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Is this an accurate statement?

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Silly question really but is this an accurate statement?
I quote direct from an ISP...

"Experiencing a few disconnections a day is normal on ADSL2+"
 
it depends on the quality of the line, l can go up to 100s of hours without any disconnections. lm by no means a authority on the subject but l believe that statement is incorrect, might be worth posting your router stats for the more knowledgeable members to comment if this is in regards to your own connection.
 
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,085 / 15,243
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 9.5 / 20.0

Prior ISP which was also ADSL2+ i had months worth of uptime.

Was i just lucky, or is the current ISP telling porkies?
 
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while l cannot comment on your stats (you will have to await someone with more knowledge) l would say that your current ISP seems suspect, granted disconnections do happen but l wouldnt expect a few a day not unless there was work at the local exchange or a problem with the ISP (tho l will note that very occasionally your own hardware could cause an issue but it doesnt happen often, again l would wait for a more elaborate reply for someone who knows more than l do who can explain better lol)
 
If your line is working properly then no, "experiencing a few disconnections a day".. is not normal. Certainly ADSL2+ lines do suffer from disconnections, especially if you live quite far from your telephone exchange and or have a weak router chipset.

Thunderstorms and other local interference or line quality issues can all cause instability too but most people on here would probably say that their connectivity is generally quite stable. I've had lots of ADSL/ADSL2+ providers and even one unexpected disconnection a day would surprise me as, somewhat like yourself, my line quality is quite good.

Your line attenuation appears to be good and I can't see anything hugely wrong with the speed either. However, please could you post your 'noise margin' stats as well because 'attenuation' is only one part of the puzzle.
 
One thing to take note of is how often the disconnects occur, and if they are noticeable to you. Almost every DSL product will disconnect at some point, however, it can be that your ADSL service is dropping quite frequently, but is happening either at times when it is not noticeable by you, or that the drop is so short, that it would appear that an internet page may 'freeze' for a few seconds, making it look like the connection was slow for a short period, but in fact the PPP session had disconnected momentarily.

What you should be looking to do for your investigation, and to help your ISP to understand the issue, is check your router logs for any PPP CHAP authentication loss/failure/success and note down how many have occurred and over what period.

This will give you an understanding of how often your ADSL service is losing connection, and for how long, so you can determine if synchronization is lost, or whether it is simply the PPP (internet) connection being lost. If you connection is dropping for a matter of seconds (10 or less) then this would mean that your router is only losing PPP connectivity. However, if the loss is occurring for longer than this time, then it is more likely that your ADSL synchronization is being lost.

Intermittent connections are quickly identified by your ISP if you complete a couple of quick steps such as connecting into the nte5 test socket (located behind the front cover of your master BT socket) and replace the micro-filter. If these are completed and your router still shows disconnects, then it is likely to be a fault on the BT network, which will need identification/resolution by a BT Openreach engineer.
 
Thank you for the replies so far it seems to be what i suspected a nonsense story from them.

My noise margin is set to 12.5db on the upload and download, this has been raised by the ISP on 2 occasions.

A prior BT SFI visit also found nothing wrong at my home.

The disconnects are actual disconnections rather than stalls or similar. The resyncs and have also previously been recorded and provided to the ISP both from the routers web interface and applications such as Router Stats Lite.

The issue has been going on for some time. The resyncs can happen at any time during the morning, afternoon, evening or night, and sometimes i have as many as 8 in a day.
 
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Have you thought connecting a BT iPlate to your master socket or purchasing a pre-filtered ADSL2000 faceplate? It may be worthwhile and could help reduce the disconnects if there is any kind of noise interference on your line. There is the other side where it may not help at all, but it's something else to go with to your ISP to show you are pro-actively attempting to resolve the issue.

If it is an intermittent fault, and sync is being lost, then there is definitely something wrong somewhere, but getting a fix on an issue that is not there at all times, is quite difficult, and can sometimes take several Openreach SFI's to find where the fault lies.

