I have no inside info, but I suspect 'they' grossly underestimated the number and criticality of services relying on analogue POTS* connections with no viable cost-effective alternative.
I suspect an account (who has long since moved on) did a lovely PowerPoint presentation showing how going voip would save squillions... ho hum...
Absolutely true, e.g. emergency healthcare, where the IT infastructure is, at best, poor.......................
ef37a wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:53 pm
That is the gist of what I read Hugh, no easy solution to lack of DC into the home. This has made me wonder? I am as I said FTTC and the green cabinet is about 50mtrs from me. Is said cabinet powered from the exchange or does it share the local mains with the street lamps?
If the former it would seem fairly easy to beef that supply up to power the people that need it? I am sorted, have a car battery on a solar panel and a wee 75W inverter to run the router.
Dave.
Does you router not have a wall wart PSU? Mine does, and actually runs on 12V 1A DC, so a small standard DC-DC converter (9-18V in - 12V out) and you shouldn't need the biggie.
ef37a wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:53 pm
That is the gist of what I read Hugh, no easy solution to lack of DC into the home. This has made me wonder? I am as I said FTTC and the green cabinet is about 50mtrs from me. Is said cabinet powered from the exchange or does it share the local mains with the street lamps?
If the former it would seem fairly easy to beef that supply up to power the people that need it? I am sorted, have a car battery on a solar panel and a wee 75W inverter to run the router.
Dave.
Does you router not have a wall wart PSU? Mine does, and actually runs on 12V 1A DC, so a small standard DC-DC converter (9-18V in - 12V out) and you shouldn't need the biggie.
The rat for my BT router is 12V at 2A. I would have liked to have run it straight off the battery but a charge/discharge test showed over 14V at full charge and a bit over 11V as a finish point. I am a bit twitchy about giving the router 14V+ and it might drop out at 11V?
I had the inverter anyway but will have a butchers for a 12V 2A converter mate.
ef37a wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:53 pm
That is the gist of what I read Hugh, no easy solution to lack of DC into the home. This has made me wonder? I am as I said FTTC and the green cabinet is about 50mtrs from me. Is said cabinet powered from the exchange or does it share the local mains with the street lamps?
If the former it would seem fairly easy to beef that supply up to power the people that need it? I am sorted, have a car battery on a solar panel and a wee 75W inverter to run the router.
Dave.
Does you router not have a wall wart PSU? Mine does, and actually runs on 12V 1A DC, so a small standard DC-DC converter (9-18V in - 12V out) and you shouldn't need the biggie.
The rat for my BT router is 12V at 2A. I would have liked to have run it straight off the battery but a charge/discharge test showed over 14V at full charge and a bit over 11V as a finish point. I am a bit twitchy about giving the router 14V+ and it might drop out at 11V?
I had the inverter anyway but will have a butchers for a 12V 2A converter mate.
Dave.
12V 2A is a bog standard unit - I'll bet the router doesn't get anywhere near that.
This is the sort of thing I had in mind:
RS 235-1377
I am sure you are right Will but did not have a spare PSU until about a week ago (it has a very rare plug size) Now that I have one I shall break into the cable and hook up me trusty Fluke 83.
Sam Spoons wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:43 pm
... connection speed is still massively variable, from <2Mbs to >50Mbs, this is both connected to the new router and to the old system and tested on three different wired and wireless devices ...
That seems strange. If it's happening on a wired connection, then it's not wifi signal strength. What are you using to measure the speed?
8.8.8.8 is a Google DNS server. That's what I use to check if the internet is working. It's easy to remember and type. It will output times in milliseconds. To stop it, I use ctrl-c, which is probably splat-c on a mac.
I'm using speedtest.net at the suggestion of Zen tech support but have tried a couple of other broadband speed check sites with similar results. Zen tested the connection from their end, also with similar results. Netflix uses 5Mbs for HD so even if two of us are streaming that shouldn't eat up all the potential 57.5Mbs that the router reports is available.
I've had a call from tech support earlier this evening when I was out and about and, at their request, removed the Openreach master socket with built in microfilter and replaced it with a separate, new, microfilter directly into the master socket to no avail. I'm now awaiting a callback from them.
MarkOne wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:45 pm
There's a BT tool used to test the actual link speed
Recently, I started getting a ridiculous amount of buffering when watching streaming TV. It had previously been rock solid.
The signal flow is a Plusnet router, cabled to a Ubiquity WiFi access point, and a Roku stick in the TV.
I rebooted the router a few times but it made no difference and SpeedTest reported around 68Mbps at my office PC wired to the router at all times, so it wasn't an incoming line issue.
General web surfing via the Ubiquiti link seemed fine, but when I linked the TV stick wifi directly to the router the buffering went away (even though it was a much weaker signal).
