signal to noise margin question

[mo' power]

Greetings. My switch to Teksavvy is complete but not without a few glitches. I was connected yesterday but was unable to use the service because of connection drops. Today was a little better. I was able to determine that the wall jack that was replaced is faulty. I switched to an alternate socket and it seems to be a bit better. I haven't lost my connection since 8:30 this evening. Here are some stats taken from my modem just a few minutes ago.



DownstreamUpstream SNR Margin 31.0 6.0db

Line Attenuation 6.5 2.5 db

Data Rate 5056 512 kbps
This was taken with no phones or filters connected. As you can see, the upstream is just about as low as you can go and still have a connection. My question is aside from the lines, can this be caused by my modem or my patch cable from modem to pc? The tech that came to my place yesterday to check the line said everything was ok. The patch cable and modem (TP Link TD 8616) I'm using were purchased new just for the switch to Teksavvy. I tried different telephone cables from jack to modem with the same results. Any suggestions?

[mr.Phantom]

I would suggest that you ask over at Teksavvy's official support forum. TekSavvy forum - dslreports.com broadband community There you can find support from Teksavvy employees as well as a number of knowledgeable Teksavvy customers.

Good luck

[Arinoth]

I have a couple of questions for you that my lead me to being able to tell you what part of the system may or may not be faulty/have problems with it.
1. Whom was your previous internet service provider?
2. How old is the neighbourhood you live in
3. How old is the house you live in
4. Do you know how far away you are from a Bell DSLAM? The further away from the DSLAM you are the lower the quality of your signal is. My parents had issues with their bell (and since teksavvy uses bell lines/hardware) because they are near the end of the 'line' for the area they live in on their DSLAM.
5. What modem are you using? Bell recently updated the modems they use for high speed internet which has improved reliability and overall connection speed.

[Cheator]

Your upstream SNR is too low, but it looks ike your downstream is wicked (You could probably do great ADSL2+ speeds). Bell asks for an SNR of about 9 from it's resellers. Any less and your signal can drop. They also ask for a maximum of 21 which is bullshit since the more signal and less nosie is good, not damaging.

So yeah, looks like they need to lower your upload speed (but most likely its an issue with your wiring, either inside or outside).

EDIT: Btw if thats from your Modem then the upstream SNR might not be accurate. Its not often that the CO SNR on the modems are represented correctly. Ask TS to check the portal.

[Cheator]

Originally Posted by Arinoth

I have a couple of questions for you that my lead me to being able to tell you what part of the system may or may not be faulty/have problems with it.
1. Whom was your previous internet service provider?
2. How old is the neighbourhood you live in
3. How old is the house you live in
4. Do you know how far away you are from a Bell DSLAM? The further away from the DSLAM you are the lower the quality of your signal is. My parents had issues with their bell (and since teksavvy uses bell lines/hardware) because they are near the end of the 'line' for the area they live in on their DSLAM.
5. What modem are you using? Bell recently updated the modems they use for high speed internet which has improved reliability and overall connection speed.

That image is a terrible portrail of what its like. There are 2 methos Bell connects us to the cloud: Either through a Colo (usually a wirecenter for the neighbourhood) or what they call a Stinger. Colo is easy, its either a building or a house that all their ;lines run into and are conencted to a DSLAM. Sidewinder is essentially a freestanding DSLAM in a metal box somewhere in your neighbourhood.

To the OP, I can find out what kind of service you can get and if you're on a stinger or dlsm depending on your addy if you want to find out, but Teksavvy should be able ot tell you anyway, its in the bell portal and easy to find.

[mo' power]

Originally Posted by Arinoth

I have a couple of questions for you that my lead me to being able to tell you what part of the system may or may not be faulty/have problems with it.
1. Whom was your previous internet service provider?
2. How old is the neighbourhood you live in
3. How old is the house you live in
4. Do you know how far away you are from a Bell DSLAM? The further away from the DSLAM you are the lower the quality of your signal is. My parents had issues with their bell (and since teksavvy uses bell lines/hardware) because they are near the end of the 'line' for the area they live in on their DSLAM.
5. What modem are you using? Bell recently updated the modems they use for high speed internet which has improved reliability and overall connection speed.

1. My previous provider was rogers (cable modem)
2. Neighborhood I live in has 3 high rise apartment buildings in close proximity to each other. 20+ stories each. everything else is houses. I live in one of the highrises. 23rd floor.
3. Bulding looks kinda 70's.
4. I'm pretty sure the tech said there's a CO about 1/2km away.
5. Modem is a brand new TP Link TD8616 rev. 3.2.

