Business broadband challenges

What are the business broadband challenges preventing good customer experience?

Following on from my last blog discussing the disparity of broadband services around the UK and more to the point, street to street, in this blog I look a little deeper at some of the business broadband challenges that prevent many from enjoying a good broadband experience. Some of the challenges are firmly in the broadband provider’s court, while others are the result of technical issues within the customer’s premises. These challenges generally include a combination of the following:

First/last mile cabling:

• No fibre infrastructure
• Cable distance between the exchange and the customer’s premises
• Quality and age of the last mile cabling

Choice of ISP:

• Contention
• Traffic shaping

Internal telephone wiring:

• ADSL filters
• Wireless network issues
• Local Area Network issues
• Powerline Ethernet issues

Uswitch recently compiled a UK wide survey of broadband results. At the time their broadband expert made what I thought was a painfully obvious statement when he said residents lucky enough to live in an area where FTTC is enabled stand a good chance of achieving high speed broadband. I have experience on both sides of that divide. For customers in areas beyond reach of FTTC – and again this can vary from street to street – ADSL may be the only option. But, as ADSL performance is mostly affected by the cable distance from the exchange to the customer’s premises there are many customers still beyond reach of a good quality broadband service and some beyond any ADSL reach.

“The maximum cable distance from the exchange to the customer’s apparatus was restricted by the operational distance of the rotary dial.”

The majority of our telephone exchanges were originally built using electromechanical (Strowger) equipment serving domestic and business premises. The maximum cable distance from the exchange to the customer’s apparatus was restricted by the operational distance of the rotary dial. These legacy rotary mechanical dials operated at a comparatively snail like 10 pulses per second – the equivalent of 10bps. The rotary dial would operate reliably over a cable distance of seven miles. Unfortunately our ADSL signal has faded into the background noise and is beyond recovery over this distance – certainly with current technology.

Other factors include availability of good quality pairs of wires in the cables running from the exchange to the customer’s premises, often referred to as the ‘local loop’, ‘first mile’ or ‘last mile’ (unfortunately, it is rarely a mile). Ironically, having many ADSL services on different pairs within the same cable can reduce the overall performance of all ADSL services in the cable due to interference from one pair to another. This is especially so when the cable is old and the pairs within it are of a poor quality.

“Some of the last mile line plant our installation technicians have had to work with dated back more than 60 years.”

Some of the last mile line plant our installation technicians have had to work with dated back more than 60 years. Laying new cables through any part of the capital is a challenge and way leave may not be granted if line plant upgrade work is going to disrupt road traffic. This also applies to any challenging environment where the cable routes pass through areas of heavy road traffic congestion.

We still occasionally come across Aluminium conductor cable serving our customer’s premises. This was installed when Copper was in short supply and was deemed too expensive for telecommunications cables. Aluminium cable will not support reliable broadband and in my opinion never really supported voice reliably due to the brittle nature of the cable and the oxidation at termination points.

The choice of ISP can also have a major impact on broadband performance. ISPs design their networks to suit their market. ISPs targeting a low cost domestic market are likely to have a high access contention ratio as well as traffic shaping.

“Many ISPs (business and domestic) use traffic shaping to maintain their customer service level agreements…”

Contention results when the aggregated bandwidth of the customer broadband service is greater than the uplink from the cabinet in the local exchange to the internet point of presence. Some business grade ISPs have sufficient bandwidth available on the uplink so that contention is not an issue. However, there is a cost to this and domestic broadband providers may depend on a backhaul and infrastructure cost saving to enable them to extend cost reductions to their customers. These ISPs then rely on the rules of diversity depending on the hope that not every broadband customer will demand all of their available bandwidth at the same time. This can work well but there will inevitably be times of common peak demand and the customer experience will suffer.

Traffic shaping is required when there is insufficient infrastructure bandwidth to provide fair access. Traffic shaping prevents high demand streaming services from monopolising the bandwidth to the detriment of time critical services such as voice over IP and web browsing. Budget ISPs may need to use constant traffic shaping and this may extend to less discriminate bandwidth capping during heavily congested periods throughout the day.

