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News from the BBC of a SHINE (single high-level impulse noise)[*] that interfered with a Welsh village's internet connection on a daily basis.
The mystery of why an entire village lost its broadband every morning at 7am was solved when engineers discovered an old television was to blame.
[...] After 18 months engineers began an investigation after a cable replacement programme failed to fix the issue.
[...] Openreach engineers were baffled by the continuous problem and it wasn't until they used a monitoring device that they found the fault.
The householder would switch their TV set on at 7am every morning[sic] - and electrical interference emitted by their second-hand television was affecting the broadband signal.
The owner, who does not want to be identified, was "mortified" to find out their old TV was causing the problem, according to Openreach.
"They immediately agreed to switch it off and not use it again," said engineer Michael Jones.
While some properties in the surrounding area have Fibre to the Premises, several homes in the Aberhosan area are still limited to using copper-based ADSL connections.
[*] Broadband: Understanding REIN and SHINE.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by SomeGuy on Wednesday September 23 2020, @03:57PM (25 children)
This story sounds like complete bullshit.
- If we are talking about a WIRED internet connection, that should be not very possible.
- Even if we are talking about a WIRELESS internet connection, it should not have taken that long to find the source of the interference.
- To knock out that an entire village (wait, how many people are in this "village?") especially a wired connection, would require quite a bit of power.
- I have a hard time imagining any TV failing that badly unless we are talking about a very early vacuum tube TV (not even talking about the CRT).
- If their equipment is that fragile, then any damaged equipment can take it out. I've had all kinds of interference problems from cheap Chinese power adapters. Have you noticed how much RF interference cheap LED lightbulbs put off?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:01PM (1 child)
Some types of connections are highly susceptible to electromagnetic interference. An old CRT TV that's on the fritz or maybe just a normal poorly made one, is apparently enough to cause problems. Usually not to the extent of an entire town, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:56PM
Another news site [mirror.co.uk] (with too much javascript) has since written about the incident, and describes it as a 16" Bush brand television, which they'd bought second-hand for ₤30.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:04PM
If we were talking about a Comcast WEIRD internet connection, you wouldn't be saying that.
You mean if their equipment is that
cheapprofitable to the investors.Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:35PM (17 children)
You've got a broken assumption here, that all cathode ray tubes are made equal.
The bigger the screen, and more importantly the shorter the projection depth, the more power of EM radiation it will put out. The power increases with the tangent of the angle of beam deflection. At 90 degrees, e.g. the power output would be infinite. In the 90s before flat screens started showing up, "big screen" tvs were pushing that boundary to "be less bulky". Throw a couple particularly lazy engineers at it, and you're dumping the household fuse limit of 30 amps around as a 50 hz oscillating cathode.
On a UK 230 volt home power supply, that's 7000 watts, well over 10 times the legal power limit of a single channel radio.
Now, hopefully 30 amps is an exaggeration, but I bet it's pretty damn high.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:46PM (14 children)
All UK household appliances have a fuse fitted in the socket, rated between 3A and 13A depending on the device. So you shouldn't be able to pull more than 4000W continuously.
It's still more than enough to cause havoc, though.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 23 2020, @09:15PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @11:36PM (1 child)
Integrated fused spur - still available. [amazon.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 25 2020, @07:01AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 24 2020, @05:21AM
Beg your pardon, yes, plug. Typing too fast and too little proofreading...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:02AM (9 children)
A typical 32A ring circuit allows ~7.4kW but the most you'll be drawing through a single fused 13A UK domestic plug is ~3kW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:08AM (8 children)
Can anyone explain why UK residential wiring is "A typical 32A ring circuit"?
Over here in N. America we run branches out from the main panel (circuit breakers) to devices or outlets. Nothing comes back to the panel in a ring.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:35AM (7 children)
It enables the use of installation cable with smaller diameter conductors since the current is pulled in both directions. Ring circuits ("ring mains") have fallen out of favor because a break in the circuit could mean potentially pulling a full 32A over ~20A (2.5mm2) rated cable. Radial circuits and spurs are also widely used, most high power appliances (oven, shower) would be on a dedicated radial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @02:20AM (6 children)
Ring circuits are falling out of favor in the UK because they are a stupid idea.
Only the UK (and apparently a handful of Third World countries Britain influenced) has these. As the parent indicated, the only motivation for ring circuits as opposed to branches that go straight to the main circuit breaker box is to scrimp out on wire. IT'S A DESIGN TO CHEAP OUT rather than do it right.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 24 2020, @05:26AM (5 children)
Cheaping out on copper was appealing when there was a LOT of rebuilding and rewiring houses to do in the aftermath of the second world war. As stated, it's no longer such a concern.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @06:33AM (4 children)
From Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_circuit [wikipedia.org]
"Ring circuits are commonly used in British wiring with socket-outlets taking fused plugs to BS 1363. Because the breaker rating is much higher than that of any one socket outlet, the system can only be used with fused plugs or fused appliance outlets."
