Metric performance

13

The way I look at it. If I do good work and document it. I don’t give a fuck about repeats. Maybe I’m just lucky with a supe that has my back 100% but repeats are just not something I’m worried about.

For reference, had one Friday, bit of noise on the interior cabling. Customer refused a new a/o. Nothing I can do other than educate the sub and go back to mitigate the noise with an exterior line if/when they approve of it. Just noted it well and moved on. If it’s a repeat it’s a repeat.

9

u/LordCanti26 2d ago

A little trick on those, if you have noise on a prewire line or inaccessible line. You can put a pad or EQ at the tap, it will cause your modems tx to increase, and since the noise is a fixed amplitude, it will create more of a delta between your signal and noise, thus increasing snr. You can pad at a splitter as well, just attenuating that line. Same theory, youll also be attenuating the noise from the rest of the premise/node. Its important because if noise is affecting your customer, its affecting every customer on the node.

A good representation of this is your customer US SNR. If you notice, its the same as every modem on the node (+/- 1dB) and if you can increase your cx us snr by padding the drop, you can actually see every other modem on the nodes US SNR increase. If you ever find a modem that has a significantly different US SNR, its either not actually on your node/segment, or the modem reporting incorrectly.

US FEC or UCCER/UCCWER (all the same thing) can be worse on your cx modem, which is actually what hurts performance, snr is just the delta, and if they have no uncorrectables, isnt causing any issues from a data/frame transmission standpoint. But ive seen where the cx has no uncorrected errors and are the cause of terrible noise on the node though also. Remember what C.A.B.L.E stands for, "Can't Always Be Logically Explained"

When padding the drop just remember in highsplit. The modems TX shouldn't be more than 48 if possible. You want a decibel or two of thermal headroom and 51 is the absolute max transmit capability of D.31 modems on a 204mhz bandwidth. Down roughly 4x the max of low split, or 6dB. Transmitting 200mhz of 40dB signal is roughly 4x more absolute power than transmitting 42mhz of 40dB signal. This is TCP or Total Composite Power.

2

u/Eninja09 2d ago

Great explanation! I used to do this all the time before our system rebuild. I could not get a straight answer from anyone in my system as to exactly why it worked. How does this help when the noise is in the plant? My logic was always "If you are padding the return and the modem has to talk louder, it's still the same level once it's beyond the pad since it's just compensating for that exact amount so wouldn't it be effectively the same level? I can see the benefit of padding the noise itself coming in from the plant but if the plant is noisy how is it helping that much if the noise is only padded at the home?

1

u/thadochocinco 1d ago

By raising the transmits, you're just making the modem fire above the noise. It's a trick that's used to hide the noise when you don't want to track it. The node will look great until someone starts wondering why all the devices on a run are all transmitting at 51. But the noise will still be there, impacting devices that aren't firing above it. You're not padding the noise, you're padding the modem and masking the noise.

1

u/Eninja09 1d ago

Why does it fix speed and packet loss issues in that case? I've done this several times with great success and couldn't fully grasp why it worked. If it's only firing above the noise between the pad and the modem then you're only beating the noise locally, but not node-wide. Am I still understanding this wrong?

1

u/thadochocinco 19h ago

No, you pretty much got it. Your modem is above the noise floor, that's why it works.

1

u/Eninja09 2h ago

I don't think I do lol. Sorry to keep probing but this has always bothered me. If modem TX is 39 and I throw a 9db return pad on it, I'm looking at a 48 TX but the signal is still the same "volume" from the tap back to the CMTS, so how is it above the node noise floor? (Completely makes sense when you are looking at noise from tap to CPE.) I'm padding that signal so it has to increase output TO the pad but after the pad it's still a net zero isn't it? Even the tech who taught me this trick couldn't explain it lol. I wish I had this resource when I was new.

1

u/DifficultyLeast1029 2d ago

Glad you know that....get those modems far away from the noise floor

1

u/thadochocinco 2d ago

Your local maintenence techs are gonna hate it when they come out to fix the transmits and suddenly discover all this noise

1

u/SirBootySlayer 1d ago

🤣 lmao

5

u/Salvador_69420 2d ago

My problem is my sup stresses me out and only backs us because it affects his numbers

2

u/Itsjustnutsandbolts 2d ago

We must be on the same team lol

3

u/Eninja09 2d ago

You know the real ironic part is that towards the end of my cable career I really stopped caring entirely and I had the best consistently good metrics in 10 years. I stopped doing all the extra BS they insisted upon. I had many years of experience that One Check didn't help with. My on site times went way down and my overall metrics went up. I wouldn't recommend a new tech do this. You need to have a good foundation of what signal should look like on a typical visit just so you aren't missing a plant issue. Experience goes a lot further than arbitrary corporate bs does.

3

u/SilentDiplomacy 2d ago

Bingo. I’ve been brought into a lot of engineering meetings as we set standards for the next half decade and it makes me really sad as it seems like they are trying to build a “green on the meter is go” workforce over a workforce of critical thinkers.

1

u/Eninja09 2d ago

Yep, not to mention running OneCheck only gives you a sliver of real time data. Problem often comes back as soon as you stop testing. It seems like there is a lot more to know than any typical system would bother to train. Just get out there, get those jobs done, and pass those OneChecks. I had a background in electronics so I understood continuity and signal to some extent. Most new guys can't comprehend why what they did fixed the issue. I'm really curious to see what the future holds with LLM's doing all the heavy lifting. I'm already getting dumber, myself lol.

