Terrible ping times (>2000ms)

[#1]

@Anonymous  Sorry, I forgot to use your personal tag in the previous message.

[#2]

You also forgot to hide your "Broadband username" on the screenshot.

You should be able to edit that out and re-post it within the first 15 minutes, before the forum software locks you out

[#3]

@dsberry 

As your phone doesn't appear to be part of the problem,

I would recommend your next step would be to run the Plusnet "Troubleshoot by text" as shown below.

Running that will test your line for various issues, and hopefully rule out any problems with your BT copper pair.

If a fault is detected then an engineer visit should resolve whatever is wrong.

If the tests come back clear, follow the text instructions to talk to tech support, and explain what checks you've done today, and say that you believe that your upstream data rate has been "banded", and therefore could they check for that for you, and ask for them perform a "DLM reset" in an attempt to clear it.

[#4]

@Anonymous Thanks for your help.

[#5]

@dsberry  no problem, you're welcome ! 

[#6]

Found it! My wife's new(ish) laptop has Microsoft OneDrive running all the time, which was uploading stuff all the time, presumably causing the bufferbloat. Killing OneDrive on her laptop fixes the huge ping times. Next question is why my max upload speed is so low. Thanks to all.

[#7]

And that is one of the problems with OneDrive (pre-configured on new PCs, etc.). Assumptions are made that the connection is capable of using it. I'm of the opinion that mobile (phone) app developers also make false/incorrect assumptions.

(N.B. My experience of the same symptoms was on a ADSL connection with 0.5Mbps - 0.75Mbps upload. A number of these connections will be migrated VDSL-based solutions and only have a marginal increase in upload speeds.)

Looking back on a phone line that I know...

I'm wondering whether people is these locations will be actively encouraged to migrate to a mobile network solution for their broadband connectivity. When the mobile coverage is somewhat sub-standard (i.e. voice comms are more reliable/intelligible over a landline rather than a mobile phone at the location).

[#8]

This still doesn't add up to anything that makes sense.

With a typical Plusnet Hub-2 on FTTC, other forum users have reported that running the bufferbloat test gives them a "Bufferbloat Grade" of "C" - which translates to a worst case ping time of less than 200ms when the test is full saturating the upstream path of the modem.  Therefore if your wife's laptop was uploading data at the full capacity that the Hub-2 could transmit, then you shouldn't have seen ping times worse than 200ms.

Your router's upstream Data rate has been artificially speed restricted ("banded") by your FTTC cabinet (because of a previous burst of interference) to exactly 800Kbps, whereas your router says the Maximum data rate is currently 1147Kbps.  The associated Noise margin would suggest that if "banding" was removed, then the Data rate should easily get to 1100Kbps. Currently you are losing around 30% of your upload bandwidth because of the "banding" restriction, this probably won't resolve by itself but will need Plusnet support to request that Openreach perform a "DLM reset" to clear it.

Currently the upload Noise Margin is a little higher than I would expect, and probably indicates that you have low frequency noise on your line, which in turn is likely to reduce your upload Maximum data rate.  This needs to be checked with a line test.  Unfortunately it is difficult to make any predictions here because the current Noise margin is being skewed by the "banding",  so the underlying problem won't be revealed until banding is removed and DLM has stabilised the router's data rates over 10 to 14 days of line retraining.

You say that your wife's laptop was causing the bufferbloat by uploading files constantly, well that doesn't add up either.  Your routers upload data rate is 800Kbps, the most data that you can pass through would be about 92% of that (i.e. 736Kbps max).  When you did the bufferbloat test, the upload speed result was 699Kbps which is 95% of the theoretical maximum,  so at the time of the test your router wasn't sharing the upload bandwidth between the bufferbloat test and your wife's laptop,  because if they had been simultaneously uploading then then they would likely get roughly half the upload bandwidth each.  Therefore it wasn't your wife's laptop that gave a Bufferbloat Grade of "F".

[#9]

@Anonymous I know nothing about banding. Why do data rates get banded? Could PlusNet simply remove the banding, or would that cause other problems? 

Regarding the bufferbloat test, I should have pointed out that my wife's laptop was powered off at the time I did the test and so OneDrive was not an issue. 

I'll get in touch with plusnet support as you suggest and see if they can do anything.

[#10]

@dsberry, the speeds are indeed banded: "0.128M-13.1M Downstream, Retransmission Low - 0.128M-0.8M Upstream, Error Protection Off". Everything else checks out okay, from what I can see. 

Banding is applied by the automated DLM (Dynamic Line Management) software at the cabinet, to try to keep a fine balance between speed and stability. I can reset your line to try to remove the banding, but this may cause the connection to become unstable, if the DLM had good reason for applying it.

[#11]

@Gandalf  Presumably if you reset my line and it then becomes unstable, the DLM will just band it again? In which case it sounds safe enough so please go ahead.

[#12]

Yeah it might do, but may take a few days. 

Still happy to go ahead?

[#13]

@Gandalf Yes please.

[#14]

I've submitted the DLM reset, it should go through within 24 hours. 

(edit)

I've retested your line and speeds have slightly improved:

Sync Status	In Sync
Downstream Speed	14.6 Mbps
Upstream Speed	1.2 Mbps