Speed suddenly capped?

[#1]

Hello I've been a Plusnet customer at my current address for over 4 years and my line has always connected at 80/20 capped my line is capable of 82/27 as per my router stats page.

I pay for Unlimited Fibre Extra which I believe to be capped at 80/20 which is fine.

The issue is up until may this year my speed has always been just below the 80 but suddenly out of nowhere since the 5th of may my download speed has been capped at exactly 74 here is an example of my speed / SNR Margin before and after

20:29:32, 04 May.DSL Link Up: Down Rate=79471kbps, Up Rate=19999kbps; SNR Margin Down=6.3dB, Up=7.3dB

01:36:28, 05 May.DSL Link Up: Down Rate=74000kbps, Up Rate=19999kbps; SNR Margin Down=7.8dB, Up=7.3dB

Even after a whole month of uptime no change here was this morning after a power cut

07:10:47, 21 Aug.DSL Link Up: Down Rate=74000kbps, Up Rate=19999kbps; SNR Margin Down=11.3dB, Up=15.4dB

Has something changed with my package without me being notified or could something else be wrong?

I called in but was given the usual response that my speed is still above my minimum guaranteed so there wasn't really anything that could be done.

Thanks in advance

[#2]

Just to add when doing the cabinet checker it shows the following

https://imgur.com/a/yKp3lYK

Also the person I spoke to on the phone kept mentioning the fact that my contract ends in October and that I can recontract for cheaper as "fibre only" as I do not use my landline but I might lose even more speed?

[#3]

@supernoodles 

You must live very close to the FTTC cabinet to have been getting near 80 down. There could be any number of reasons why your speed has dropped slightly but as you've discovered it hasn't dropped enough to warrant an OpenReach fault report. I suspect you'll just have to live with this.

Transferring to a SOGEA (internet only) connection should have no impact (famous last words!!!) on your speed as it uses the same copper connection to the FTTC cabinet.

Brian

[#4]

Yeah my cabinet is literally about 5/6 meters away from the building i live in.

As i said it seems like the line is capped to an exact amount of 74000 in the router page it never goes higher or lower than that suddenly.

And yeah i figured changing to that shouldn't affect anything.

I'm just wondering if i've been banded / profiled in some way.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

@supernoodles 74000 is the top of one of the FTTC banded profiles.

There was obviously some issue on the line back in May and the DLM decided to band the line. Problem is its often eager to apply banding but very reluctant to clear it!. It can take a long time for it to autonatically remove it. The only quick way is a DLM reset but since your speed is above MGALS then that's going to be difficult to get done.

[#6]

Thanks for the reply it's very strange since i had a lot more instability last year compared to back in may guess i just got unlucky lol

I suppose it's only around 600kb in speed i'm missing so nothing too major to groan at i know some people have it a whole lot worse than me.

I was looking forward to my building getting cabled for full fibre this year but i've just been informed by openreach MDU team that the letter i received was a mistake so that's kinda sad.

[#7]

I suppose it's only around 600kb in speed i'm missing so nothing too major to groan at i know some people have it a whole lot worse than me.

and look on the bright side, because its banded at 74000 your SNR is higher and so there will be less errors and retransmissions. So the loss of the 600kb is offset by a more stable and error-free line!