I have a possible REIN fault

[Huw]

This one's new to me.

The good news: My provider is Zen, and they're fantastic, easily the best ISP I've ever been with. They're plainly doing everything they can to get this fixed.

The bad news: After weeks of terrible (and completely unpredictable) intermittency on my ADSL service and a BT engineer visit that found nothing, Zen informed me that we're probably looking at a REIN fault that could take months to fix!

MONTHS! My connection can't be relied on for hardly anything at the moment. Just two days ago it took me three attempts to download a few updates to my Arch Linux system. Last night the connection was down so often I gave up using the PC altogether.

If this goes on for months I'm going to go insane. I used to get 16-17 Mbit/s downstream with a rock-solid connection and now I'm lucky to get a connection at all and when I do, it's usually no more than half that speed. This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before!

So, anyone with experience of REIN faults here? What can I expect - will it really take months to fix? And what's this I'm reading elsewhere on the internet - sometimes it's beyond BT's remit to fix it? How can it be beyond their remit?!

 

[Huw]

Well this is all very depressing. I'm hoping that the second engineer coming early next week will find some fault he can fix. If it turns out to be a REIN issue that can't be fixed I will have no choice but to move to cable, i.e. Virgin, after vowing never to give them any more of my business.

 

[Huw]

EDIT: Are you able to describe the EXACT symptoms? I.e. can you log anthing to see what's going on with your SNR etc?

I'll look into this RouterStats program that Wonky mentioned. Anything I can do to help with this, I'm willing to do! Fortunately Zen are very good at keeping up the pressure on BT so at least I have that in my favour.

 

[Huw]

BTW... sorry if this is gonna be 'too long' but if you are having issues still by the end of the month, I will send you my DG834G V4 that has the DGTeam firmware on it, so you can get some decent logging on the go.

Wow, that's really kind of you, thanks! To begin with I'll wait and see what the second engineer says, and then what Zen say afterward. Also, it looks like that RouterStats program will work with my router so I'll give that a go first too.

Incidentally, can't my ISP monitor all of this from their end?

Obviously I'd expect you to do some basic checking first like plugging into your test socket to elimate your internal wiring, and possibly using a different modem and network cables to hook up to the PC.

Zen have already had me do all sorts of stuff. I've tried an alternative router, unplugged the landline, used the test socket, alternative filter (which has since been replaced by something I think is called an RF3 filter). It's definitely not my equipment!

 

[Huw]

Thanks again for the advice chaps. Wonko, I could ask my neighbours I suppose but I don't think they even know what an internet is! If they were having any kind of problem at all they'd have been to see me by now, no doubt (you know how it goes - I made the mistake of mentioning I know about computers so now I'm tech support for life). But it's worth asking I guess.

Yeah when I switched routers I used a separate power supply. About the only thing I haven't changed is the network cable, but the BT engineer said during his investigation that what we're seeing has nothing to do with the cable.

I did manage to get that RouterStats thing working with a bit of tweaking so I'll set up the graphs as you suggest Wonko. I've also emailed Zen to ask whether it would be any help to them. My aim with this is to try and pin down some sort of pattern which may provide clues.

 

[Huw]

Is there any kind of pattern, that usually indicates it is REIN. Best to work out what it could be yourself if possible.

That's precisely why I've started using RouterStats. I can't discern any kind of pattern myself, so running RouterStats constantly will hopefully narrow it down.

Deffo sure it isn't anything in your house?

Well it isn't any of my equipment, and nothing else has changed in the house since it all began. No new electrical equipment, nothing faulty, etc. I've racked my brain over this one!

Maybe it is a good time to get Fibre incase the REIN is prior to the Cab, that should fix it.

If I could get FTTC I would, but it isn't available here yet. And going cable, which obviously means Virgin Media, is an absolute last resort because I hate them!

 

[Huw]

Well this is all bloody typical. Last Friday the connection had been relatively stable so Zen said they'd monitor it over the weekend and get an engineer out if necessary. Friday night it was abysmal and not much better Saturday morning, so I phoned Zen and asked them to expedite the engineer visit. They agreed, and scheduled one for yesterday afternoon.

Of course, ever since I called Zen on Saturday the line became much more stable. I started logging with RouterStats Sunday lunchtime. From then until the engineer arriving yesterday at just after 13:00, the line had been perfectly stable (as far as I could see anyway). So obviously there was nothing for the engineer to find. He said that if it had played up while he was here he would've been able to narrow it down a lot, but since it didn't, it was basically a waste of time. I mentioned a lift-and-shift but he said they only did that for completely non-functioning lines.

It still seems fine to me, although it's a few Mbps slower downstream than it was, but I put that down to the line needing to re-sync at the higher rate which will come with time.

I called Zen after the engineer left and brought them up to speed. They agreed that the line seems much more stable but said they're still seeing one or two drops a day which, given my distance from the exchange (about 950 metres as the crow flies) I shouldn't be getting any drops at all, and that if a third or even tenth engineer visit was necessary, that's what they'd do! Zen rule.

So here I am. Looking through RouterStats it seems the line was just fine again all last night, although still syncing at a slower speed than I used to get. I guess all I can do is wait until it gets much worse or miraculously clears up completely.

 

[Huw]

So Routerstats is showing a constant SNR value now? Mine only fluctuates by 0.1-0.2 dB now all day. By how much has the sync speed dropped? Has the SNR risen since before the sync speed drop?

Yeah, Rx noise fluctuates between 11.9 dB and 12.1 dB. However, Tx noise tends to hop between 6 dB and 12 dB, although most of the time it's doing just what Rx noise is doing. It's not as stable as Rx though.

Have BT done anything besides check for a fault? My calling Engineer was most helpful and even though he couldn't find a fault he still replaced two things on the line, and fitted a new faceplate.

