; as soon as they were switched on the router would lose sync and only connect again with them off.

RSR · 31 Jan 2020 at 15:59

Interesting on the above comments, I can test the fridge/freezer to see. Nothing in the house has changed or nothing I can correlate to the drop in speed i.e dates and times etc...

I can also see nothing has really changed in terms of the line stats, as i've had logging on my line going since about 2018 which I can go back to.

Dangerous Dave · 31 Jan 2020 at 16:38

RSR said:
Interesting on the above comments, I can test the fridge/freezer to see. Nothing in the house has changed or nothing I can correlate to the drop in speed i.e dates and times etc...

I can also see nothing has really changed in terms of the line stats, as i've had logging on my line going since about 2018 which I can go back to.

Could be anything in the house really to rule it out I would power off the whole house and just have the modem powered up when they do a DLM reset on the line and see what the initial sync is. Even better if you can power it via a sine wave UPS to rule out mains noise. I run mine on one so I don’t have any sync issues with power blips.

I’ve seen other people have issues with interference from external sources like faulty street lights etc.

Out of interest what are your line stats.

Shawreyboy · 31 Jan 2020 at 16:39

TheVoice said:
My parents had a somewhat similar issue a number of years back caused by fairly generic LED bulbs that they were provided by the company who installed their solar panels; as soon as they were switched on the router would lose sync and only connect again with them off.

That is REIN which is electrical interference on the same wavelength of the DSL signal and it trips it up.

Can normally test for it by using an old fashioned radio tuned to 612KHz you should be able to make out the DSL tones if placed near the Modem. If a loud static is heard over the tones then that is REIN but it is not an exacting science.

Shawrey