NTL Broadband affected by the weather?

happyme · 06-07-2006, 15:29

I've been struggling with intermittent problems with my NTL broadband for about 5 years.

It seems that when the weather is very hot and sunny, my cable modem power levels go crazy and the lights go out on the CM. Calling customer services means 30mins on hold at least only to be told to turn it all off and on again. I've had dozens of engineers out but they never really do much apart from say 'it's working now' or 'your power levels are all wrong'.

I've been using Ping Plotter to record the speed of pinging www.ntlworld.com I rarely get better than 10%-20% packet loss on sunny days, often much worse.

Service tends to be fine at night but intermittent during the day. I would move to BT but I have two phone lines, one of which I use to work from home. BT can't guarantee a continous service with me retaining both numbers.

Any suggestions?

Terry · 06-07-2006, 15:46

On really warm days I find that my connection goes down at least once. It seems to be the modem heating up so I move it from its little slot on my desk to the middle of the desk where it can get better air circulation and everything works fine. Sundays can be a problem as the kids will have the system running from noon to midnight non stop so try switching your modem off letting it cool and see what happens

punky · 06-07-2006, 15:50

In some (most?) cases, heat does affect your NTL services. The green boxes that serve you your services aren't always ventilated and the temperature inside builds up and affects the equiptment.

I await someone who actually knows what they are talking about to come along and agree or tell me to shut up, but you're far from the first person to complain about this issue, I know that much...

Locally, the problem is much less likely, although I have had a STB that NTL/I suspect fried in my wooden cabinet, but thankfully, they gave me the benefit of the doubt (I hadn't followed their guidlines due to ventilation, however, the neither did the installer)...

06-07-2006, 16:32

Could have been leaves on the line

wlmlb · 07-07-2006, 01:33

yeah leaves, put your modem in a cool box.

Angua · 07-07-2006, 07:19

Un plug it and stick it in the fridge for a while

Graham M · 07-07-2006, 07:20

BTW DON'T follow Angua's advice!

mmm · 07-07-2006, 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by happyme

I've been struggling with intermittent problems with my NTL broadband for about 5 years.

It seems that when the weather is very hot and sunny, my cable modem power levels go crazy and the lights go out on the CM. Calling customer services means 30mins on hold at least only to be told to turn it all off and on again. I've had dozens of engineers out but they never really do much apart from say 'it's working now' or 'your power levels are all wrong'.

I've been using Ping Plotter to record the speed of pinging www.ntlworld.com I rarely get better than 10%-20% packet loss on sunny days, often much worse.

Service tends to be fine at night but intermittent during the day. I would move to BT but I have two phone lines, one of which I use to work from home. BT can't guarantee a continous service with me retaining both numbers.

Any suggestions?

Both Coax and Fibre are affected by temperature and if signal levels are marginal can cause problems with modem having to resync, typically 1 second pauses in my experience. New modems should be better - do you still have a 5 year old Terayon as I do?

Packet loss is somewhat different - in my experience this is observed when network components are over-loaded, the intelligent routers give more priority to real traffic and drop ping requests.

If is real packet loss there is a big problem somewhere - I suggest you PM a mod on this board to see if you can get someone above telephone support to investigate.

bigrich1976 · 08-07-2006, 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by punky

In some (most?) cases, heat does affect your NTL services. The green boxes that serve you your services aren't always ventilated and the temperature inside builds up and affects the equiptment.

I work for Telewest, And you will see green boxes in the streets causing lots of problems in the summer.always see a upsurge in faults this time of year due to this problem. NTL need to vent the cabs properly.

James Henry · 08-07-2006, 10:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmm

Both Coax and Fibre are affected by temperature

Fibre is affected by temperature? The lasers yes but the fibre itself shouldn't be affected?

Sorry if that's what you meant but I know that copper's conduction is affected by heat but fibre deffo isn't affected by anything bar enough heat to melt the glass.

Fingy · 08-07-2006, 13:50

I know in Northern Ireland all the fans have been replaced in the cabinets... well fitted the ones that were supposed to be fitted in the first place and it has made a significant difference... i.e. bored fault techs.

08-07-2006, 23:00

Check the brown box on the side of your house, where the cable comes in. The cover came off mine, and they had to send a bloke round to fix it. If water gets in, it can mess things up for a while.

Stuart · 08-07-2006, 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Henry

Sorry if that's what you meant but I know that copper's conduction is affected by heat but fibre deffo isn't affected by anything bar enough heat to melt the glass.

I suspect if it ever got hot enough to affect the fibre, then people wouldn't be worrying much about their NTL connection.

mmm · 09-07-2006, 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Henry

Fibre is affected by temperature? The lasers yes but the fibre itself shouldn't be affected?

Sorry if that's what you meant but I know that copper's conduction is affected by heat but fibre deffo isn't affected by anything bar enough heat to melt the glass.

There is very little current in coax so conduction not a big issue, but changes in the dielectric and dimensions affect the loss per unit length.

You can make temperature and strain sensors out of fibre optics as dispersion/loss properties do have a temperature dependence. Temperature affects dimensions of cable construction plus temperature cycling has mechanical effect on terminations.

Effects shouldn't be big - but if things are marginal it can push them over the edge.