Download speed gone down yet again

[#1]

Thank you - that is helpful, in that it displays an elevated downstream SNR, which indicates clearly there is a fault somewhere, and your comment about 'hissing' on the QLT suggests quite strongly there is a fault on the copper section of your connection  there - ask them to recheck

[#2]

Hi, just thought I'd update you. An engineer came out and found that the line was for some reason capped at 35mbps - possibly due to the plusnet outage that occurred mid-January. He reset the line which bumped it back up, but noticed errors at the master socket. He's since relocated the master socket (which had been relocated previously) so now the errors are gone and sync speed is back up to 47. He did mention however that for our line, a 55/10 profile would make more sense than the 80/20 profile we are on, given our property is ~600m from the exchange. Is this something someone could take a look at?

[#3]

The only reason that a line will have been capped is for an issue between the exchange and the premises - anything which might or might not have happened upstream ("PlusNet outage that occurred mid-January") has zero bearing on connection line speed.

Rather sounds like the engineer found a fault in BT Openreach's infrastructure ... which will have been the cause of the capping.

Plusnet only provision at 40/10 or 80/20 - provisioning at 55/10 offers no material advantage to you if Plusnet did so.  All Fibre (FTTC / SOGEA) products are single priced and provisioned to be as fast as the line will deliver.

[#4]

I really do not appreciate your tone, if you have nothing useful to add, please do not reply to this topic. It's not that something "might or might not have happened upstream", it did happen and PlusNet acknowledged as such - even the openreach engineer was aware of the PlusNet outage. He mentioned that from his experience, 80/20 lines drop their speed much worse than 55/10 do when over longer line distances. I would really appreciate a member of staff to actually pay attention to this topic.

[#5]

I think you miss the point here - anything happening in the Plusnet space will CATEGORICALLY NOT cap your line speed.  Such misinformation needs to be clarified.  Ensuring that others are not mislead by such thoughts, is I suggest helpful.

The 2 hour DNS outage has NOTHING to do with line speed capping.

[#6]

@sweeep1963  Unfortunately as is often the case the "engineer" was talking nonsense. The line profile (80/20 etc) has no bearing on dropping speeds or line length.  It is exactly the same broadband  connection but with set maximum sync speed values applied.

So now that your speed has improved and there are no errors what do you want Plusnet staff to do? Sounds like your problem is fixed.

[#7]

Anything happen with outages affects speed in the form of the DLM capping it. If I had not reported this, it would have been left capped. I asked plusnet to run a line test and they could have there and then seen that it was still capped and reset the line, yet no one seems to be paying attention to this topic...

[#8]

@sweeep1963 

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the "line profile" argument, it is my understanding that since the 5th September 2023 Openreach WBC "stop sell", that Plusnet cannot alter the sync speed settings on an FTTC line without forcing an 'upgrade' to a SoGEA connection (i.e. lose your landline phone number).  However from what I've read, Plusnet only provision SoGEA lines at 80/20,  therefore it is very unlikely that you will get Plusnet to move you to 55/10.

What you MIGHT be able to get Plusnet to alter, is your connection's "Stability Profile".

It is likely that your FTTC line is currently provisioned as "Speed",  if Plusnet moved you to "Standard" or "Stable", then in future your line would be less susceptible to DLM capping your speed, but the trade-off is that your line latency might increase by a few milliseconds.

It might be worth you asking Plusnet what your current "Stability Profile" is set to ?

Read about this topic (and related DLM) here - https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/DLM.htm#dlm_stability_level -

[#9]

@Anonymous Thank you for this - I wasn't aware of these Stability Profiles. As the line has been reset and the engineer has bypassed any internal issues that were causing errors on the line with the new socket, I feel it would be best to leave it for now to see how it fairs - at least my speed is back to normal. If I do encounter any stability issues I will make sure to query these profiles with PlusNet (although it would be interesting to see what I am on currently). Once again, thanks for the info!

[#10]

@RealAleMadrid

Your comment about engineers talking nonsense is for me amplified by …

“but noticed errors at the master socket. He's since relocated the master socket (which had been relocated previously) so now the errors are gone and sync speed is back up to 47”.

The only way I can envisage moving the master socket might fix something like this as reported is …

1. Shortening a damaged end of the drop cable rather than replacing it (properly)

2. Moving the demarcation point away from a source of electrical interference caused by a defective appliance - such defects might not be evident unless looked for

There’s every possibility that simply cleaning up the circuit termination (removal of tail wires) could reduce the circuit’s susceptibility to electrical appliance interference. It would not surprise me if the performance of this circuit is seen to degrade again.

@198kHz - any thoughts from your long experience please?

[#11]

No, he is not "talking nonsense". He tested the master socket, which had been moved several years ago and noticed several errors, then tested where the cable comes into the house (outside the old master socket), and noticed a higher speed and 0 errors. This clearly indicated something within the internal wiring causing issues. So he used an external cable and drilled a hole in the wall to create a new master socket directly linked to the point of entry, avoiding internal wiring.

[#12]

@sweeep1963  Maybe I should have made it clearer that I was referring to the comments about changing to a different speed profile could improve your lines behaviour,  not about the wiring changes he did which obviously did give you a better speed.