A customer that seldom follows recommendations if it’s going to cost them a cent actually decided to try and do something about their flaky Internet connection. It has been a problem since they moved in because they arranged the Internet themselves and it was activated on a dormant circuit. Apparently the previous tenant had issues as well – to the point that they arranged a wireless Internet connection to get off the copper. This connection uses Fibre to the Node so you are on a length of slowly deteriorating copper from the node up the street.
There has been an ongoing battle with the landlord to replace the tie cable from the Main Frame across an accessway to the customer’s building. Apparently it’s been hit by a truck but since it’s about 12 metres up that seems unlikely. The landlord also doesn’t want to spend a cent.
I have suggested to the customer on many occasions that we should try chopping cable pairs in the tie cable first. There is also the option of moving to a full fibre connection but they don’t want to pay the additional line rental. A 30 pair grease-filled cable should have a few good pairs to choose from.
They are reluctant to have any down time so that makes things awkward as well. I suggested getting a new circuit provisioned on a new main pair, testing with that then disconnecting the existing connection. Another rejection although supporting my suggestion was the discovery of this on the main pair. Not one but 2 pairs of Scotchloks extending the pair to jumper wire.
With ever increasing dropouts they have relented and agreed to stay back one afternoon so I was able to do some pair testing. Obviously it’s important to get a baseline. On their 100/40 circuit they were only getting 52 down and 22 up which is a lot worse than 18 months ago. Signal to noise ratio was right on the lower limit as well. Putting the ears and decades of experience to use, tie pair 25 sounded fairly quiet at voice frequency (and there were some pairs with lots of earth hum on them) but after I put the tone on to trace it through to the main frame I could hear tone on pair 28 as well so that wasn’t going to help performance. I found pair 24 was quiet, put the tone on that and couldn’t hear it over at the main frame. Open circuit! There were quite a few old jumpers but I wanted to try an unjumpered pair. I tried pair 12 and had success. After connecting the modem back up the signal to noise was several dB higher, achievable speed was up and actual speed was 91 down and 32 up.
There is a bit of life left in the tie cable yet but time will tell how long this pair lasts before another chop is required. The customer is going to talk to their retailer and try to get the circuit moved to a different main pair to eliminate the Scotchloks.
For tricky faults such as this, contact us first to attempt rectification before spending thousands.
