My "NBN" FTTN modem keeps dropping out.

[RAJAH235]

Hi y'awll,
A little help or ideas as to why are required.

On 15th Dec. last year, I decided to "upgrade" to the NBN.

Could only get FTTN.

Since then, the modem, doesn't matter if the computer is connected or not

has been experiencing, at random times, consistent 15 Minute drop outs for

various time periods during the day & night.

2 Optus techs have been out. = No probs with the old copper lines.

2 NBN Co. techs have also attended. = No probs with the copper lines.

The last NBN Co. tech checked & repaired all the pit connections & said. = No probs with the lines.
He even set the modem up at the point of entry & we watched it for about 50 Mins. = No drop outs.
He left at 5.15 PM after being in attendance for over 5 Hrs.
(He closed the report!)

BUT, at precisely 6.00 PM.....the modem dropped out.

This is an ongoing problem that no-one seems to know how to rectify.
In total, about 600 + drop outs since the changeover & makes my moderating task a whole lot harder.

The "node"/pillar is approx. 800 Metres away, adjacent to some houses.

Can anyone shed some light on it?
(Sorry. I shouldn't ask about shedding light in an Astro Forum.)

I cannot understand the 15 Min frequency of the drop outs.
Got my old electrician's/technicians brain absolutely stumped.

BTW...There are days/nights when I have exactly zero drop outs.

Ta muchly.

Regs, L..

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

Are you losing connectivity on all devices? Or just one?

[PCH (Paul)]

Is it worth changing the modem/router?

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Unfortunately all I can really say is "Welcome to Malcolm's NBN" Having forced the change to FTTN, this is potentially the experience of millions of households for years to come. To make matters worse it is just like ADSL where now the customer plugs in equipment of their own and NBN will not (And can not) take responsibility for final delivery of the service. And your neighbors faulty modem might just bork your service too.

You said that the modem seemed to be stable when it was moved to the "Point of entry" Would I be right to assume that you normally have it connected to a different phone socket that is after the demarcation point (The demarc point after which everything becomes your problem being that first socket) If you can, I would try moving the modem back to the demarcation socket and see if it is stable there in the longer term, in which case internal wiring may be your problem. I have heard of people having success having CAT6 cable run from the demarc point to where they want the modem to be located, normal old ivory internal phone cable is possibly not going to perform well at VDSL frequencies.

[RAJAH235]

Wowser! 3 Pauls. Whoda thought?

Anyway to answer your queries...
Paul #1....I only have the Desk Top PC connected. ie; NO WiFi or "other" devices in the caravan.
Naturally, when the modem drop out, I lose the VOIP Phone.
Plus, the WiFi is disabled in the modem.

Paul #2....Optus already sent a replacement modem that was worse.
Apparently, they did some "modifications" from their end to the original when I had it connected with them but no mods on the 2nd one.

Paul #3....As I mentioned, The NBN Co. tech had set it up near the point of entry, but it still dropped out, just ¾ Hr after he left.

I use a Cat5 extension cable from the POE in the 'van to above my desk in the annex, just 20 Ft away.
As you say, the "twin/flat" phone cable was not up to scratch, hence the Cat5 cable.

&....I have no nearby permanent neighbours that are on the WWW & have no idea if any permanent residents in the caravan park have changed to the NBN.
I asked the park manager/s if they would ask each in turn, but no feedback from him/them as yet.
They're as slack as......

Thanks for the suggestions & replies.

Regs, L..

[OldOz (John)]

(Not a Paul!)

Despite my age, still run a PC service business.
You are not alone. Last week have had 3 service calls for NBN connection failures/dropouts. Much of the local network is FTTN (using old Optus cable infrastructure). Every time same problem: modem is working correctly, lights are on, no-one home. Very frustrating, as not a thing I can really do (other than cycle power to the modem): and don't feel it's fair to charge clients for the visit.
Worse (?), many download speeds - when NBN is working - in peak hours are lower than the old ADSL.
"Progress" indeed!
Cheers John

[The_bluester (Paul)]

One thing to correct, I assume you mean old Telstra infrastructure. The Optus infrastructure they were planning to use was the now 20 odd year old HFC cable network which they have decided is too far gone to be useable. Plenty of people in the industry could have told them that.

