384kbps to 4096kbps advice please

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MartyMarts

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Hi

I'd like to upgrade my 'fast' 384kbps ADSL to the 'fastest' 4096kbps ADSL. The little blue Telkom box I'm connected to apparently supports up to 4096kbps. However, I'm not sure if the quality of my copper line will be able to sustain the 'fastest' connection.

Would you guys be able to tell me what Line Attenuation and Noise Margin levels would be acceptable? I basically don't want to upgrade to 4096 and then discover it was a waste of time and have issues syncing etc.

Thanks in advance.

MM
 
Just upgrade and see. If it doesn't work, downgrade again at no cost. Just google ADSL SNR and Attenuation for numbers.
 
Remember it's (up to 4mbs). So if the quality of your line does prove to be a problem, then Telkom might have to lower lower the speed until it syncs properly.
 
MartyMarts said:
Hi

I'd like to upgrade my 'fast' 384kbps ADSL to the 'fastest' 4096kbps ADSL. The little blue Telkom box I'm connected to apparently supports up to 4096kbps. However, I'm not sure if the quality of my copper line will be able to sustain the 'fastest' connection.

Would you guys be able to tell me what Line Attenuation and Noise Margin levels would be acceptable? I basically don't want to upgrade to 4096 and then discover it was a waste of time and have issues syncing etc.

Thanks in advance.

MM
Click to expand...

Hi,

In order to have a stable 4Mbps connection the quality must be as follow:

SNR Margin = minimum 12 but higher is better
Line Attenuation = maximum 57 but lower is better

Hope this helps :)
 
Reuben@TRLTech said:
Hi,

In order to have a stable 4Mbps connection the quality must be as follow:

SNR Margin = minimum 12 but higher is better
Line Attenuation = maximum 57 but lower is better

Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Reuben! Much appreciated.
 
You'll actually struggle to get 4Mbps if your line attenuation is higher than 48dB, unless you have an awesome router.
Please note that if you're currently on 384kbps, that the SNR margin would be considerably less at 4Mbps.
Typically it would decrease by about 3dB* for each 1Mbps increase. * This is a very rough estimation of mine.
 
Thanks Pada! I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm not clued up at all wrt these technical aspects of ADSL hence the thread.
 
This is a bit off topic, but how exactly does one go about upgrading your line? Who should I be calling, cause I'm waiting about a week. What is the expected upgrade time?
 
Decotey said:
This is a bit off topic, but how exactly does one go about upgrading your line? Who should I be calling, cause I'm waiting about a week. What is the expected upgrade time?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure but I think if your line is managed by your ISP then I suppose you go through them to do the upgrade. Not sure how long that takes.
My line is with Telkom and iirc, it just takes a phone call and I'm sorted.
 
Decotey said:
This is a bit off topic, but how exactly does one go about upgrading your line? Who should I be calling, cause I'm waiting about a week. What is the expected upgrade time?
Click to expand...

If you with telkom, and say you have a 384 line.. you call telkom ask them to upgrade and it's upgraded in a hour, well thats what happend with me before and few people i know, does not take 6days.
 
It hasn't dropped on me yet although I've only used it for around 12hrs atm...
I'm guessing if it does get worse I just have to call to tell telkom to sync me at 2M?
 
Hmmm, i see alot of different opinions here.

I constantly work with ADSL lines and here is facts from telkom's Uniweb system(what some ISP's use to interogate lines and manage lines)

Ill give you values of my line and you can judge for yourself cos my values are quite horrid but my line works great, maybe it drops every 2- 3 days but i know its cos i got an old crappy router..

ATUC SNR 12.5 dB The signal level compared to the noise level. A value above 6 dB indicates sufficient signal strength. The higher the signal value, the better. Does the customer have an electric fence? This could cause an increased in noise levels resulting in a reduction of this value.
ATUC Attenuation 32.8 dB Attenuation refers to resistance. If this value is high, then the signal quality is low, and vice versa. Is the customer far away from the exchange? Long copper lines could be the cause of attenuation. A value above 55 dB is of concern (bad).
ATUR SNR 7 dB The signal level compared to the noise level. A value above 6 dB indicates sufficient signal strength. The higher the signal value, the better. Does the customer have an electric fence? This could cause an increased in noise levels resulting in a reduction of this value.
ATUR Attenuation 53 dB Attenuation refers to resistance. If this value is high, then signal quality is low, and vice versa. Is the customer far away from the exchange? Long copper lines could be the cause of attenuation. A value above 55 dB is of concern (bad).

U gotta look at both ATUR and ATUC noise levels to judge appropriately, My line is really awesome, get +- 400kb/s when dling torrents on unshaped account from Afrihost. Even with the values i get it doesnt bother me much tbh. I play wow all day on weekends and dont struggle.

As for applying for the line, phone 10219 and apply for an upgrade, Depending on the orders and queue that telkom has for upgrades will depend on the time it will take before you get it, i applied for mine 2 weeks ago and it took abt 12 hours at most, i phoned in the afternoon and when i woke up in the morning my line was a 4mb:)

Unless your line is managed by your ISP then yes contact them.

Hope this helps a bit.
 
madhatter: an SNR of 6dB isn't "sufficient", because it is the absolute minimum required to establish an ADSL connection.
Apparently some modems show the SNR - 6dB as SNR margin, which implies that an SNR margin of 6dB might actually be an SNR of 12dB.

Other than that... well done with your post.
 
My readings are as follows:

SNR Margin Down 28.0 dB
SNR Margin Up 17.0 dB

Line Attenuation Down 29.0 dB
Line Attenuation Up 16.0 dB

So I should be good to go 4096 then.
 
My numbers (4Mb):

SNR Margin(Upstream) 28 dB
SNR Margin(Downstream) 23.5 dB

Line Attenuation(Upstream) 5.0 dB
Line Attenuation(Downstream) 6.0 dB

My connection runs very smoothly.
 
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