radio frequency interference

Why should you care, well they are both a type of electromagnetic interference that can cause poor performance issues as well as a partial or complete loss of your broadband service. They are invisible to the naked eye and as a general rule cannot be heard or felt without special equipment.

  • REIN- Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise / Random Electrical Impulse Noise 
  • SHINE- Single High Impulse Noise Event (Single High-level Impulse Noise Event) 

Essentially both rein and shine are a type of powerful radio wave that exists in the same frequency range as that used by your broadband service. Generally, both rein & shine are the by-products of faulty or poorly designed electrical equipment, electrical equipment that either generates or uses a lot of power. In the case of rein the equipment will often be faulty & cause a fairly consistent electromagnetic output whilst it is on. With shine the electromagnetic interference is generally associated with the exact time the equipment is switched on or off.

  • Faulty electrical installations
  • Faulty thermostats
  • Faulty central heating electrics or electronics
  • Immersion heaters
  • Electrical power supply units
  • Domestic appliances (Washing machine, dryers, Fridges, freezers)
  • Leisure appliances (TVs, Skybox, satellite receiver, digital receiver)
  • Other appliances (Laptops, Routers, Access points, Switches, Hubs, Repeaters, transmitters)
  • 3 Phase power usage
  • Railway lines
  • Electric fences
  • Electric gates
  • Electric motors
  • Christmas tree lights / some external lighting including
  • Mobile / Temporary lighting
  • Security systems
  • Security lighting
  • High power switching equipment
  • Digital Communication Transmitters
  • Data cables in close parallel proximity to power cables
  • Credit card payment machines, and electronic cash registers.
  • Dispersing machines
  • Major structural works – road/building/infrastructure
  • Emergency services / military communications
  • Cars, motorcycles etc

The list above demonstrates the nature of some of the types of equipment that can cause rein or shine. Whilst it is not an exhaustive list it can be seen that many of the potential sources would reside within a domestic or business customer's property. As such you may be required to do some diagnostic testing to identify the source of interference or try to prove that any interference does not come from within your property.

It is worth noting that even if the source of the interference is external to your property, it still may not be the responsibility of your service provider to identify & resolve it. One example would be if the origin of the interference was faulty equipment in a nearby property.

Your service provider may be able to offer some assistance with the help of Openreach or an independent service such as Burytec. If you have done as much as you can to try to track down the interference & you feel that you are making very little progress you could try an analog radio tuner set to AM 612 KHz. As you move closer to the source the sound on the radio should become significantly louder.

Many cases of interference can be tracked down by a process of elimination and using monitoring techniques to pinpoint specific times when service failure coincides with the active state of a particular item of electrical equipment.

Several network service monitoring programs are available that can record useful uptime information on a graph, this makes it very easy to identify any patterns.

You may find some of the following resources helpful in your quest for resumed quality services.

  • RouterStats - http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm
  • MRTG - http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/index.en.html
  • MRTG Bundle - http://www.openinnovations.com/mrtgbundle.html
  • Cacti - http://www.cacti.net/

Comments

Submitted byJez (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2018 - 16:52

why is it that we are living in the future yet this is still an issue.

Submitted bychoorce (not verified) on Wed, 02/06/2021 - 23:06

Just wanted to say thank you for finding the source of our broadband connection problems. I have been able to do conference calls from the kitchen & office.

Submitted byLee Sparks in Bolton (not verified) on Sat, 07/08/2021 - 15:56

Ever since having our main telephone socket relocated by a local TV aerial install, we have had no end of problems with our internet speed and WiFi coverage. This had been going on for over 2 months before we found Peter at Burytec, Peter was able to located the problems associated with some bad wiring in the master socket. This improved our internet connection speed, Peter was also able to install an Ethernet cable in our summerhouse / office where he set up a wireless access point with 2 built in cable connection points. We now have no connection issues with the office computer or the TV when streaming netflix or watching on catch up. Its been great, even when we use our mobiles, iPad and Samsung pads. 50+ Mbps throughout the house & garden.

Good guy to know, tidy worker, easy to talk to and very reasonable prices. Would recommend to everyone

Thank you

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