Internet Outage in November. Poor Connection ever since.

[#1]

@Paula7 . I have been through this topic - twice - today, and think you may have two problems (1) Exchange equipment failure as mentioned by @Gandalf (the phone issue) (2) something strange, and I don't know what, causing DNS resolution failure.

Does the phone fail to resolve if connected by Wi-Fi?

[#2]

Hiya @Paula7,I'm sorry that the engineer was unable to determine the cause of the issue.

We will likely need to send a further engineer, but look to escalate the visit. I have updated your fault ticket and if you can please add a reply and let us know once done, we can pick this up and progress it for you.

[#3]

@LaurenB Hi Lauren, I have updated the ticket

@Townman OK I will keep the router stats running

@Anoush Thanks for explaining

@jab1 Thanks for reading through. All my wifi devices (mobile phone, tv, or pc when not wired) show the same issues as the wired pc.  They connect over wifi with good speeds but only load some websites some of the time.  I haven't had any issues with my landline phone at all (other than plusnet can't seem to call it)

Fingers crossed the lift and shift will fix the issue.

[#4]

Duplicate

[#5]

@Paula7 The 'only loading some websites some of the time' issue does seem to point to a DNS resolution problem to me - but I am not a network expert, so could be wrong very possibly.

The drop reported on the RS plot during a phone call points to an exchange problem, as previously noted, so that should be cleared with the 'lift and shift', but I doubt it will sort the web-site loading issue - again I could be wrong.

[#6]

@Paula7 Just a thought - what DNS servers are specified in the Hub?

[#7]

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@jab1 wrote:

The drop reported on the RS plot during a phone call points to an exchange problem, as previously noted, so that should be cleared with the 'lift and shift', but I doubt it will sort the web-site loading issue - again I could be wrong.

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Given the obscurity of the failures here anything is possible.

One wonders if there is a SVLAN performance issue ... and might lift and shift include a SVLAN swap?

@Paula7 

I cannot recall if the BT HH5a version of routerstats supports ping plotting - other versions do.  It would be worthwhile configuring a ping monitor to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS server)

[#8]

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@Townman wrote:

One wonders if there is a SVLAN performance issue ... and might lift and shift include a SVLAN swap?

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A lift and shift moves the line to a different card/port on the same part of the exchange equipment, so likely wouldn’t swap the service onto another S-VLAN.

I can’t imagine this to be an issue with the S-VLAN though, because if it were, the issue would generally only manifest itself at peak times instead of all the time.

If an engineer tries a lift and shift, but it doesn’t change anything and there are still the same issues, it may be worth a Tie Pair Modification (TPM) which moves the line to a different part of the exchange equipment.

This is something our suppliers place as an ‘order’, which can generally take up to 5 working days, and may involve total loss of service during that time as the existing port is remotely deactivated, and then an external engineer tasked out to the exchange to make the switch.

We’d have to try a lift and shift first before requesting a TPM, because it’s the most logical way of doing things, for example as an analogy there’s no sense in replacing an entire car when it just needs new tyres.

[#9]

Hiya @Paula7, it looks like our faults team have picked up the fault ticket and booked an engineer however, this appointment hasn't confirmed.

I have contacted our suppliers and they have advised the fault is with the diagnostic team, we've been asked to check on this after 10am tomorrow.

We will keep you updated.

[#10]

@Paula7 Keep us up to date on here please - I for one would love to know what is causing this.

[#11]

Hi @Paula7 

I’ve booked the engineer visit, then escalated the fault with our suppliers helpdesk to request a senior engineer carries out a full investigation and a lift & shift. 

The ticket’s updated with the appointment details. 

Let us know how it goes. 

[#12]

Internet is working and back to normal... yes!  @Gandalf Lift and Shift worked. Thanks

So BT Openreach engineer came yesterday, did the usual line fault checks and found no problems.  He seemed convinced that this was not a network issue, and initially stated that Openreach would not usually do a lift and shift without finding a line issue. However, eventually I persuaded him to try his own mobile on my wifi - and he experienced the same issues as I have been. As it was not clear what the issue was, he then fitted a new master socket, and checked my extensions.  No difference.  He then agreed to carry out the lift and shift at the exchange, given we had exhausted alll other ideas, although repeatedly saying that would not work...  yet as soon as it was completed, I can now connect to every website with no time-outs at all on both wired and wireless.

Apologies for not replying sooner to people. Thanks everyone for their help.

@jab1 - all the router settings are from the factory reset, so DNS servers are plusnets.  Back in December, I did change the DNS servers to google ones and also tried CloudFare DNS but had the same issues so went back to Plusnets. Thankfully it has turned out to be just the one issue !

@Townman - Router Stats was running for five days.  Only dropped connection was when, presumably Plusnet, changed the SNR to 9.0.  The SNR reduced each time the landline received an incoming call but didn't change when I made outgoing calls. I started looking at ping plotting apps on Sunday but never fully set them up  I tried some pings through the CMD prompt though and some pinged websites worked - some timed out.

@Gandalf Will Plusnet notify Openreach that my former port/card at the exchange is faulty?  I wouldn't want anyone else to be connected to it. Particularly as it is good at hiding its fault within BTs detection systems...

@Gandalf @LaurenB I will reply to the ticket now

[#13]

@Paula7 Glad it is sorted. To be honest, and I haven't been back to check this long topic, I think all other options other than the L&S had been exhausted, so the engineer should have not argued about the L&S - but I'm glad you've got a current master socket out of it as well 😉. The DNS settings question was only something I would have followed up on if the L&S hadn't worked, and was a shot in the dark anyway.

[#14]

Good news though mystified to understand how this brought about a fix.

You might care to keep routerstats running to see if you still get a drop on incoming calls.

Ping plotting is a function of the full routerstats program … cannot recall if it is in the HH5a version.

[#15]

@Townman It's a long time ago now, and I don't think I have retained the copies of the tickets I had with regard to my similar situation, but from memory, I had numerous visits from increasingly senior engineers, culminating in two SFI spending almost half a day investigating why I had continuous drops, high SNR, noisy phone line and I don't know what else. They eventually traced the issue to a failed frame at my local exchange, which was replaced (and then reinstalled) and re-replaced.

I appreciate this seems to have been a similar issue, albeit slightly easier but no quicker to solve, so is it not possible the L&S has had the desired effect?

I would agree keeping RouterStats running is a good idea, I left mine running until I moved to FTTC.