Moved from BT retail to Plusnet - Line reprovisioned to 40/10?!

[#1]

@therealbraderz 

I was going to say you really need a staff member to pick up on this and then along comes a Wizard. He tends to know what he's doing.

Brian

[#2]

I don't believe there is any motivation to keep it capped at 40Mpbs. I believe the problem is that Plusnet is now effectively being asset stripped - little or no investment, minimum staffing levels, lowest grade (i.e. cheapest) staff, minimal training. When things go wrong nobody knows what to do.

If things happen to work to the customer's satisfaction then all well and good - if not, oh well...

There now seems to be very few of the good staff around that used to be more common in the good old days, who knew how things worked and how to get things done.

They now spend a bit of money on advertising, trap the customers in 24 month contracts, and then just count the money.

(I may be cynical, but unfortunately that doesn't make me wrong)

Edit: I see Gandalf has appeared - he's one of the few that knows what's what, so you may be in luck!

[#3]

@Gandalf

It says "Fibre" and then underneath it says "estimated speed - 40mb". However, when I went through the signup it initially showed a higher estimated speed.

[#4]

Thanks @therealbraderz if you click on the ‘Offers and Upgrades’ tab next, are you offered any upgrades?

[#5]

@Gandalf

No upgrades available at all. It just states what the current package is and offers no options to change it.

[#6]

@Gandalf   I beleve the problem has occurred due there being no definition of what the Fibre product is made up from.

I tried two addresses, my current one close to a cabinet, and one I used to live in where I know speeds are around 35-40Mbps. Both quotes were the same price, but estimated speeds were up to 78Mbps for the one close to the cabinet, the other between 32 and 40Mbps.

So mine would be provisioned on an 80/20 product, the other and clearly the OP on 40/10 - still for the same price.

With BT retail they tend to use 55/10 as their minimum Openreach product, hence the OP would have got higher speeds on a 3db line. Guess the question is why are PN restricting their line?

[#7]

@therealbraderz 

Yeah that’s odd. Seems the account was setup on the 40/10 version of the fibre product (we have both now), but looking at a random address, only 80/20 is offered.

I’m not in the office now until next week, but happy to take a closer look then.

If you’re feeling up for another call, see if the Customer Options Team (0800 013 2632) can process an upgrade, they’re closed now but should be back tomorrow.

[#8]

@Mustrum

I'm pretty sure that with BT retail my line was provisioned for 80/20 as very occasionally the upstream sync would reach 11000, and by using the SNR duping available on draytek modems I could force it to sync at around 57000 downstream with a noise margin of 1db.

Obviously that is inadvisable and I would never leave the connection with such a low margin, but it proves that the line had not been banded in any way and that the modem would always just achieve the maximum attainable speed.

Unless there are major issues with a line, I can't see why you would provision for anything other than 80/20 unless you are selling an explicitly capped product.

[#9]

@Gandalf

Thanks, I will leave it with you I think.

The Customer options team already said there is nothing they can do because they don't believe the line has been restricted in any way (although it obviously is and I told them that). They said they don't sell capped packages anymore (which appears to be true, but doesn't explain the restriction on the line).

I look forward to hearing next week.

[#10]

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@therealbraderz wrote:
@Mustrum
snip
Unless there are major issues with a line, I can't see why you would provision for anything other than 80/20 unless you are selling an explicitly capped product.

---

Maybe you have not had such close dealings with BT bean counters as I have. 

The simple answer is your speed estimates are likely to be close to 40/10 and so that option was chosen probably by automation, certainly not by any intelligence hence PN save a few pennies.

In days past, the forum staff would likely have sorted this, alas now the good ones have moved away to pastures new!

At least you have a way forward if someone does not come to your rescue.

[#11]

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@therealbraderz wrote:

... using the SNR duping available on draytek modems I could force it to sync at around 57000 downstream with a noise margin of 1db.

Obviously that is inadvisable and I would never leave the connection with such a low margin

.

A DrayTek modem with overridden SNR giving a noise margin of 1dB !  LOL what a lightweight (just kidding !)

I've had my noise margin as low as NEGATIVE 4dB and still hang on to a sync for days -

[#12]

No problem @therealbraderz and apologies for the trouble you’ve gone through. I’d like to do some digging first, but will aim to get back to you early in the week. 

[#13]

@Anonymous

Negative 4dB - that's crazy. If you left it like that for weeks surely DLM would start acting to increase the target SNRM?

[#14]

Well sort of ...

DLM did intervene, it slowly increased that "DS Attainable Rate" until it was a bigger number than the "DS Actual Rate" (which didn't change much), and in doing so the "Cur SNR Margin" followed the reducing mismatch between the actual/attainable DS rates and eventually settled to being typically (positive) 2dB to 4dB.

[#15]

Just to update.

@Gandalf sorted this.

Line reprovisioned last night and now synced at 47867 / 10349.