IrCOm trying to monitor an unreliable (Plusnet) broadband connection. IrCOd been
doing this with the connmon package on an Asus router running asuswrt-merlin, which worked very nicely and gave me pretty plots to look at.
Now I suspect the router may be part of the problem, so have swapped in a Plusnet router to check that. Being a locked-down ISP router, it wonrCOt run extra stuff like connmon, so IrCOm looking for something straightforward to run
from a Mac mini. It only needs to ping an external server every minute or so, so a simple cron job would do, but if thererCOs some open source package that will give me a nice chart, that would be preferable. Any thoughts?
IrCOm trying to monitor an unreliable (Plusnet) broadband connection. IrCOd been
doing this with the connmon package on an Asus router running asuswrt-merlin, which worked very nicely and gave me pretty plots to look at.
Now I suspect the router may be part of the problem, so have swapped in a Plusnet router to check that. Being a locked-down ISP router, it wonrCOt run extra stuff like connmon, so IrCOm looking for something straightforward to run
from a Mac mini. It only needs to ping an external server every minute or so, so a simple cron job would do, but if thererCOs some open source package that will give me a nice chart, that woud be preferable. Any thoughts?
Configure the router to respond to pings from the internet.
Set up an account with:
<https://f8lure.mouselike.org/auth.asp>
Arrange for F8Lure to ping your public IP address. It will do this
every second. It will draw graphs and can be configured to email you
when the connection fails.
The graphs are instructive, giving you an indication of reliability and usage.
On 27/02/2026 10:20, TimH wrote:
IrCOm trying to monitor an unreliable (Plusnet) broadband connection. IrCOd been
doing this with the connmon package on an Asus router running asuswrt-merlin,
which worked very nicely and gave me pretty plots to look at.
Now I suspect the router may be part of the problem, so have swapped in a
Plusnet router to check that. Being a locked-down ISP router, it wonrCOt run >> extra stuff like connmon, so IrCOm looking for something straightforward to run
from a Mac mini. It only needs to ping an external server every minute or so,
so a simple cron job would do, but if thererCOs some open source package that
will give me a nice chart, that woud be preferable. Any thoughts?
I have always used this to monitor my VM BB connection...
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality
It does it 24/7/365 and it keeps a visual record of any/all of your
network disconnections, latency, etc.. useful data to have to match to
the Network logs (in your Hub settings) and also in discussions with
your provider - note it will take a few hours to start seeing a sensible picture.
Anyway, thanks for the help, but I think I'll have to look into the other suggestion of ThinkBroadband's monitoring tool.
On 27 Feb 2026 at 1:44:08rC>pm GMT, "TimH" <thnews@poboxmolar.com.invalid> wrote:
Anyway, thanks for the help, but I think I'll have to look into the other
suggestion of ThinkBroadband's monitoring tool.
And of course it turns out that ThinkBroadband's tool also requires that ICMP requests aren't blocked!
So, back to my original question...
TimH wrote:
On 27 Feb 2026 at 1:44:08rC>pm GMT, "TimH" <thnews@poboxmolar.com.invalid> >> wrote:
Anyway, thanks for the help, but I think I'll have to look into the other >>> suggestion of ThinkBroadband's monitoring tool.
And of course it turns out that ThinkBroadband's tool also requires that ICMP
requests aren't blocked!
So, back to my original question...
Change ISP. Tell Plusnet why. Make sure you get the attention of Bob
Pullen (who sometimes appears in this newsgroup).
Out of interest, what is the nature of the unreliability?
In the meantime, I've thrown my principles out of the window and had Claude write me a Python script that pings 8.8.8.8 every 2 seconds,
Change ISP. Tell Plusnet why. Make sure you get the attention of Bob
Pullen (who sometimes appears in this newsgroup).
Not an option, unfortunately, since we're still on copper wire until sometime later this year, and no ISP is allowed to take on new ADSL customers here.
Out of interest, what is the nature of the unreliability?
A few times a day, the connection drops, usually for 1-2 minutes. OpenReach had someone out checking the connection and replacing parts; found nothing. I only swapped in the Plusnet router last night, so too early to say whether it's made a difference.
In the meantime, I've thrown my principles out of the window and had Claude write me a Python script that pings 8.8.8.8 every 2 seconds, and plots the last 24 hours of data. Into the belly of the beast...
TimH wrote:
[snip]
Change ISP. Tell Plusnet why. Make sure you get the attention of Bob
Pullen (who sometimes appears in this newsgroup).
Not an option, unfortunately, since we're still on copper wire until sometime
later this year, and no ISP is allowed to take on new ADSL customers here.
Is it really ADSL and not VDSL?
So presumably all ISPs can provide FTTP? If not, how do they expect to provide a broadband service?
Does the Plusnet router have a management page that shows anything at
all? Sync speed, line attenuation, SNR margin, connection up-time,
distance to the exchange etc?
Bob Pullen where are you? Your customer needs you!
So you must be quite close to the exchange, then. At 5km I used to get
Is it really ADSL and not VDSL?
Yep, max speed is around 20Mbps down, 1Mbps up.
So presumably all ISPs can provide FTTP? If not, how do they expect to
provide a broadband service?
Not here they can't! When contract renewal time came round, it was Plusnet or nothing. (which, of course, makes me wonder how enforceable the contract would
be if tested)
To be fair to Plusnet, it's one of those annoyingly random (as far as I can see) faults that must be an engineer's nightmare.
