Just joined FTTC, speed lower than expected.

[#1]

Hello,

I just joined plusnet at my new home, only serviced by FTTC, sadly. The "expected" speed when I signed up was 45/8Mbps, but I am just getting 30/6 (very close to the 29Mbps min warranted). 

This is the technical log from the router,

Product name Plusnet Hub Two

Firmware version v0.10.00.04201-PN (Thu Apr 20 16:54:19 2023)

Board version R01

GUI version 1.9 16_08_2022DSL

uptime 0 days 0 Hours 22 Mins 6 Secs

Data rate 7.3 Mbps / 32.6 Mbps

Maximum Data rate 7.3 Mbps / 33.3 Mbps

Noise margin 6.1/6.2

Line attenuation 10.6/21.9

Signal attenuation 10.6/29.4

VLAN id 101

Upstream error control Off

Downstream error control Off

Software variant-

Boot loader 0.1.7-PN (Thu Nov 30 09:45:22 2017)


The difference between the line att and the signal att kind of suggest that the cable is damaged or tapped, no?  
Is there any hope for this line to get "better", or am I stuck with this until FTTP is deployed here? 

Cheers, Y. 

[#2]

@Harland84 Welcome  to the Community Forum. If you have literally just started on your PN connection, it is possible that the line will be in training, so your speed may fluctuate up/down until the line  management equipment finds the best trade-off between speed and stability.

The difference between the attenuation figures is perfectly normal.

[#3]

John Thanks for the fast reply! The router has been plugged in since last Saturday. With all the moving I didn't pay much attention to it until today. 

Let's see how it is in a few more days, I guess. 

[#4]

@Harland84 

Keep an eye on the SNR as well as the speed. The DLM looks to have been reset to the default 6dB. If the fault count is sufficiently low then the automatic DLM should reduce this figure, which will increase the speed. The bottom limit for SNR is 3dB. The important thing is to leave it switched on and not do anything silly like resetting it, which can be misinterpreted by the DLM. This can take many days to settle out.

[#5]

@Harland84 I should also have mentioned that you line attenuation, although not particularly high is not that low either, but from my experience, the  quoted 45 down is the best you are likely to see, to be honest. Do you know - roughly how far you are from your local cab?

Also note you will need a very clean line for the SNR to drop to 3dB.

[#6]

Regarding the "wait and see"... can I set the router to modem only? (i have my own asus zenwifii mesh routers). I did (this morning) set  the plusnet router to bridge mode, and correctly configured the mesh with PPPoe but I had to factory reset it because then I couldn't get the 192.168.1.254 IP back to check the technical param in modem mode only. Not sure if it was my mesh router not allowing traffic to that IP or if the bridge mode not even has access to that menu.

No idea about how far away,  but this is a cul-de-sac street, it is one of the last houses and I hadnt seen any Openreach cabinet!  I saw in the BT Wholesale DB that is serviced by "Address LONDON on Exchange MUSWELL HILL is served by Cabinet 25".

Cheers, Y.

[#7]

If you have a mesh system, then then Hub2 should be in modem mode anyway. From the data in that screenshot, cab 25 is some distance away, so you will never get great speeds, but as we have said, there is a 'training period' where the equipment in the cab attempts to find the best speed/stability balance. If your data rate does not (slightly) improve, or gets lower, in the next 10 days or so, come back and say so.

[#8]

@Harland84 

The Hub Two in modem mode will not be visible from your home network via the router.

What I did was to setup a spare PC and connected it to one of the free LAN ports of the Hub, giving the PC a static IP Address 192.168.1.1 mask 255.255.255.0 default gateway address not required. Then browse to 192.168.1.254 as usual; you can  look at the Technical Log and event logs as required.

HTH

[#9]

@jab1 Ill be back then! Thanks!

@Dan_the_Van Ok so It IP exists. I can add a route manually on the router to allow the traffic to .254 IP to flow, Ill do that. Thanks!

Cheers, Y.