One of the great issues now (Ironically easier to find an answer to on the worst NBN technology, that being FTTN) is if a performance problem is related to the NBN side of the network or your RSP. I suspect a lot is down to the RSP level and if they have bought enough backhaul to the point of interconnect. If they have not then it will immediately show up as performance degredation at peak times. If they run the same sort of contention ratios that they used to it shows up fairly spectacularly when people have up to about 80ms/sec connections sucking the backhaul dry.

The bit that is harder to prove is if the FTTN component is up to the task in the backhaul from node to POI. If it is the same as the older NBN connections it is completely transparent to the user. If I do a traceroute to google for instance, the first hop is apparently the bendigo POI. 100+ KM and at least 5 hops away.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Laurie, your 6PM dropout looks suspiciously like there is something either looping your line or creating interference at that time.

If the FTTN connection is using your old telephony connection, you could add an ADSL filter in line with the modem and monitor via the phone output of the filter to see if you can hear any noise etc on the line at the time of the dropout. The official mantra is that you can't have telephony connections on VDSL (your FTTN connection) but I know from experience that VDSL and a telephony connection can happily co-exist.

There may be some diagnostic capabilities in the router configuration that you could use to track down the problem. There is also a nice software utility called Ping Plotter which you can download and run. Pingplotter will ping a specified address (e.g. google dns server at address 8.8.8.8) at regular intervals and chart the replies, it's easy then to see when the dropouts occur and for how long, the plot files can be saved as well.

https://www.pingplotter.com/products/free.html.

It's also worth putting any NBN router on a UPS, a lot of the problems I see with dropouts are caused bu fluctuations in power.

[RAJAH235]

Hi all,
Thanks for taking the time & for the suggestions.

John, (not a Paul),
When the modem drops out, the phone LED & the Internet LED both go out.
The modem then automatically starts it's "re-acquiring" (the DSL LED), process & all the LEDs then light back up & I'm back on-line.
As for the D/L speeds....They are always good when the system works.
I only bought the Basic, 12 mbps down, 1 mbps up & so far it's been up-to-standard, except for a few weeks ago, on 1 day when it dropped to 27 KB/s down. I do a speed test every couple of days. The averages are, 11000 KB/s down & always around 116 KB/s up.

-------------------------------------------------
Phil,
I am using a free program called, "Internet Connection Notification" from
"Becker Games LLC" & it keeps track of all the traffic.
It saves all the info in a text file when I close it down, so I do have a running list
of all the drop outs.

(A bit of info. that I neglected to include earlier.)
I already have a UPS & the PC, Monitor & the modem are all powered through it, so I cannot see that any power surges etc., would affect the modem operation.
I did check it's logs & there was nothing reported.....besides which, if/when the
240 Volt mains goes out the UPS gives me a warning box on-screen & beeps loudly.
It hasn't done that in almost a year, when some looney tune turned the main
caravan park breaker off.
Dunno why. It was only off for about 10 Seconds.
Weird goings on in here at times.

The FTTN system uses the old copper phone line, all of which has been checked, tested & repaired up to it's "you know what."

So.....It ain't the phone line....... 5 Techs have said so.

The NBN Co. had me booked in last Friday to do another test.
I duly waited the allotted time & the B&%@#* never showed up.
I called Optus, who called the NBN Co. who said that they did not have enough techs to attend to all the booked calls.
They did not even bother to notify me about their lack of techs etc.