Not really. Both engineers ran the same few tests each. The first installed what I think is called an RF3 filter as well, which the second seemed happy to leave there. Nothing was replaced though. They were both nice enough chaps and were clearly sympathetic. They assured me that if there was anything they could do, they'd do it.

Dunno really. The next step is for Zen to analyse the second engineer's report and decide what to do about it. For now the line seems pretty stable so I'm as happy as I can be at this point. I'd rather it was dealt with once for all, of course.

 

[Huw]

Update!

Zen called after looking through the engineer's report. They were quite ****ed off with BT; the Zen chap said that the second engineer just repeated the same tests that the first engineer did, which was completely pointless. He said that BT can protest all they like; there's definitely a fault and they must fix it. He also said that the RouterStats data I've been sending are useful because if BT should ever say "our engineers never find anything" Zen will send them the relevant graphs as proof that there is an ongoing fault before and after the visits. So again - many thanks to those of you who suggested that fantastic little program.

A third visit has been scheduled for tomorrow. Apparently BT will be asked to check "quality gates" (if I got the name right), which is the first in a series of deeper tests that will pinpoint the fault. Oh, also they no longer believe it's a REIN fault, by the admission of BT's own REIN team! WOOOOOO!

Also, when I told Zen that the engineer said a lift-and-shift would not be done because the line isn't completely dead, Zen said that's crap and it's basically BT being lazy. If it comes to it, Zen will make them do one.

I love Zen. I can't imagine some of the ISPs I've been with in the past going to anywhere near this sort of trouble with BT on my behalf.

 

[Huw]

Really hope you get this sorted mate i feel for you, i have a similar issue where my connection will drop at least once every 24hrs, i ran router stats through the night and the SNR was steady according to the graph was roughly going between 6.5db - 7.0db through out the night then at 8am boom straight to 0db no gradual fall at all. I have since changed my router to a TP Link WD8960N which has held connection for 2 days now which is a start. I have a street light right outside my door and i have always wondered if thats the course but who knows.

Have you contacted your ISP about it? What do they reckon?

Do you know if there is a way to save the graph or log the SNR fluctuation from router stats that you have had running over however many days?

In configuration, click the graphs tab at the top and capture properties tab on the left. In the lower-left box check "always". The upper-right box has a path to save logs. The upper-left box asks which graphs to save; I have all but the two user-defined graphs checked. That should do you. If you exit the program I think it auto-saves, but you can force a save with one of the buttons on the top of the main screen above the graph. In the common settings tab, you can set the program to sample every x seconds, and tell it how many points per page you want. Mine is set to the defaults of 20 second captures with 250 points per page, so it saves a fresh set of graphs every 83 minutes.

Twice a day I archive the latest graphs (they're saved by default as jpegs) into a zip and email them to Zen.

Good luck!

 

[Huw]

SUCCESS! (I think)

Not to tempt fate since the fault is still officially open, but all seems well again. The third engineer visit this morning was done entirely at the exchange. Basically this guy did what yesterday's guy should have done (although I suspect that one was just given the wrong info by BT).

He phoned me from the exchange and we had a quick chat about the history of the fault. Then he conducted some kind of test which he said simulated my line being 4,000 metres long (my line is actually about 950 metres) then tried to call my landline. He wasn't able to get through - which, he said, plainly indicated a fault at the exchange.

I went to work, during which time RouterStats reported a lot of drops until around lunchtime. Now, the line noise has dropped from 12 dB to 6 dB and is syncing at a much higher speed than before. My downstream is now within 1 Mbps of what it was before the fault. Hooray!

I've emailed Zen and I will also continue to collect line data until they tell me otherwise, but it does appear that after all this fuss, it was a simple equipment fault at the exchange which today's engineer has been able to fix.

\o/

 

[Huw]

Zen just called. Remember the second engineer pointlessly just did the same tests as the first one? Well, today's engineer was going to do the same thing if Zen hadn't intervened! Crazy.

Anyway, Zen agreed that the line looks fine now. They're going to monitor it until Monday then close it down if it's been fine. They said they won't tolerate any more than one line drop in four days; any more than that and they'll get BT out again.

 

[Huw]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It's gone again. Dammit! Zen want BT to come do more tests, but it might involve coming to the house and I'm out of holiday I can take off. So now we're down to Saturday appointments only, which are scarce apparently.

Pretty much back to square one again.

 

[Huw]

Well, even BT's own REIN team don't think it's REIN any more. I certainly hope it isn't anyway!

We got really lucky. An engineer appointment was available tomorrow so one should be coming along. I really hope he finds and fixes the actual fault!

 

[Huw]

We got really lucky. An engineer appointment was available tomorrow so one should be coming along. I really hope he finds and fixes the actual fault!

Anyone care for an update? Here's a clue - the above post was followed by a couple of days of me not being here on the forum...

Yes, that's right. The genius that BT sent out to repair the ongoing intermittency managed to knock out my connection altogether. Can you imagine my rage? Oh, and he did it just as Zen's CS lines were closing for the day too.

So I sent an email, and duly rang them the minute they opened on Sunday. They spent all day talking to BT, who finally said at 17:00 that they'd fix it within 24 hours. I got a call at 17:00 today saying he'd fixed it.

So, are we back to where we were before, i.e. a working but intermittent connection? Or has the entire thing been fixed? Time will tell. Stay tuned for updates!

 

[Huw]

Thanks madman, but it looks like it may all finally be sorted.

Got an update from Zen today that said the engineer who visited yesterday just did a lift 'n' shift. As of t+24 hours Zen hadn't seen a single drop. It does mean another 10-day training period so I'm down to 6 Mbit/s at the moment, but obviously I'm more than happy with that. A stable line was what's important. The speed will come with time.

Oh god I hope this is the end of it!