Eventually, after much trial and error, I found the problem. The Ubiquity access point uses a POE power unit which is located next to the router, and the output cable's RJ45 plug seemed slightly loose and unstable. The strategic application of an elastic band to pull the plug firmly into the socket has fixed the problem completely. General web surfing is also noticeably quicker now too! Clearly there was an intermittent contact previously.
I'll remake the cable end with a new plug when I get the chance (easier than replacing the whole cable), but it goes to show how easy it is for silly things that shouldn't be an issue to mess up the whole system.
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
Hugh Robjohns wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 10:59 am
......................and the output cable's RJ45 plug seemed slightly loose and unstable. The strategic application of an elastic band to pull the plug firmly into the socket has fixed the problem completely..............
I've had exactly the same thing, that little plastic clip snapped off the RJ45 plug, but on cursory visual inspection looks ok. It was only when I checked every possible thing that I applied Sherlock Holmes' problem solving method "If you have tried every possible X, then it must be Y" and sure enough it was, yes it looked ok, but while in the socket, it was only making intermittent contact.
IME as soon as the plastic tag snaps off an RJ45 plug they are useless and should be replaced with one that isn't broken or the whole lead chucked if it's too much effort.
I've had a visit from a Zen tech support guy this morning and worked through the system. The issues seem to be wifi related, getting solid speeds to the master socket, so we've relocated the router from underneath a wooden cabinet in the hall to on top* and moved the repeater closer to the router so it has a strong wifi connection.
As the law of sod predicts speeds over wifi were good while he was here but have fallen since he left (but not to the low speeds I was experiencing before). Will monitor it for a few days and decide whether it is a sufficient improvement over the old system to justify the extra expense.
* This may not be an option for aesthetic reasons but did make a small improvement in speed.
Sam Spoons wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 2:40 pm
I've had a visit from a Zen tech support guy this morning and worked through the system. The issues seem to be wifi related, getting solid speeds to the master socket, so we've relocated the router from underneath a wooden cabinet in the hall to on top* and moved the repeater closer to the router so it has a strong wifi connection.
As thew law of sod predicts speeds over wifi were good while he was here but have fallen since he left (but not to the low speeds I was experiencing before). Will monitor it for a few days and decide whether it is a sufficient improvement over the old system to justify the extra expense.
* This may not be an option for aesthetic reasons but did make a small improvement in speed.
FWIW - and it may not be applicable in your case, but I followed the central heating pipes and managed to pull though the network cable from the modem/router situated in the ground floor/living room up to the attic room. There is a small run in the living room where I was able to run the cable under the carpet, at the edge of the carpet, so doesn't show
BigRedX wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 10:58 am
IME as soon as the plastic tag snaps off an RJ45 plug they are useless and should be replaced with one that isn't broken or the whole lead chucked if it's too much effort.
I haven't got the gizmo that is used to attach a replacement connector and to change the cable would be quite an effort for myself as it runs over 3 floors, it means taking up carpets etc, not an insurmountable task but for now a little band does the job, I guess I could apply some BluTac too.
I find the hard wired option really convenient, although I use wireless up in my attic, there are times when (and it is usually after a Windows Update, or when BT is messing about) the wireless simply will not connect, but getting access to the router by way of the wired connection, I can fix the wireless
As a result of this thread and getting fed up at shouting at the TV because yet another Amazon title wouldn't load, I've just bought a Firestick and a couple of Devolo Magic mains signalling units to replace some Netgear PL1000 units that weren't giving that great a speed and were probably the cause of streaming on the TV halting from time to time. I often had to reboot the Netlink units to get a reasonable speed back. I was reliant on the TV to give me a network speed as they were RJ45 connections only (one per unit) and there was no management software.
These Devolo units have a master unit hardwired to my router, with a combined 2 x RJ45 +wi-fi unit downstairs (my main wi-fi router and cable modem are upstairs).
This has some management software and it tells me I'm getting 1240Mbps download and 1338Mbps upload between the two units. My downstairs wi-fi to broadband speed is now only very slightly slower than my hardwired PC broadband speed (Ookla), so about 260Mbps download and 26Mbps upload (Virgin media on a fibre to local hub system). I can get about 275Mbps download on my hardwired PC, so I'm not loosing a lot over the wi-fi.
And it's all hanging together perfectly, the Firestick is so much quicker than the smart TV apps, and I'm (currently) a happy chappy.
Those speeds are impressive Wonks, I'm getting 45Mbps down and 14Mbps up with the router reporting sync speeds of 50Mbps down and 16Mbps up so I'm not losing much over the WiFi. We are on 'fibre to the cabinet' and about 500m of copper to the house.
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
I've seen the router or a wired laptop showing 67Mbps but the tech reckoned, in our case, it was misreporting for some reason. Either way the 50+Mbps I'm getting is more than enough for our needs and seems pretty consistent now.
