Something I've been told about broadband routers. I unplug the router at the mains if I'm not going to be home all day, then when I return plug it back in again. I've been told that by doing this my broadband speed gets increasingly slower.
I find it hard to believe, so think it is yet another internet myth. Anyone heard about this. It ranks alongside the myth, "your always connected even if your pc is turned off", that went around when broadband first started.
Thumper
Thumper :
It's not hard to believe. AIUI operating a line beyond its capabilities can result in unexpected loss of contact, which is hard to distinguish from you pulling the plug. The exchange equipment attempts to remedy the perceived problem by reducing the connection speed.
Yes, the equipment could be smarter, but are you really sure it is?
I'm not saying it's true. But like many rumours, it's quite plausible.
FWIW Plusnet have told me *not* to restart the router for a number of days, while the exchange systems are being "trained"
If you are on a rate adaptive DSL service (ADSL MAX, ADSL2, ADSL2+), there there is truth in the "myth"
The dynamic link management system will respond to either high error rates or frequent disconnections by adjusting sync speed. It will do this most aggressively in the first 10 days of a line being enabled for DSL (or the training parameters reset on an existing line), after that it can still "tune" the speed to maintain line stability.
Turning the router off frequently may look like a random disconnection and hence cause the automated system to lower the connection speed.
(some routers have "dying gasp" support, that should also ensure that a ordered shutdown of the service is done prior to disconnection when the power is disconnected)
It's not a good idea to turn it off as the equipment at the other end thinks there's a fault and so lowers the connection speed before gradually building it up again over the next 10 or so days.
Just leave the router on: it consumes relatively little power.
My router is only turned on approx 6 hours a day. I always get the same sync speed.
I wonder if they do always recover fully; or does BT save the bandwidth to seduce new customers.
The simple thing must be to leave it on and see if your speed improves over the next 10 days.
Andy C
first started.
It's true.
Turning the modem on and off each day causes the modem to retrain when it is switched on. Opinion seems to differ on the effects. Some have advised that turning the modem off each day ensures that you get the best possible speed. However when I had the experience of frequent power cuts my DSL dropped to less than 600kbps. This was because the on/off had caused the exchange to consider that the line was noisy and intermittent. The speed had been reduced until it gained a reliable connection.
YMMV
It's all a combination of what others have said. A simple couple of power up/down cycles a day with the on being measured in hours is not going affect your sync rate very much if at all. It varies a little due to line conditions when you sync anyway, mainly influenced by day/night time.
If you switched it on/off repeatedly with minutes/seconds as the interval then the chances are your BRAS rate would get knocked back. When it's off there are no setting changes made. Iturn our ADSL off when a thunderstorm is in the area because the increased electrical noise will upset things, if it's disconnected/off the exchnage doesn't see the noise and thus doesn't knock the BRAS rate back.
Well if your ADSL box is powered and connected to the line you will be connected, what happens after that is another matter. B-)
Which tells us not much really...
Are you on a rate adaptive service?
What sync speed do you get if left on?
In reality I would not expect one disconnection a day to make much difference (unless accompanied by other errors), but the mechanism is there, so it is possible.
The ten day bit only really applies in the initial training period IIUC. Three stable days ought to be enough to get full performance normally.
When I was switched to a new service and left the router permanently on the sync speed crept up from 20,000kps to around 21,500kbps within a few days and hovered around that speed. I now remove power from the router for most of day and I'm currently syncing at 22,326kbps (3.3db noise margin). I never see less than 21,000kbps.
I only switch on when needed and never had a problem with PlusNet (BT equipment, 8Mb line, current) or TalkTalk. From the TalkTalk forums, I got the distinct impression they had to hit a button to start a training sequence rather than it being automatic or regular.
In fact, regular (once-a-day) re-booting is almost mandatory for many modems as they suffer from memory leaks and general degraded performance if left on for too long at a time. With the D-link equipment on TalkTalk, the S/N margin would drop off and off until it hit -1 and the throughput completely fell off and it had to be rebooted.
There are occasions where having a cable connection seems a fortunate situation to be in.
We reboot our cable modem every few months, sometimes for reasons such as cleaning the room or switching off the mains rather than anything to do with the connection. And the router probably even less frequently, such as when new software if available.
I turn my router off overnight by disconnecting via the user interface, then powering off. it always re-syncs the next day at about the same speed, been doing this for the last 7years. Im on long overhead lines for both power and ADSL leaving it on overnight would guarantee a blip that would cause the BRAS to throw a hussy fit and take weeks to recover. I also get a large amount of CRC errors if i leave it connected, i dont know what the threshold is with these but if they go over a limit the BRAS will increase the SNR to compensate which lowers the sync speed.
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Did the exchange not notice that the whole area (I'm assuming it wasn't just your house having power cuts) was allegedly noisy & intermittent?
I thought the wiring in the exchange was organised by number, not location. If it's been programmed with the location of each number, a modern exchange *may* be able to do the trick, but numbers aren't issued according to where you are, other than (by my personalexperience) for the first 2 or 3 digits outside the larger exchanges like London and Manchester, where the first three or four digit after the area code tell you where in the city the number is, and even that's not guaranteed 100%..
From the Plusnet site '...Leave your router switched on
Leaving your router on will make sure you get the best speed and performance from your service.
Don?t switch it off at night! Regularly switching off your router can make it look like your service is disconnecting. If this happens, your broadband speed will be reduced because the exchange thinks your line is unstable and can?t cope with higher speeds. Speed reductions are never permanent, but it can take up to 3 days before your speeds return to normal.'
Perhaps it would be worth checking what other ISPs recommend.
The latter is usually true at least for some routers. When stable mine stays connected for weeks at a time with TV and other binary updates using up the wee small hours unmetered bandwidth.
Agreed although I think you would have to do the equivalent of flicking the switch on and off for several minutes to enter the spiral of death. Certainly a dozen or more line drops per day is not good for your BRAS.
I have also found by accident that powering it down for a week or more when on holiday can result in a better sync speed on reconnect.
That is elegant. Does it work if the mains fails or only if you push the orderly shutdown button. I have a Canon MG5300 series printer that uses every excuse to waste ink and one of them is removing the power without having first switched it off in the proscribed manner.
Regards, Martin Brown
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