Broadband broken by old TV (say BT)...

[Nick]

https://www.openreach.com/news/second-ha...e-village/

[ppppenguin]

I saw that story and wondered how one tv could scupper broadband for a whole area.

[Murphyv310]

Doubtful in my mind.
If it is the case I'd suspect an issue with BT.
Just like in the CB says, ferrite rings had to be fitted due to bad TV or radio design, the CB radios were usually clean and aerials were running with good SWR, so it may just be that or hype.

[Craig]

Suzanne Rutherford, Openreach chief engineer's lead for Wales, said...

"We'd just advise the public to make sure that their electric appliances are properly certified and meet current British standards"

Really? How are the public supposed to know? Are they supposed to read and understand the EMC directive and then go out and buy new appliances?

[ppppenguin]

I've seen stories of Xmas tree lights and street lights causing interference with xDSL

[Murphyv310]

Interference shouldn't stop broadband but all those unscreened cables....... then no wonder. Accountants in charge no doubt.

[ppppenguin]

It's a bit of a miracle that xDSL works at all. All those cruddy old copper pairs intended for nothing more than 4khz being pushed to provide many megabits per second of data. COFDM and lots of processing power do the hard work but it still feels astonishing.

[BusyBee]

Well I can imagine, and have experience of, interference in a locality such as a house or even adjoining but I think the frequency would have to be pretty limited to cause problems over a village, or be of high power if broadband. I have not read the details but perhaps more a case of it getting into the exchange end to interfere with overall coverage? I know they are blaming an older set but perhaps it is more a wake up call to the companies themselves to get their houses in order rather than blame the public for shoddy equipment which, as Craig implies, if the public is using unmodified goods in their normal way then companies like BT need to sort themselves between the supplier / manufacturer.

PS: I have just read the report and will leave the above but will add that I have probably come across this type of interference before. I remember where I used to work we had a problem with a specialist house intercom system. The intercom was designed to be remotely operated via I/R from a bedbound disabled patient. The fault showed itself as total failure of the I/R control inside his bedroom but the system would work via the buttons on the intercom or from other units around the house (the main control box was wall mounted outside in the hall). I was tasked to investigate and literally got tied in knots lol. I tried different units and even at one point ran a seperate test wiring loom through the hall as the main wiring was in the loft. I found that an intercom would not work in the room at all but the same unit on the same loom would work when moved into the hall outside. After much headscratching I noticed that there was a high level power unit providing power to a ceiling mounted hoist which was switched on. On turning it off all worked perfectly. On questioning the patient I determined that the unit had recently been serviced although it had been in for years hence I made the wrong assumption that it had no bearing on the fault. As far as I am aware though there was no external issues and no broadband problems but was obviously a digital signal corruption / blanketing problem which sounds very much like a localised version of what is happening here.

Tracy

[ppppenguin]

Strictly speaking there are no such things as digital signals. They are all analogue. In many cases you can treat signals as digital but sometimes you can't. XDSL carried on copper pairs is very definitely analogue.

[Crackle]

Strictly speaking there are no such things as digital signals.  They are all analogue. In many cases you can treat signals as digital but sometimes you can't.  XDSL carried on copper pairs is very definitely analogue.

I am not sure that is strictly true. Please explain.

Mike