Intermittent internet issues

[JimM1]

@Javai Had time for a quick look at what you had posted before it was removed, but whatever you were doing there was zero lan connection on that hub at the time!

Here is a very indepth speed test program that returns a lot off information, but look closely at all off your upload side and if dropped packets.

https://speed.cloudflare.com/

[Javai]

Oh it got removed? Odd, well the stats where very similar U0 at 0.7db, though I thought the lower the better (less noise faster connection) so in theory that's a good thing. Yes I had zero LAN connections on the hub at the time, the hub was directly connected into the wall socket on it's own and I was using it's default Wifi to connect with a laptop to get the stats

And yes I have disabled the Wifi on the Sky router as I have a better access point that I use instead.

[JimM1]

@Javai Have a look on this, post27 my stat's are on the 40/10 split, the other OP's stability issue on a g.fast line!

Re: Unstable connection - Page 2 | Sky Community

[Javai]

That is a worrying thread suggesting I might be without broadband for months 😞

In the mean time I have purchased a 5G router and an unlimited £20 a month Smarty mobile data plan and it is giving me 450Mb download and 50Mb upload, compared to my Sky broadband which was 75/20

[JimM1]

@Javai There is nothing worrying about it, just takes a OR Engineer to go find out what is going on with the old Copper connection, and if they wish to spend the time doing so, with Fibre the main focus and getting it out as quick as they can OR have turned there attention to that! Intermittent and poor copper troublesome connections can be difficult to solve, even at the best off times!

[TimmyBGood]

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@Javai wrote:

In the mean time I have purchased a 5G router and an unlimited £20 a month Smarty mobile data plan and it is giving me 450Mb download and 50Mb upload, compared to my Sky broadband which was 75/20

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5G in a decent signal area will always be better than FTTC: that's the way technology develops.

[Javai]

The 5G certainly has a fatter pipe which makes downloads (and uploads) great but the downside is the latency, it immediately doubles if not triples my ping which means gaming becomes laggy. So I'm going to need the fixed line for games but if I ever get it fixed I think I'll keep the 5G alongside as a backup and download link 🙂

The 5G is also not as stable, it can struggle at times presumably depending on how busy the network is.

No update from Open Reach yet but I've been running Wireshark on my connection and it definitely looks like packets are being dropped left, right and centre.

[JimM1]

@Javai Why not register with thinkbroadband.com and setup a BQM to your sky Hub for a week, will let you work out what is going on!

Xmas day BB connection to the Asus Wan IP

[Javai]

Well an Open Reach engineer showed up today, replaced the master socket, ran some line tests which all came back fine and left. No progress (well maybe a little regression as I had to call him back since he broke the land line). I don't think they're currently interested in any network analysis I provide them. He said he would get back to Sky (though this usually means I have to chase someone) and maybe the next step was switching my line in the cabinet, can't remember the exact terminilogy here, switch my port maybe?

[JimM1]

@Javai It's all a step by step process until the OR Engineer pins it down, i sent you the cloudflare earlier in the link did you ever run it and pay attention to the upload's?

Engineers are not interested in what you have done or not, no point in trying to tell them there job, they just don't like and puts the back up straight away! Strange why the landline stopped, were is it plugged into, the OR master socket or back off the sky Hub?

[Javai]

I did run the speed test at cloudflare, most of the time it fails to complete but I did manage to get it to finished once and it came back with 71.9Mbps download and 18.7Mbps upload (12.4ms latency, 1.26ms jitter, 1% packet loss)

Latest update the Sky Broadband Engineer visited this morning. He replaced the master socket (I'm forming quite a collection of sockets), brought out his own Sky Router (known good) all to no avail connections are still randomly failing resulting in partial webpages and long delays (ironically the Sky website is particularly bad). He then spent a good half an hour on the phone to India (seems even the engineers can't get around that) performing various tests, I connected up my laptop via the ethernet to completely rule out Wifi, nothing worked. He couldn't even run the test they are required to run (something called Cirius?) as the fault was preventing it.

Anyway 2+ hours later we're no further along, bar the fact that at least the problem has been witnessed by Sky in person and they don't have to rely on my say so. The engineers parting shot was that I would have to call Sky back and ask for a Broadband tech engineer (of which there are only 8 in the whole South West) 

[JimM1]

@Javai Since you have the older SR203 sky Broadband hub, i would register and setup the BQM to the wan IP that get;s assigned, pretty sure the SR203 responds to ICMP Pings to the wan IP on the sky Hub by default if not the site has the setup and page info but pretty sure it's on the wan settings page of the Hub....

Until OR Swap you over to another port on the FTTC cabinet Equipment you may just not get the result's that you require, it's still a open verdict yet to your direct cable connection as the fault can be anywhere inside/outside, but the sky Engineer i would trust, had one that did the same going to say about 3 years ago now when on a copper connection like you but a 40/10Mb/s split due to the cable length NOT sure what the acutual issue was but going to say either speed / stability off the connection, replacement master socket sorted the issue out but sure was not pushing the Envelope at the time! I do remember the convo with the sky engineer and his support that yes there was error's on the line with the testing, but that was not going to get any better, but stability was the factor for me as far as i was concerned!

If sky are going down the route of there own support team then they must be pretty sure they have a hanble on it, unless OR have washed there hands on it and that can happen, Fibre Cable is now the major focus for them, and that is WAY superior as far as i am concerned, there specialist Tech's are few and far between have only ever seen one and he was at my Fathers place for a ADSL fault but trust me he new his game inside and out! 

[Javai]

Final update, hopefully, but it appeared that Sky escalated to Open Reach again and they sent another engineer out yesterday who switched my port at the cabinet and voila no more problems 🙂 Well apart from the fact that the Sky engineer had replaced my master socket with a pre-filtered version saying it won't affect your router upstairs, shock news it did, so I had to call back the Open Reach engineer to fix that for me (little did I know all that was needed was to remove the prefiltered plate with a blank one, which I already had from the one that was taken off)

[JimM1]

@Javai Looking like the light is at the end off the tunnel now, pre-filtered 5c socket's are real good do give that slight edge boost on the signal but they are wired different so that does have to be taken into account when setting out to use one if any extension socket's are in use! Had to pop back and have a re read over the post, so your SR203 and the stat's screen is the baby to keep an eye on now, from it and the log's you should be able to see the whole gambit off the hub operation!