Many ISPs (business and domestic) use traffic shaping to maintain their customer service level agreements in times of severe peak demand rather than on a daily basis. This has less impact on business traffic provided the ISP has sufficient bandwidth in reserve.

What are the other factors?

Internal telephone wiring on the customer’s premises can have a direct impact on the speed of the broadband service. The telephone line is terminated on a demarcation point in the home. In a simple and ideal installation the broadband modem/router will be connected directly to the demarcation point or as close to it as feasible, and there will be no other internal telephone cabling.

If there are extension telephones wired around the house the extension wiring may impact on the speed of the service by introducing noise onto the ADSL signal. When modern twisted pair telephone cable is used and telephone extension outlets are cabled in series, performance degradation should be minimal. However, if the internal telephone cabling is the old blue, orange, green, brown, quad cable then the interference may be significant enough to noticeably affect the broadband speed. There is still a lot of this old cabling in houses buried under floor boards and in walls. Also, some internal installations comprise extension wiring in a tree like formation where there are two or more internal cables (in addition to the incoming circuit) running off around the house to serve telephone extensions. This is also a noise liability and should be avoided.

“ADSL filters can also cause serious performance issues.”

I live in an old house that until recently had old quad cable installed in a tree like formation serving extensions around my house. I had to take the decision to completely disconnect all of the extension cabling and terminate my router directly onto the incoming demarcation point to successfully overcome performance and reliability issues. The service worked well with no issues (none that I was aware of) on my first generation ADSL running at 512kbps but as soon as I upgraded to a higher speed ADSL2 service my problems started and the extensions had to go.

ADSL filters can also cause serious performance issues. When they are working well they do a great job of filtering the broadband signal from the telephone signal. If the filter fails or is of a poor quality the service may work OK until there is a telephone call in progress. Faulty filters can also cause intermittent problems such as causing the broadband router to lock up intermittently. I have seen an ADSL modem/router lockup problem triggered by the incoming call ring signal. Everything worked well until the customer received an incoming call and then the service dropped and the router had to be rebooted.

The local area network providing internet access around the domestic premises can have a significant impact on performance and the user’s internet and VPN experience. There are many potential causes of wireless LAN performance issues, way beyond the scope of this blog. However, the majority of domestic wireless LAN problems can be resolved by a simple re-position of the wireless router. Installing the wireless router behind furniture and electronic equipment should be avoided. Proximity to televisions and microwave ovens should be avoided at all costs.

“Powerline Ethernet is easy to connect and get working but performance can be a serious issue if the mains cabling is particularly noisy…”

Internal building materials can make a big difference to performance from one room to the next. There are some wall materials that will virtually stop a wireless signal. These include extrapolated metal lathe (EML) and foil backed plaster board. Certain types of glass can also impede wireless network signals. For those unfortunate enough to live in a home with well shielded rooms, a more comprehensive wireless network installation may be required. This can be achieved through additional wireless access points or domestic grade wireless extenders.

Ethernet over mains cabling or Powerline Ethernet may be an option to provide connectivity around the home. This can be useful as a link between wireless access points where no other cabling is available. Powerline Ethernet is easy to connect and get working but performance can be a serious issue if the mains cabling is particularly noisy or there are other Powerline Ethernet devices nearby – even in neighbouring properties. Always test Powerline Ethernet connectivity thoroughly before depending on it for media streaming or business VPN use. I have experienced extremely varied results from no connectivity to speeds in excess of the broadband service and all levels in between. I generally only use Powerline Ethernet as last resort, but it has got me out of trouble on a few occasions.

There are a number of wireless extender products on the market using one or more connectivity techniques including wireless access, wireless mesh, physical data cabling and Powerline Ethernet as a link between a wireless router and one or more wireless repeaters. Data cabling is becoming less popular with so many devices being wireless only. However, in properties where walls are particularly unfriendly to wireless signals, data cabling may be the best option to provide links between the broadband router and additional wireless access points wherever they are required.

Domestic premises can be more challenging than commercial premises when it comes to delivering a reliable local area network solution. Domestic premises rarely have suitable cable pathways and rarely have ideal wireless network friendly building materials. I find it useful to have a toolkit of all of the available network options and use the most appropriate solution as and when required.