My God, THAT explains the unique and stupid British power plugs with their built-in fuses; they HAVE to have them because British ring wiring is unsafe by design. LOL!
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 24 2020, @01:31PM (2 children)
It's unsafe if you don't put fuses in the plug, yes. But the system was designed to be used with fused plugs, so I don't think that quite warrants "unsafe by design".
Barmier by far is the previous UK standard: BS 546 [wikipedia.org]. In this design, there's no (mandated) fuse in the plug, but you have a different sized plug for each current rating!
BS 546 installations are still permitted by UK electrical regulations, and are usually chosen for their obscurity. I've seen them used in hotels and libraries (for desk lamps), in order to discourage theft or plugging in your own devices. BS 546 also remains standard in stage lighting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @02:55PM (1 child)
Now that you've given me the justification for the UK electrical wiring/plug standard: why do you guys insist on putting separate cold and hot fixtures on your sinks instead of combining the hot and cold into a single fixture? You are condemned to either icy water or scalding water. That is, unless you let the water mix in the probably less than clean plugged basin and splash yourself out of that.
The wiring and plumbing in the UK seem archaic, and proudly so. Like supporting a royal family... ;-)
I assume UK households also have to keep fuses on hand or make trips to the store. Where I live, I just reset the breaker for that circuit at the breaker box--flip a switch. Of course, AFTER trying to guess why it tripped, for safety's sake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @02:57PM
To bring it back on topic, DSL is archaic too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:14PM
The BSI plug and socket is the greatest and safest design in the world and with a fuse per appliance it can be obvious which appliance is failing before the hairdryer starts shooting flames. The breaker on the consumer unit has been an RCD (GFCI) in new installs for a long, long time.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday September 23 2020, @06:01PM (1 child)
Interesting point. For all we know it was an over 9000 inch TV, or even just an LCD/Plasma screen with a really bad power supply. Of course, it would have been informative if the TFA had given any kind of description of the TV. The entire article comes across as one of those "all old things are bad" propaganda bits.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 24 2020, @01:33PM
Other sources have confirmed that it was a second-hand 16" CRT; see https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=39694&page=1&cid=1055652#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] for a comment posted just before yours with further details.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 23 2020, @05:11PM
You underestimate the EMI potential of an old TV set,
and/or you overestimate the EMI resistance performance of commercial gear.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Wednesday September 23 2020, @05:33PM
Except that it actually happened and is well documented. A long wire is also known as an antenna, after all.
It takes a lot less power than you might think, especially with poorly shielded systems. It's why ethernet uses differential signaling on twisted pairs. Less well designed systems may be vulnerable.
In the early '80s (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth with purple mohawks), I remember seeing interference on channel 5 that seemed like it had some sort of coherent pattern to it. Careful examination revealed that the pattern was, in fact, the screen saver my C64 was displaying in the next room on it's monitor. Amusingly, I was watching Halloween and the screen saver was a jack'o'lantern.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday September 23 2020, @06:11PM
This is RF spewed out by the TV, going to a phone line as opposed to the coax the TV is using. Maybe the phone line was only an inch by the TV or something like that. LED lightbulbs and power adapters are not something you can compare this to. A large old tube TV can be close to a kilowatt of power. It can create a huge magnetic field that hits an unshielded phone wire.
As far a finding the source of RF - possibly 18 months is too long, but sound fine to me. It takes months of ignored reports to even look into the problem. Then they send engineers to the houses of people reporting the issue to fix their home network. Then after many reports they start looking on their end. By the time you identify the shared wire shit is coming from, it's been months. Now which house is it? How do you know it's RF - there's many possible issues, including your own equipment being the cause.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 24 2020, @01:34AM
RFI and EMI is all too common. Back in the day, before the FCC tightened regulations, the Apple II computer I had screwed up TV reception. The computer and TV were in opposite corners of the house, about 100 ft apart, and the computer was still able to add a lot of noise to the signal.
Years later, I tried to turn an old computer into a server running 24/7. The 1G hard drive had some tremendous RFI leakage that made it impossible to receive AM radio stations in the next room. On the radio, you could hear every motion of the arm. It should not have caused such interference, but devices can have defects that cause far more RFI than they're supposed to emit.
Similarly, when I used a 56K modem, I often had a very hard time connecting, and then the connection would be extremely slow. We had close on to a dozen extensions plugged in to the phone jacks that the builder had put in each room. When I started checking them, I found that each phone lowered the connection speed by about 2K. Except for one exceptionally bad phone that was somehow interfering so much I often could not connect at all. It was the same model as several other phones. Unplugging that one phone instantly solved the connection problems my modem was experiencing. Modem was connecting immediately, and achieving at least 30K data rates. Unplugging the rest of the phones allowed the modem to finally reach 56K speeds.
Finally, there was a year when the house next door was vacant. That year we had the best TV reception ever. When new occupants at last moved in, the reception became as bad as usual, and sometimes worse. Could always tell when the neighbors vacuumed.
There have also been many stories of desktop computers that interfered with their own built in audio system.
So, yeah, totally believable that an old TV could cause that much trouble.