Broadband speed now below minimum

[#1]

Download speed has been dropping for a while now, finally it’s got below guaranteed minimum - 40 Mbps.  Where to go from here?  Engineer visit required?  Any assistance very welcome.

[#2]

@JRT 

First thing to check: Is your phoneline clear? Dial 17070 (preferably from a corded phone), select option 2. Once your phone number is confirmed, there should be silence on the line except for the regular 'Quiet Line Test' message - any other noise, report a PHONE problem via: https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/phone/

If the phone test passes, report a broadband problem via: https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/broadband/

Let us know the result - if the tests come back as clear but you still have a problem, we need to investigate further.

[#3]

@jab1 

Many thanks for coming back so quickly. Telephone test “”Quiet Line” came back clear - nothing heard except system message.  I've reported a broadband problem via the web link, let’s see what they come back with. Probably won’t be quick, though. 

[#4]

I'm late replying - but I've been out. You should get a response today.

[#5]

Nothing yet 18:00 Friday. Website seems a bit flakey, keeps bringing up a blank page when I move to Notifications.  Cleared cache and data just in case.

[#6]

That is disappointing, given that there obviously is an issue. If you want my suggestions/opinion, are you able to follow the below (I've crossed out the bits that don't matter)?

For Community members to be able to help, information from these two sites, as screenshots, posted as pictures within the topic, not as attachments:-

BT Broadband(obscuring your phone number) and BTW Performance Tester - Over a wired (ethernet) connection if at all possible, please report the 'ADDITIONAL DIAGNOSTICS', and sight of the broadband connection status from your Hub (with the 'Username' obscured) would be a good starting point.

For the Hub One -

Navigate from the Home Screen to Troubleshooting > Helpdesk

For the Hub Two -

Navigate from the Home Screen to Advanced Settings > Technical Log > Information

It may also be a good idea to report the results of a Quiet Line Test - dial 17070 option 2 from a (preferably corded) phone. After the confirmation of your phone number, there should be total silence apart from the regular 'Quiet Line Test' announcement. Any other noise - report a PHONE fault first.

If phone test is OK then take the front off your telephone master socket, you may need to remove two screws. In behind you will find the test socket. Plug a filter in here and connect that to your hub. If it’s still dropping out then report a fault at

https://faults.plus.net.

[#7]

Was the speedtest done over WiFi or a wired connection? For troubleshooting purposes it needs to be done over a wired connection.

Also, I note that the IP profile is 53.23Mb/s which indicates a synch speed of ~55-57Mb/s. Is that within estimated speed?

[#8]

I'll need to dig up some “knitting” to do a wired connection, normally Wi-Fi is solid and reliable. But it would be sensible to eliminate another variable. As per previous, Quiet Line test is (was) clear. I'll repeat the tests in the morning and post back.  Previous results were done wireless, using an Asus Zenwifi Router in Access Point mode, not the Hub Wi-Fi, which is switched off.

According to PlusNet data, estimated speeds were 45-50 Mbps.  I assumed these to be download speeds, not sync speed.  Minimum speed stated as 40.1 Mbps.  Note that these estimates have reduced significantly over the last couple of months, down from  62-57 Mbps.

[#9]

@JRT The two bits of data I requested above may be useful. Or the equivalent from your current kit.

[#10]

@JRT   as would the estimates for your line from the BT DSL checker. No ISP quotes download speeds, always sync speeds.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL 

[#11]

Cheers, @Mustrum - forgot to correct the link for that in my post.

[#12]

That graph looks like mine when I suffered a slowdown. I only realised when PatchMyPC was taking ages to download updates.

After some investigation I found a 'MicrosoftEdgeAutoLaunch' in my startup list and that was doing something in the background eating bandwidth.

Once disabled and rebooted all is back to normal.

This was reported to Microsoft on 30th Sep so is quite a new addition.

[#13]

Thanks for all suggestions and help so far but somehow don’t seem to be winning. 

No word from PlusNet re Broadband Troubleshooter. I guess the tech guys don’t work over weekends.  Wonder if it might be worth closing that ticket and starting a new one using the text message service?

Next move is checking using a wired connection to HubOne and MacBook Pro. I don’t think Microsoft Edge is a problem, I'm using Safari. Could try FireFox I suppose. 

[#14]

Strange you haven't had a response from the bot report - they are usually fairly rapid, and are monitored 0800-2000 seven days a week.

I suppose you could re-run it.

[#15]

All is revealed!  It's WiFi causing the issues - well mostly.  A wired connection gives 50.96 down, 17.75 up, ping 14 mS.  That seems ok for a sync speed of 54 down 19 up.  Using the HubOne WiFi, separated 2.4 and 5GHz bands, the results are all over the place, going from 38 to 50 down and 14 to 18 up.  I conclude from that, there is a lot of wireless activity around and finding the best (fastest) channels is not easy - probably best done manually as the "Smart Wireless" is not so smart!  Now I know where to look, I can live with that for a while.

I'd still like to get my line profile up a bit, if possible.  It's currently at 54 Mbps with a noise margin at 7.7dB and the Hub shows a potential maximum of 61.5.   Can PN do a DLM reset, or initiate one?

I'll kill the current fault report, it seems to be stuck and I wonder if it's been actioned properly.  The website was very flaky when I started it and I didn't get any sort of automatic reply. I'll try it again.

Thanks to all who picked this up,I wasn't aware just how complex this issue might be.  Very grateful for all advice, time and effort.