Packet Loss when router is remotely busy

[#1]

I will check the length. I think I’m around 800m.

My SNRM is exceptional, but would not make the substantial difference seen here. Your SNRM figure is “normal” … not what I was anticipating … a higher SNRM would have been a fair explanation of why your circuit is so slow. And would have been something to focus on. One possibility which comes to mind here is that your “copper” circuit is actually aluminium - that sits in the region you’ve called “awful”!!

Having thought further about this one figure we do not have is power levels. If your circuits are particularly prone to cross talk, they could have had their power levels wound down. SNRM is a margin not an absolute figure.

[#2]

So Thurs 12/05/2022 AM yet another engineer called. Thanks Plusnet.
Again I was at work, so all information is filtered through the (rather imperfect) communication medium that is my son, Jonathan.
The engineer did some work at the pole across the road. Jonathan thinks he he said he swapped to another pair and that he also said he did something out there that he was surprised that nobody had already tried - sadly Jonathan cannot remember what!

The engineer very helpfully left his mobile number in case I had any questions - but it is after hours now and it would seem rude to disturb him.

Good news is that downstream sync speed is right up to 32Mbps. So something has definitely been fixed somewhere.

The packet loss seems to be improved rather than completely fixed.

Also, the engineer left without doing anything about the extensions. So we are left with one working phone socket in the whole house, rather than the three that we started with (and that were all used and needed).

[#3]

Cheers for the post back, 

Sorry I’ve not been keeping as close an eye on this for you as I’d have liked. Glad to see though an engineer’s done something to improve things for you, even though Jonathan couldn’t fully remember what they did!

As the engineer’s given you their mobile number, feel free to drop them a text. If they’re not working tonight, they’ll hopefully get back to you when they are. 

I can have a look at the notes they’ve left us for you when I’m in the office tomorrow, and I can also raise this with Openreach to send (another) engineer to you to reconnect up your extension sockets.

[#4]

Given that the extension wiring should be connected to the face plate, that makes it something the user could attempt if they feel able, without falling foul of the "do not touch the BT circuit" rules.

Are the three extensions daisy chain wired, or star wired?  That latter is bad practice and could impinge on best broadband performance.

[#5]

After the engineer called on the Thursday and we got 32Mbps, Plusnet called me on the weekend to ask if all was OK.
I was just about to eat so they said they would call back the next day. As far as I know they never did - but perhaps I missed a call.

I have since re-connected the extensions to the master socket.
There are two of them and they are connected in a star configuration which someone said is not the best way to do it, and it is fiddly connecting two sets of wires into the punch down connectors, but it was easier to put it back like it was.

This knocked the speed down to just under 30Mbps, but it has since recovered to 31.3Mbps.
Also, Jonathan seems happy enough with the packet loss. It still happens, but much less than before.
Since he is happy, I'm not going to pursue this any further - although why there is any packet loss at all is a mystery to me. Presumably it is only UDP, not IP packets. I never found out for sure.

But it is probably just as well that he has been placated, because Plusnet seem to have given up too. To be fair, they did give it a pretty good crack of the whip, but I got an email just after I had reconnected the extensions that said that since the speed at the time was below my guaranteed 30Mbps speed I was free to terminate my contract without paying a penalty.
Gee, thanks!

Lastly, when the Openreach engineer was here and disconnected all the extensions, he had to move a cupboard in the hallway to unplug the base station that was plugged in to that (now dead) socket to move it to the master.

The cupboard is heavy and is on a newly laid wooden floor. There must have been some grit on the floor and he dragged the cupboard rather than lifting it. The floor is badly scratched. Who do we complain to about this damage? It is not really anything to do with Plusnet.

[#6]

Hey, I'm really sorry to see what's happened.

It looks like we hadn't called you back the same day (17th), but we did try to call on the 18th. We haven't given up though. The fault ticket's still open and with some very experienced advisers in our faults escalation team.

The last adviser's suggested in his email on the support ticket Here that it doesn't look like we can bring your speed up to where we'd expect, but he had asked if you're still getting packet loss as they're aware that's the main issue.

I've raised a complaint to Openreach about the engineer disconnecting your extension sockets and the scratched floor. Once we've got an update, we'll let you know and I'll keep an eye on the progress of the complaint also. 

Btw, I'm glad though that Jonathan's happy now but we're happy to carry on looking into the packet loss though. Are you still running the ThinkBroadband Quality Monitor? It may be worth it and posting the link up, if so.

