Exchange Only line petition for Fibre

mrbazmondo

mrbazmondo

mrbazmondo

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Joined
10 Apr 2008
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Is anyone else stuck on an exchange only line?
I just filled out this to see if I can get fibre and found I'm on an exchange only line:
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/when-can-i-get-fibre

Then I found a petition to get openreach to do something about it. Its a bit old but doesn't need may more signatures to push it to its goal.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petiti...ice-to-the-nation-s-exchange-only-connections

Personally my line rate is OK at 24Mbs, but its a bit flaky and drops packets every now and then which plays havoc with my work VPN connection.
 
To do anything about it they need space to locate the cabinet. Unless things have changed I believe that it can't be installed within the actual exchange building so there needs to be space outside.

It's not many years since people on exchange only lines were bragging about how fast their connections were compared to most.
 
I've not been one of those people. I moved here after people started getting fibre. My old house started at 256mbs and over a few years slowly got up to 2Mbs.
 
bremen1874 said:
If you had a router that allowed the SNR margin to be adjusted you could sacrifice some speed for increased stability.
Click to expand...
Its a Sky Hub. A lot of setting are either missing or very hard to find, e.g. its well known you can't set your own DNS server on it if you use its DHCP server. I'll dig about a bit and see if there is anything about SNR.
 
Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 23999 kbps 1265 kbps
Line Attenuation 16.0 dB 9.7 dB
Noise Margin 3.6 dB 8.8 dB

Do the dB values look OK?
 
They're about as you'd expect for your connection speed.

A less optimistic downstream margin (6dB-ish) could help in getting the line stable. Billion routers used to support margin tweaking (not sure if they still do, or if they're compatible with Sky).

What happens to the connection when the problem crops up? You say it drops packets but how did you come up with that diagnosis?
 
bremen1874 said:
What happens to the connection when the problem crops up? You say it drops packets but how did you come up with that diagnosis?
Click to expand...
Active TCP/IP connections drop. Several pings go missing. Remote desktop over VPN connections stall for 30s. Skype calls go silent for a bit.
I've tried from several computers, including a laptop plugged straight into the router. No wifi involved. All experience issues at the same time.
I'm not entirely sure its the ADSL as that doesn't disconnect. Theres little to no debug in the sky hub. It could be a router/switch in the exchange.
I admit I haven't resorting to wiresharking it yet.
 
Caged said:
See if the LAN interface of your router stops responding at the same time. If it does, get it replaced.
Click to expand...
It only goes down briefly, it'd be difficult to look at it in time. Its downstairs and I'm upstairs. I'd have to set something up to record for hours. Its fine for a while, then it might have a spell of doing it every 10 minutes or so. I only tend to notice it while I'm on the VPN working which isn't exactly when I have time to look into it.
The sky sub does have 2 LAN ports, and I've had the laptop plugged in downstairs doing a ping and the rest of the house on the other one. When I have issues computers attached to both LAN ports on the sky hub lose pings at the same time.
 
Actually, I could test for connectivity between my desktop and the laptop at the time I have issues and that should let me know if the LAN ports on the sky hub are having issues.
 
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