Another thing that you do, when the ADSL service drops (or when you notice it) try dialling 17070 from a handset and perform a quite line test (option 2) and check if any noise is present. It may be that you have an intermittent phone line fault, which is causing your ADSL service to drop off. Again, something else to show your ISP that you are trying every avenue to get to the bottom of the fault and not just expecting them to fix :)
 
As Musicmaker1980's hints, it looks like you might have some interference as generally speaking the noise margin on such a line should not be the same for both upstream and downstream. The downstream margin is usually about half of upstream, although it does vary. Likewise these figures are variable to your line quality and not really something that can be completely "controlled" by either yourself or your ISP.

I would suggest you read through our ADSL Tips article and also consider installing a filter like the BT iPlate (Broadband Accelerating) on your mastersocket to help limit the potential causes.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/adsltips/
 
I was going to comment on the noise figures, but got beaten to it.

+1 for the IPlate, I got a free one during a BT engineer visit curtsey of Vispa a few weeks ago; even though I was already using the test socket for a speed boost, I have seen a solid 15% improvement in my Speedtest.net download figures since it was fitted.
 
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Various filters of varying brand have been tried, including an ADSL Nation filtered faceplate.

Several different makes of router also tried. Some give slightly more stable results than others (to about half a day to an extra day of uptime).

Noise margin being set to a fixed figure on the upstream and downstream is normal for the service, its currently set at 12db on my line by the ISP (i dont want to name them unless i have to) to try to make it stable, it makes no difference though. Prior providers ive never had issues like this.
 
Sorry forgot to add quiet line tests have also been tried both immediately as broadband disconnects, shortly after a disconnect and when things appear stable, there is no noise i can hear on the line.

Have also tried removing phones see just router is plugged in and also removing the single extension wiring from the phone socket, all to no affect :(

Tried at both master and extension with no improvement either.

Ring wire is disconnected also, only connections 2 and 5 are connected, behind the faceplate for the single extension.
 
Is it just that the equipment at the exchange end (excuse my lack of terminology) is being a little overenthusiastic about what maximum rate it can achieve and causing drops as a result (like when DSL is first activated and it goes up and down like a yo-yo for a little while) perhaps together with the physical line degrading over time or maybe the physical pair having been swapped for a worse one at some point; can it be forced to run more slowly? (Noise margin hasn't worked, so drop the sync rate?) - are there any firmware type upgrades for your router?
 
DT how do you score B- with that speed?? I get a D with 6.23MB/s and a ping of 65ms
 
I don't know. I wondered that.

Speeds vary between about 4.5Mbps and 6Mbps down, and 1.5Mbps to 1.7Mbps up.

Ping is variable, 70 to 90 is typical.

The most shocking statistic is the one on the right: Faster than 61% of GB. Dear God.
 
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I think it is my upload score that lets me down I only get 335Kbps. Still on ADSLMax here, no sign of ADSL2 or fibre.
 
Is it just that the equipment at the exchange end (excuse my lack of terminology) is being a little overenthusiastic about what maximum rate it can achieve and causing drops as a result (like when DSL is first activated and it goes up and down like a yo-yo for a little while) perhaps together with the physical line degrading over time or maybe the physical pair having been swapped for a worse one at some point; can it be forced to run more slowly? (Noise margin hasn't worked, so drop the sync rate?) - are there any firmware type upgrades for your router?

No the service is a LLU product and is not a BT based product with DLM.
 
I did 2 speed tests yesterday - I got a D and C, amazingly enough the download speed on the 2nd one was about 33% of the first one and the upload increased (possibly doubled). They must use some complex formula as I don't see how a lower download but higher upload speed should give me a higher grade.

In the case of DTMark, I suspect they also compare it over the same provider (so like for like) rather than the actual speed itself (though this could still factor into it, somehow).
 
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