[#7]

Well it wasn't Plusnet's fault!

Today's monitor:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/097b4466de3eee8d4f5d9920aa2fb7d651ea24e7-25-05-2022

This might be a live link?

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/f848d870ffff649799bd9a9d2b5e414079031795

The speed is now over 30Mb - which is all I am promised (I think) so there is no problem with that any more.

I was actually confused by the last advisers message because it said

"the speed of your service is currently synced at 31.3Mbps, which is exactly as expected for a line length of just over 900meters. Your service has been running at around this level for the last 3 years. The minimum guaranteed speed of 30.9Mbps will not be achievable"

As you can see, it is saying that we are doing 31.3Mbps but 30.9Mbps will not be achievable. This does not make sense. I guess there must be a typo somewhere.
But I got hung up looking at that bit and didn't take in the bit that asks me if the packet loss is still there.

Well, the packet loss is better (see monitor graphs) and I don't know how much us considered to be normal (if any).

As I say Jonathan seems placated and I've never noticed it.

If there is still problem, it would like it to be fixed, but I don't know if there is a problem.

[#8]

I suggest that you have come full circle here ... packet loss when router is busy.

The TBBQM plots show miniscule packet loss (dropped ping probes) when the internet is being hammered by your household.  ICPM ping messages are always treated as low priority and therefore may be dropped on busy links.  I suggest that there is nothing untoward here.  If there were massive evidence of pack loss - lots of red on the plots - then that might be a different matter.

[#9]

Just to add to @Townman  comments, what the TBB graphs also show is that you are flooding your line with traffic at times - those areas with lots of yellow and blue. What ever apps/programs you use, is there an option to use less bandwidth - HD rather than 4k for example?

[#10]

No, not full circle.

And the answer wasn't just to be more gentle with the internet.
I've never seen a video feed (on our TV or our PCs) buffer or drop resolution, so I don't think we routinely hit the 30Mbps limit.
We all throttle Steam downloads etc.

The original complaint was that Overwatch was unplayable when the internet was even slightly busy.
When something else was using even 25% of the full 30Mbps this would cause enough packet loss to spoil the game.
Apparently, that is no longer the case so something has improved.

The monitor graphs do show less red than they did.

I'm inclined to believe that Overwatch is using UDP packets that get dropped when the internet is busy and lost when there are faulty comms, but that all the other things we use are using TCP packets that are never dropped intentionally and get retried if one is lost due to a fault.
So Overwatch is susceptible to faulty comms in a way that nothing else we use is, and we did have faulty comms but it has now been fixed.

But that is just speculation really and I was hoping that someone would actually know, or there was a diagnostic or test I could run to really find out.
But never mind. all's well that ends well.

[#11]

Heya, cheers for the detail and sorry for the confusion.

The minimum guaranteed speed is based on throughput, which is the download speed you see when running a speed test, and this is always, to some degree, lower than a sync speed, so if we're seeing a sync speed of 31.3mbps, throughput is likely to fall below the minimum guaranteed of 30.9mbps. I suspect that's the adviser's thinking when he suggested you could leave without paying a termination fee, but only if you wanted to though as it was just an offer. 

We're signed up to Ofcom's speed code of practice (https://www.plus.net/help/legal/ofcom-voluntary-speed-code-of-practice/), so we've got a duty to suggest other options, if we can't bring your speed to where we promised within 30 days. 

I'm still glad that things have improved a lot for you and Jonathan and you're not noticing any issues, even though the graphs show a little packet loss. I'll be happy to arrange another engineer with you to look again, if you'd want me to though.

Personally, and I don't want to discourage you from raising a fault, at home my own line doesn't achieve the expected speed, but things work okay for what I need, so I haven't reported an issue. First and foremost in my opinion, which works for me is to have service that lets you do the things you want to do, but appreciate everybody has different views.

Also, I haven't got a response from Openreach yet about the complaint, but I should do within a week or so. 

[#12]

Just to update you as I haven't a response yet from Openreach and I'll be out of the office tomorrow for the bank holiday. 

I'll check back next week, but our faults escalation team should likely be picking this up for you in the meantime. 

[#13]

Hiya, I can see we've got a response back from Openreach's complaints team to advise that you'll need to email some details about the damage onto their public liability teams. We've given the contact details in the ticket Here.

If there's anything else you'd need help with, feel free to let me know.