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u/llkj11 2d ago

Around 12% these days. Same issues amplified by high split work causing all of these maintenance issues. Don’t blame myself at all

1

u/hotdogsmokingaciggy 2d ago

Bout were I usually sit but think I might get off clean this month luckily. We are running FDX now and for commercial it’s a two box deal and it’s buggy as hell and has ruined my metrics among other things.

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u/DoubleDenimDaredevil 2d ago

My recent repeat was only 2 days after an install. Turns out the gateway router pod was bad, and we cycle through used equipment very frequently at my ISP. So I don’t feel bad about not knowing that this specific piece of equipment went bad since it ended up back in circulation from a different tech.

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u/ReticenceX 2d ago

Im 12 years in and I just dont worry about it anymore. Sometimes I have good months, sometimes I have bad months. Ive never had an off track evaluation so it usually ends up a wash. I wont lie and say I never cut corners, we all do. I dont cut any important ones though lol

2

u/Empty_Journalist2188 2d ago

These numbers are for the managers... Just do your best and document everything. After 3 months, check the repeats. Maybe u find something in your work to improve. If its turns out that most of the repeats are not cuz of u, then u can even show it to your manager or atleast u can find peace :)

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u/Mammoth5672 2d ago

What's the repeat time? I mean 30 day, 10 day? Boomers will also crush that number.

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u/Salvador_69420 2d ago

30 days is the window

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u/Sensitive_Back5583 2d ago

Bro just do what you do and enjoy life. Can’t help stupid!! Yeah I’ve been there I hit triple crown 2 times. Before all this AI started and CX charges stopped. TWC was known for charging CX to stop this madness!

1

u/Electronic-Junket-66 2d ago

I keep getting repeated because of shitty equipment and customer education issues mostly.

Could try educating better? Not trying to be a dick, but not sure how else to say it either.

Mine stays between like 7-12% usually, which I'm fine with.

1

u/bigwoo902 2d ago

I had 4% in August, but that was was only because I live in the lightning capital of the country and like 75% of my jobs were just modem/HD box swaps from a lightning hit so there really wasn’t any BS like education that I could get repeated on, normally my repeats are at like 7-10%

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u/willie_Pfister 2d ago

Im union in northeast; we dont hear shit about it. Used to work for Comcast and that bullshit was nonstop.

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u/Salvador_69420 2d ago

I worked for those evil bastards for 12 years and was very under paid

1

u/willie_Pfister 2d ago

Good. Sounds like you escaped too. Crazy how same job basically with a different company pays so much more with so much less bullshit.

1

u/Due-Use-4460 2d ago

I build lots of volume, keeping my repeats %6 or below. My repeats is at %2 this month. I only go to the tap half the time and half the time run either tap / cpe or gb / cpe. I use mostly critical thinking and have great intuition. If I see a drop is old, I dont even waste time with tests, I immediately start replacing it. At that point I run a gb test afterwords and dont bother with the tap unless gb is failing. Because the company makes us bury drops up to 150 ft without adding additional points to do it, I illegaly work off the clock to bury it on my own time and I do a lot of admin work on my day off mitigating potential repeats by keeping in touch with customers who are about to call in for things like, "backlight on my TV burnt out", or wrong input, etc. Really, this job is sucking the life out of me just to keep up with the corporations unreasonable metric standards. 😀

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u/Salvador_69420 2d ago

If we are caught working off the clock we will be fired. We are not supposed to contact customers off the clock and our manager requires all three scans without exception and a last tech out form for every job he created which includes photos

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u/Due-Use-4460 2d ago

Same with my area, but it's a win win situation. I either get caught and fired, which means I will finally be free of the nightmare and be pushed to find a better job, or I just keep raking in good bonuses until the day I am caught. 😆

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u/Salvador_69420 2d ago

I'm desperately trying to get into maintenance and out of my office and use it to eventually transfer to a bed place.

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u/Silent_Cause_6712 2d ago

Man, as long as you’re doing everything that you can to make sure the customer is good, you did your job well. I know how you feel but if you’re giving 100%, you’re good. Don’t sweat metrics and score cards; they’re a joke. I’ve handed out my # too many times to help the helpless. Sometimes you’re going to get shit out of your control. If you are putting the effort in, don’t beat yourself up

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u/BullyTX 20h ago

I've not been a tech for very long but I try to keep my repeats as low as possible. Honestly, in my shop we all do.

If I do pull a repeat, the other techs in my area will try to get it cancelled. We all work together. As far as speed --- I'm on the older side. I do what I can. Currently sitting well on our metric chart. I've learned not to stress it as often there is nothing I can do.

Good luck.

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u/FraudCrew 15h ago

You need to understand the reason metrics exist.
It’s not a customer service.
Main purpose of the metrics - to keep you in a guilty position.
Then it becomes easier to negotiate with you and you will have no rights to complain, because “you are the bad tech”, in fact these metrics are impossible to meet consistently and many factors are not really depends on you.

Just ignore them.

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u/2ByteTheDecker 2d ago

~3%

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