My ADSL connection is dropping between 5 and 15 times a day at present, and the entry in the syslog which corresponds to the dropping of the connection is "PPP Closed : Remote Terminating (PPPoA)". I can imagine that there might be three causes for the connection dropping - does the message give any clue as to which one is most likely?

1. Router has developed a fault in its ADSL line interface which is causing the line to drop.
2. There is an intermittent fault in the BT equipment at the exchange.
3. There is an intermittent fault on the line between the exchange and my property.

Hello,

which Draytek Product are you using (there were some power supply issues on the Vigor 120's a few years back) ?

Has anything happened recently on your line? e.g. BT have "upgraded" the exchange from ADSL1 to ADSL2 ?

If you ring a BT Line Test - Dial 17070 and then choose the option Quietline Test is there any crackling or similar on the line? If so report this to your telecommunications provider as a Voice fault.

Always seems pointlesss - but just to rule it out, could you swap the Microfilter - in case this has gone daft?

Confirm no other changes to your internal telephone stuff? No new phones, alarms connected to phone line, changes to Sat TV box? All microfilters present and correct?

How feasable it it to put your modem in the test socket? Some tips here: http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/kb_vigor_linefaults.html

Regards, Neal

Product - sorry, should have mentioned this - it is a 2820 with firmware 3.3.5.2_2471201.

My connection was upgraded a couple of months ago to ADSL2+ (G.992.5), but for quite a while there were no problems and the only difference was a doubling in the download speed. The connection dropping only started about 2-3 weeks ago.

I have tried the quiet line test and can't hear any noise, and I have had a visit from a BT engineer who gave the line a clean bill of health. He said that he was only a voice fault engineer so couldn't do anything on the broadband side. My question was primarily aimed at finding out whether the reported line drops indicated a BT problem or not, as I have asked my ISP (Plusnet) to push this back to BT again as a possible problem in the exchange.

Microfilter - I have already tried swapping the filter which was a BT faceplate one for a separate microfilter and that made no difference to the symptoms.

And there have been no other changes at all on the line within the house.

The 2820 is certainly on the most suitable Modem Code firmware for ADSL2.

This does sound like a bit of an odd issue. What about putting in the bt_test@startup_domain log in, overnight for example, and seeing how the results compare? This may be useful in nagging plusnet to get it sorted.

You could change the WAN Modulation from Multimode to G.DMT which would force the connecion to connect like it did before. You could then compare to see if the slower ADSL1 / G.DMT is rock solid? Not particularly exciting, but the comparison could help your ISP to track down the issue.

Can't think of anything else at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestion. However I don't really want to try the bt test login as I run a mail server here and so I don't want to be offline for that long. I know that the mail would go to the backup server and all but it still causes problems!

Changing the modulation to G.DMT sounds like a good idea, though and I might try that.

The question still remains, though - what does the message in the syslog actually mean and what can I deduce from it?

I could only suggest raising a ticket with the UK Email Support Team, as my knowledge is running dry. However I remain very interested to hear about how you resolve things.