Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

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milonic
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2012 11:19 am

Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

Post by milonic »

Hi All,

I purchased a Billion 7800n as I'm quite far from the exchange - 4.5km and wanted something that was good for long lines.

My Billion 7800 is working fine but I have a question about loop attenuation.

BT tell me that my Loop Att. should be 53 - My old Draytek 2820 was 52-53 but this new Billion is showing 62

Do I have a duff modem or is it supposed to be like this?

Cheers,
Andy
Tomken
Posts: 467
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Co Durham

Re: Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

Post by Tomken »

This article will explain how/why different routers can register different attenuations http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm#attenuation
tinytim
Posts: 218
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:53 pm
Location: Benfleet, Essex

Re: Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

Post by tinytim »

For what it's worth my 7800N shows very similar attenuation to other routers I've tried like my Sky Dlink and Netgear DGN2000 , give or take 1dB.
Tomken
Posts: 467
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Co Durham

Re: Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

Post by Tomken »

tinytim wrote:For what it's worth my 7800N shows very similar attenuation to other routers I've tried like my Sky Dlink and Netgear DGN2000 , give or take 1dB.
Mine too with TalkTalk routers, but as we've seen from the various threads - no two 7800Ns seem to be the same.
Philip_L
Posts: 111
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:06 am

Re: Loop Attenuation from 53 to 62

Post by Philip_L »

Hi

Attenuation reported by routers isn't the actual attenuation as used by BT and often can't be compared between models.

Because of the way routers report attenuation a reported increase is often a positive. Routers tend to show attenuation as an average over all the frequencies the router is using. The higher the frequency the router hears, the larger the attenuation is, so if your Billion is able to hear and use higher frequencies than your previous one then these have a higher attenuation and push the reported number higher. Similarly if you move from ADSL to ADSL2+ your attenuation goes up because you are receiving and using higher frequencies.

BT report attenuation is based on a set frequency of around 300KHz so can be compared easily between devices and if you can see this figure it has probably changed little between your two routers but typically this isn't shown to us. Software like DMT will report this figure from most modems.

What is your connection speed like, is that the same or has it improved?

Regards

Phil
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