On 27 Feb 2026 at 4:38:17rC>pm GMT, "Graham J" <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote:
TimH wrote:
[snip]
Is it really ADSL and not VDSL?Change ISP. Tell Plusnet why. Make sure you get the attention of Bob >>>> Pullen (who sometimes appears in this newsgroup).
Not an option, unfortunately, since we're still on copper wire until sometime
later this year, and no ISP is allowed to take on new ADSL customers here. >>
Yep, max speed is around 20Mbps down, 1Mbps up.
So presumably all ISPs can provide FTTP? If not, how do they expect to
provide a broadband service?
Not here they can't! When contract renewal time came round, it was Plusnet or nothing. (which, of course, makes me wonder how enforceable the contract would
be if tested)
Does the Plusnet router have a management page that shows anything at
all? Sync speed, line attenuation, SNR margin, connection up-time,
distance to the exchange etc?
Out of those, only connection uptime IIRC. It's fairly basic. Though there is access to the system log, with quite a useful set of filters.
Bob Pullen where are you? Your customer needs you!
To be fair to Plusnet, it's one of those annoyingly random (as far as I can see) faults that must be an engineer's nightmare.
WerCOre also on ADSL, but good speed here, at 70/19 usually. I have the Hub Two.
WerCOve had a problem with ours too, no clear answers at all, despite many efforts by the forum guys.
We have an issue where ours goes down at random periods of elapsed times (days or sometimes weeks) where it just loses Internet, the network is
fine. It reconnects within a few seconds. The really strange thing is, it happens at exactly the same time of day (just before 9.00pm).
WerCOre also on ADSL, but good speed here, at 70/19 usually. I have the Hub Two.
I still think itrCOs a PN issue, but nobody really has any idea.It is only a PN issue in that they are the only people with any
Andy H wrote:
[snip]
WerCOve had a problem with ours too, no clear answers at all, despite many >> efforts by the forum guys.
We have an issue where ours goes down at random periods of elapsed times
(days or sometimes weeks) where it just loses Internet, the network is
fine. It reconnects within a few seconds. The really strange thing is, it
happens at exactly the same time of day (just before 9.00pm).
Look at the router status while this is happening.
It might simply show that the PPPoE connection has dropped. This is an
ISP problem (though probably dependent on Openreach equipment) where
your router cannot log in to the authentication server. If it really
does reconnect within a few seconds then a PPPoE problem is likely.
It might show that the line has lost sync. If so, it will take about a minute - possibly as much as 2 minutes to retrain and synchronise. Then
it has to log into the authentication server.
So be absolutely certain about the duration of the disconnection.
The time - around 9pm - suggests electrical interference from something
that comes on or goes off at that time. Do you or a near neighbour have electric heating with a night-rate meter?
WerCOre also on ADSL, but good speed here, at 70/19 usually. I have the Hub >> Two.
No, you have VDSL. The max speed for ADSL is 24Mbits/sec. VDSL is
capped at 70 Mbits/sec, although your router might be able to show that
the line itself is capable of a greater speed.
A good router will show you all these things.
I still think itrCOs a PN issue, but nobody really has any idea.It is only a PN issue in that they are the only people with any
influence over Openreach. So keep applying the pressure, and threaten
to leave because of unreliability.
It might show that the line has lost sync. If so, it will take about a
minute - possibly as much as 2 minutes to retrain and synchronise. Then
it has to log into the authentication server.
Looking at the logs, it shows this under the WAN group.
20:34:36: DSL Link Down
20:34:38: WAN connection WAN2_INTERNET_PTM disconnected. [ERROR_NO_CARRIER] 20:34:38: WAN Sensing Auto sensing Running
Then at
20:35:14 DSL Link UP
And itrCOs all back on by 20:35:33
So it looks like itrCOs dropped the connection for 2 seconds, I think!
Andy H wrote:
[snip]
It might show that the line has lost sync. If so, it will take about a
minute - possibly as much as 2 minutes to retrain and synchronise. Then >>> it has to log into the authentication server.
Looking at the logs, it shows this under the WAN group.
20:34:36: DSL Link Down
20:34:38: WAN connection WAN2_INTERNET_PTM disconnected. [ERROR_NO_CARRIER] >> 20:34:38: WAN Sensing Auto sensing Running
Then at
20:35:14 DSL Link UP
And itrCOs all back on by 20:35:33
So it looks like itrCOs dropped the connection for 2 seconds, I think!
No, 20:35:33 minus 20:34:36 is 57 seconds!
This is the router losing sync, retraining, and authenticating. It is
the retraining that takes almost all of that time.
[snip]
This is a minor inconvenience when streaming TV, but quite a problem if
you were to use VoIP for your phone calls, because the VoIP system would take a further minute or two to re-establish contact with its server.
The fault will be almost impossible to find. Openreach do have the equipment to measure line quality, and some of their technicians do know
how to use it. But you won't get an Openreach technician to attend at
9pm to sit there and watch for the fault to occur. I think they have exchange equipment which would log the cause of the failure - noise on either the upstream or downstream circuit, or a complete loss of
carrier, etc - which might help them find the underlying cause.
Does the cable run underground? If there's a tiny fracture this could
be aggravated by a vehicle running over the buried cable. The
possibilities for failure are endless!
Ultimately, the concept of carrying broadband over telephone pairs
designed in the 1870s for voice was totally misconceived. It is very
much a "best efforts" service. FTTP by contrast is at least designed to
be nearer 100% reliable.
So ditch Plusnet and talk to Andrews & Arnold: challenge them to fix the fault.
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