ADSL – What do the SNR and Loop Att. values indicate?

By | January 15, 2011

The following was posted to Whirlpool forum. It is not supplied by DrayTek, and is NOT specific to DrayTek routers. It is reproduced here as a general guide only.
SNR is Signal to Noise Ratio (aka Noise Margin or Signal to Noise Margin)
Relative strength of the DSL signal to Noise ratio. 6dB is the lowest dB manufactures specify for modem to be able to synch. In some instances interleaving can help raise the noise margin to an acceptable level. The higher the number the better for this measurement.

6dB or below is bad and will experience no synch or intermittent synch problems
7dB-10dB is fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions
11dB-20dB is good with no synch problems
20dB-28dB is excellent
29dB or above is outstanding

Loop Att. is Line Attenuation

Output Power


How much power modem (upstream) or DSLAM (downstream) is using. Maximum recommended is about 15dB. The lower the power the better for this measurement.
Measure of how much the signal has degraded between the DSLAM and the modem. Maximum signal loss recommendation is usually about 60dB. The lower the dB the better for this measurement.
20dB and below is outstanding
20dB-30dB is excellent
30dB-40dB is very good
40dB-50dB is good
50dB-60dB is poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB or above is bad and will experience connectivity issues