That is the problem. They do not give feedback.
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&, Phil, if you want to see exactly what the "ICN" program logs, then I can upload a couple to my mediafire site if nec.
You would not believe the number of drop outs recorded.
It can be solid for a couple of days & then go into it's 15 Min cycle at various times of the day/night.
eg;
Saturday. Computer on at 12.00 midnight.
Drop at 12.15 AM & then every 15 Mins until 4.50 AM. Total = 16.
That's when I shut down.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, modem on at 1.00 PM.
Numerous drops all day, but stopped at about 8.30 PM.
Computer on at 10.25 PM.
No drop outs seen at all. It's now 2.15 AM Monday.

These 15 Min drops have got me stumped.

Sorry for such a long post, but I had to sort of, fill in the gaps.

Regs, Laurie..

[The_bluester (Paul)]

There is the possibility of interference from other users.

it was one of the issues flagged years ago with a move to FTTN but to be honest I have no idea how widespread it is. Essentially, while other users are on the cable and using DSL services back to the Telstra exchange you were previously connected to, it is possible for those services to induce noise on the line which could interfere with NBN services (And the same goes the other way)

The coalition loudly trumpeted "Vectoring" technology as the cure for all ills but until all pairs in a cable are connected to the same equipment, the ability to apply vectoring for noise rejection is greatly limited.

[Mosc_007 (Charles)]

I had similar problems with ADSL for a long time. About the same time every friday night I started getting dropouts. The dropouts occured randomly until sunday night when they stopped occuring. It was interfearance along the line somewere. I was able to filter it out using a LC filter but that did limit my connect speed. But at least it stayed connected. It lasted for about 12 months. Now it doesnt happen anymore. Never found were the interfearance came from. Just that is occured the same time every Friday until sunday.

[RAJAH235]

Hi Guys,

@ Charles... The thing is, Charles, that I never had any probs with my ADSL 2 connection & was very happy with the 30 Gig, (10 & 20 split), plan I was on.
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A quick update....
I was "booked in" for the NBN Co.techs for Tuesday, 1.00 PM - 5.00 PM.
I rang Optus at about 4.55 PM in the hope that they'd know where the NBN Co.techs were.
Surprise, surprise....2 Techs turned up at 5.00 PM.
They carried out their "normal" tests. Result = No line problem.

Apparently, they had another "more knowledgeable" crew in the area.
They arrived & did their tests. Result = No line problem.

I must be amongst the "more privileged customers" to have 4 NBN Co, techs on-site at the same time.

But, it didn't help, as they could not find anything wrong.

They concluded that it must be "at the exchange."

Well, from 7.00 PM till now, 12.35 AM, Wednesday, 1st Feb, the 15 Minute drop outs continue.

I now await the NBN Co. to call me sometime within 24 Hours.

I am not holding my breath.

Ta muchly for the interest & any suggestions for why the "ir-regular/regular timing" occurs.

(They've gotta be playing games/updating equipment or ? in the exchange.)

Regs, Laurie..

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Originally Posted by RAJAH235

They concluded that it must be "at the exchange."

That would not inspire confidence in me. "The exchange" is not that any more, if they said "Must be a problem at the node" I would be happier with their competence.

Big difference between an issue at a Telstra exchange that my service ten thousand customers versus a distributed not (Of which theyere are tens of thousands) that services a couple of hundred customers.

[RAJAH235]

Hi guys,
A "development".....

It seems as though one of the Optus Tech Support team "bumped me up to the top level" when I 1st reported the problem back in Dec.
Maybe coz I'm a long time client & pensioner? Dunno.
eg; The 100/40 plan or Tier 4......at the same price as the Basic plan.

One of the "Yes Crowd" Optus Techs, (I've been PM'ing with them), did a bit of checking
& found that upgrade BUT that it wasn't suited for my location & the old copper
wires.

He messaged back & said that I'd been "reduced to the 25/5 plan."
eg; Tier 2, Same pricing as Tier 1.

It now has not dropped out for around 10 Hours.

Will keep my fingers etc., X'ed just in case it turns out to be something else.
But shesa lookin' goodly, so far.

Stay tuned for more...
I hope, not bad news.