I have been a Freeserve, then Wanadoo.. and now Orange Broadband customer for four years.. with no real problems, apart from an account issue (with Wanadoo) which took 1 month, a £20-00 phone bill and £53.97 in direct debits which they took in error... but all that’s been resolved.. now.
Anyway on the 31st of August I received an e-mail from Orange Broadband, here is basically what it said:
‘Great news. We're making some changes that could mean we can speed up your broadband service - for free!
The not so good news is that for about half an hour on 14/09/2006 between 8am and 6pm, you won't be able to go online. Sit tight though, we'll email you as soon as it's done and let you know your new speed.’
So for 7 hours on Thursday the 14th I ‘sat tight’ as my Speedtouch 330 ADSL light flashed away and I had obviously lost my connection, at about 5-00 pm I made a call to a friend on my home line (the same as the BB connection) on finishing the call I noticed the ADSL had stopped flashing and was now static. Great back on-line and with a line rate (Receive) up to 608 Kbps from 512 Kbps!?!
I now find that when I disconnect from the net or shutdown my computer I have to dial out on my phone to enable the modem to initalize on reboot (i.e. stop the ADSL flashing and connect).. WTF is that all about.
I am at pains to attempt to ring Orange customer support as I cannot physically or financially afford to spend 2 hours over the course of two days on the phone!
Do any of you good folks know of this issue and how to resolve it? I know its not a major problem (as I just have to dial out to connect) but it is irritating and not the ‘norm’.
(P.S. I have been visiting this site since it was Wanadoo Problems and have to say it helped with my first issue back in November last year, belated thanks to all!)
Last edited by curlydave on Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:43 am; edited 2 times in total
Could be it's now a little more sensitive to problems that it could cope with before. Are all your phones, Sky, etc filtered? Also try unplugging everything except only the modem and filter, does that connect ok, if so connect things back up and see if anything in particular causes the problem.
Sorry I should have mentioned I have tried the unconnect then connect method (various formats) but with no luck. The phone and modem are both filtered and have also connected to the wall socket direct but again with no success.
I have realised however that I don't actually have to make a call (dial a number) to get the connection.. I just have to pick up the phone (a DECT cordless) and press the dial button, place it back in the base cradle and the modem connects!
Do you think it could be some kind of sync problem between me and the BT exchange in Glossop (MRGLO)?
The purpose of the microfilters is to prevent any interaction between the 'baseband' telephone system and the ADSL 'carrier' so everything you have plugged into the telephone line, (skybox, fax, gameplayer, ANYTHING), must have its own microfilter. As Elhana says, the best thing to try first is unplug everything and just connect your modem + filter to the master socket on its own, but another thing you can try if you have a modern (NTE5) master socket is to remove the front of the socket, (two screws) and that automatically disconnects all the extension wiring and exposes the actual line socket which you can plug directly into.
It's also possible you have a faulty or poor quality microfilter - they can be a bit variable. The best solution is to fit an ADSL filtered NTE5 master socket front which obviates the need for any separate microfilters, but it does mean that ADSL is only available on the master socket.
To see the effect all this has on your ADSL feed it's useful to be able to check your line statistics as you try things, in particular the line attenuation and the S/N ratio. This will also show if your line is a bit marginal.
Do you get the same symptoms when connecting directly to the test socket on the backplate? Are you able to test with a 2nd filter and with a 2nd (pref. CORDED) phone?
One point that may not be obvious to you from the thread so far is that since you're on a rate adaptive service, we need to know the line speed for each set of attenuation/noise margin readings.
I suspect you've got a line fault, but we need to rule out problems at your end first.
so everything you have plugged into the telephone line, (skybox, fax, gameplayer, ANYTHING), must have its own microfilter.
It's possibly a bit pedantic, but this isn't strictly true. Several POTS devices connected via an adapter can share the same filter.
bobbear wrote:
It's also possible you have a faulty or poor quality microfilter - they can be a bit variable. The best solution is to fit an ADSL filtered NTE5 master socket front which obviates the need for any separate microfilters,....
There's no guarantee this would be a "solution" to curlydave's problem even if he has both an NTE5 master and extension wiring.
bobbear wrote:
.... but it does mean that ADSL is only available on the master socket.
(This is really why I replied to your post since it's a very important point.) That depends on the type of faceplate. For example it's not true of the Solwise faceplate on the page you link to. Quoting from the page:
Quote:
Connections are also provided for both filtered (phone) and un-filtered (modem) extensions hard-wired from the rear.
Hi curly Dave. Sorry to hear your having problems. I am also on the Glossop exchage and our connection was upgraded yesterday. We now connect at 5632 kbps with an attenuation of 47 and noise magin of 7.1. All is well so far.
Have you phoned them up and asked them to send you a livebox. As has already mentioned your house wiring may be to blame and a filtered face plate and live box may help quite a bit. This may help increase your noise margin up from a very unstable four to something which may allow more speed.
If you had a face plate and livebox you could plug the livebox in at the wall and use its wireless features to connect it to your PC.
I have many friends in different parts of Hadfield and all are capable of at least 1 meg fixed speed even in the furthest (top part of hadfield).
Hi snow 2004.. I know which weather forum you mention (just been on it actually!).. have we spoken before?
Thanks for your post, I have tried connecting to the test plug in the BT socket as advised by other members but the result was just the same, I have to make a connection by lifting the phone to initialise the modem.
Can I ask what your kbps. was before Monday, and does the 'upgrade' make any noticeable difference?
I am really a novice at all this, but willing to learn..(busy doing searches on 'attenuation' and 'noise margins'.. really!).
I am just a bit miffed that up until last Thursday I logged on to my P.C clicked the desktop icon for my BB and Bob's your uncle.. connected, as I said before this business of having to connect via phone is no big deal but I knew when I got the e-mail from Orange things would not go as smoothly as promised.
P.P.S. DSL ZoneUK's Broadband Checker tool shows Orange LLU not available (amongst others) from Glossop exchange, but Bulldog (which was not available prior to Monday) is the only IPS showing LLU available!!
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