The tech was surprised that the snr on the upstream was so low. He said that since I have a new connection, It'll take a few days beforee it is mapped. A ticket has been opened because he said that the upstream snr should not be anywhere near that low for my location. All the other info from the modem login was ok.

Also, there's a box that looks very similar to the CC in the photo which is app. 125-150m from the front door of my building.

[odis172]

Actually i recently did a bunch of reseach on dsl stats, hopefully this helps you in some way.

I used dmt to see modem stats, dl is in german, when using program can select english DMT (DSL-Modem Tool)

Dslam locator tool. This is sort of cool, but the exact location doenst seem to be correct in some instances, i couldnt find the physical unit when i looked for it, though the distance did correspond to my attenuation. Input area code, and first 3 of telephone number.
Telcodata.US: Search by Full Area Code / Single Exchange

Some good info on low snrm
::. Kitz - Low SNR Margin & problems .::

Attuenuation is a direct result of the distance you are from the dslam, so you cant change this figure.
Higher the value the farther away you are (46db = to about 3.3 K)
There is a tool to approximate the distance but for the life of me i cant find the site.


The sync profiles available from teksavvy are: (courtesy of the teksavvy faq on dslreports)
601/75KB/sec = 6016/800kbit sync profile
601/48KB/sec = 6016/512kbit sync profile
502/75KB/sec = 5056/800kbit sync profile
502/48KB/sec = 5056/512kbit sync profile
410/75KB/sec = 4032/800kbit sync profile
410/48KB/sec = 4032/512kbit sync profile
350/75KB/sec = 3488/800kbit sync profile (rarely used now)
298/75KB/sec = 3008/800kbit sync profile
298/48KB/sec = 3008/512kbit sync profile
240/60KB/sec = 2496/640kbit sync profile
165/75KB/sec = 1728/800kbit sync profile
165/60KB/sec = 1728/640kbit sync profile
165/35KB/sec = 1728/384kbit sync profile
105/60KB/sec = 1184/640kbit sync profile
105/35KB/sec = 1184/384kbit sync profile
105/12KB/sec = 1184/160kbit sync profile
60/14KB/sec = 672/160kbit sync profile
48/48KB/sec = 512/512kbit sync profile
25/25KB/sec = 288/288kbit sync profile
14/14KB/sec = 160/160kbit sync profile
11/11KB/sec = 128/128kbit sync profile
14/8KB/sec = 160/96kbit sync profile
5/5KB/sec = 64/64kbit sync profile

Also there are 2 modes of opperation, fastpath and interleave. Fastpath is the default and optimized for low pings, interleave can be enabled to give a more stable connection.

There is a wealth of info on dslreports, as well as an official teksavvy support section.

To give you an idea of what my connection is like with teksavvy,
downstream: 5056kb, attenuation 46db, SNRM 8.5 (bounces between 14 and 8)
upstream 800kb, attenuation 28, SNRM 12

[mo' power]

Originally Posted by Cheator

Your upstream SNR is too low, but it looks ike your downstream is wicked (You could probably do great ADSL2+ speeds). Bell asks for an SNR of about 9 from it's resellers. Any less and your signal can drop. They also ask for a maximum of 21 which is bullshit since the more signal and less nosie is good, not damaging.

So yeah, looks like they need to lower your upload speed (but most likely its an issue with your wiring, either inside or outside).

EDIT: Btw if thats from your Modem then the upstream SNR might not be accurate. Its not often that the CO SNR on the modems are represented correctly. Ask TS to check the portal.

TS told me the low upstream was more than likely the reason that my connection was getting dropped so often.

[Cheator]

Originally Posted by mo' power

TS told me the low upstream was more than likely the reason that my connection was getting dropped so often.

Yup, thats the reason for sure. And they're right about how its odd. When you see a low upstream like that on a beautiful short loop you know something is fishy. Hopefully the bell guy can sort it out and its not the wiring with the building. Otherwise you'll be stuck with a 300 k upload, since thats their next profile down.

[Arinoth]

Sounds like its a couple of factors to me. First of all, its probably old lines that are having issues when its wet since the insulation probably isn't as good as it used to be and saturating your signal when the ground is wet .You'd have never of noticed this with rogers since they use coaxial and has different tolerances then twisted pair. I would potentially argue them to test the physical line to see if the problem lies there. Being 1/2 a km from a CO may be another issue with the amount of signal loss from the CO to your house through the 40 year old copper twisted pair cables. Again i'd get them to physically test the line (or even call bell to say you're interested and see if they'll tell you if you have good copper cables running to you or not)