Lingering problems: copper cop-out?

[#1]

@willcutforth 

and mates

I am on ADSL2 which is perfectly adequate for my needs. For the third time in three months I have had intermittent dropouts and reported a fault. The latest was on Monday Dec 11 and fault ticket 238906266 was opened. I was told an engineer was looking into it. I am connected to a master socket 5C which is just a meter away from my Netgear DG834 router. I have changed the router, power supply and RJ11 cable but the disconnections have not stopped.
Since October I have had two Openreach engineers visit and check the line. The last one came on 25 October and stayed for more than one hour conducting tests. My line attenuation is 23 and my download speed used to be 21mbps. Now it has dropped to 7mbps. I cannot help thinking that in the rush to install fibre, the ADSL2 infrastructure is being neglected.

My stats are attached.

[#2]

@redsox9 Your connection is suffering from an external fault. Your D/S SNR is high, and your connection has only been up for half an hour - report another fault.

[#3]

Should I report another fault when my ticket is still open?

[#4]

Maybe not - just add to it, then. You do need further investigation.

[#5]

The LAN has only been up about two and a half hours.

@redsox9

How old is the DG834? A DG834v2 was the first hub that I bought when I first moved from dial up to broadband. That was at least 20 years ago.

Maybe it's time to get some more modern hardware to eliminate the possibility that this is going on the blink?

[#6]

@Baldrick1 I agree the DG834, good as it was in its day, is probably not up to date, and probably on its last legs, but @redsox9 is losing xDSL for some reason.

[#7]

@Baldrick1 

I found the Netgear DG834 V3 very reliable in the past and have a few as well as V4.  So when I suspect one is failing I just replace it with another.  If I get a newer modem/router what would you suggest?

[#8]

True, it could be a line fault but you can’t maintain a dsl connection without a working modem connected on the end.

[#9]

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@redsox9 wrote:

I found the Netgear DG834 V3 very reliable in the past and have a few as well as V4.

I remember those good old days, I was running the DG834GT with DGTeam custom firmware, for max ADSL performance.

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@redsox9 wrote:

If I get a newer modem/router what would you suggest?

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If you want to keep with the 'retro' hardware, then try the Billion 7800 (without WiFi), or 7800N

or it's more modern replacement, the Billion 8800NL-R2

I've got both, and they were great on ADSL (with SNR target tweaking !)

I've now moved on to 80/20 VDSL SoGEA, and use separate modem + router + wireless boxes.

[#10]

On second thought, I had better stick to my Netgear routers. I will be forced to move to fibre in a year's time when the copper network is dismantled.

[#11]

I will be forced to move to fibre in a year's time when the copper network is dismantled.

The copper network is not being dismantled. The PSTN phone service over the copper network is being discontinued but the copper lines will still be used for broadband in many areas where FTTP isnt installed.

[#12]

Hiya @redsox9 

I'm sorry this is still ongoing and I can see you did raise a fault with an engineer appointment. I'm sorry this didn't resolve the issue, I have just checked the connection and it is showing as stable One Day, 4 hours and 58 minutes which is the most it has been since the issue started. Have you changed anything yesterday? 

[#13]

No I did not change anything yesterday. The connection looks stable at the moment and I was able to install the December Windows update despite a slower download speed of 7mbps and a noise margin of 15.  Will the speed revert to the usual 18-21 mbps after three days or is it after 10 days?

[#14]

@redsox9  we like to advise 10 days for the line to stabilise. Especially if the engineer has made any changes to your line. 

[#15]

@ClaudiaG23 

My fault question has been closed with the note "Our suppliers have advised that they have resolved the fault affecting your services." I would appreciate any details of the fault.