Fibre dropouts, and bad wifi

[#1]

So.... the plot thickens Haha... engineer has been AGAIN, he had to re-earth my line, openreach can see a unstable line, he has run various test's, he cut ends of master socket wires so a new wire was exposed and connected. He has also done a new fibre port at exchange box, so he is hoping it will make the line stable, until the big fix can be done.... this is where the plot thickens, turns out I am not the only person on our estate (little town in the middle of the country side in sunny old devon, which the estate is home to around 150 houses) that is suffering with broadband dropout, freezing, buffering, slow speeds ect, it's a estate wide problem. Openreach has said its 'noise' on the lines and it's happening from exchange box to estate

[#2]

RFI / REIN makes a lot of sense in the light of what’s been reported.

[#3]

Town man that makes total sense to you but not me haha, however considering its across all broadband suppliers I cannot put any fault on plusnet for acting so quick. I will speak with someone to work out where we go from here, and thanks to all for your help

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to us @Sselby123

I'm glad to see the engineer's carried out a thorough investigation and done a fair amount of work to try to fix, though your speed hasn't improved by much, hopefully your connection overall is better. 

The engineer's passed the fault we've raised back to us as resolved, but their notes do suggest a wider problem they're looking at fixing for everybody and that they've made their Patch Lead aware. 

Regarding where we go from here, it's tricky because with the supplier fault closed we won't receive updates on any further work they may be carrying out, so we could ask you to keep an eye on things and if your service doesn't improve or gets worse, let us know and we'll be happy to arrange another engineer to take another look and provide an update. 

What are your thoughts?

[#5]

Good morning Gandalf, Openreach engineer did say he was leaving it open for a few days, obviously not. I can keep an eye on things my end to see what work they will end up doing, as quite a few of us residents have reported problems. 

As for where we go from here I'm not totally sure, as the fault isnt with me or plusnet. Openreach did say if the line becomes very unstable then it may be worth dropping back to 40/10, but I'm not even sure that will help if it's a 'outside and estate' problem. I'm happy to sit tight for now knowing this and fingers crossed Openreach can correct the problem. They are trying to do a fix without tearing up the road as all our services are underground 

[#6]

Hello, thanks for getting back to me.

No problem, let's see how it goes over a full week as that'll provide the engineers a bit of time for an investigation they may be carrying out in the background, but if your service doesn't improve or gets worse, I'd recommend we arrange another engineer as your speed is under-performing below the supplier expectations for your line, unless you'd like to try going back to 40/10 as in theory you may not notice the drops as much if at all on a slower speed. 

Let us know how it goes. 

[#7]

Good morning, since tuesday weve had a few drops in speed and have had to reset the hub. I did see BT at the exchange box Tuesday morning but since then havent been able to see or hear about any work as my children have caught covid so we are all in isolation until wednesday next week at the earliest. I dont think they have investigated yet as no one on estate has said anything and we havent had any major dropouts (that's if we do if and when they sort it). Not much to this post except to keep you updated my end.

[#8]

I'm sorry to see your children have COVID, I hope they make a full recovery. 

No problem and thanks for the post though. Let us know how it goes next week. 

[#9]

Good evening, well after a few weeks of covid I'm now able to come back and say ITS NOT RESOLVED. I have spent the past few weeks having to reboot the broadband because it just drops speeds through the floor and nothing is connecting. So I'm still no further than before and I haven't heard of any work happening in the area either. Fingers crossed my broadband company you guys can push this further please

[#10]

Hiya @Sselby123,

I am happy to hear that you are feeling better and I am sorry the issue with your connection is not resolved.

We defo need to arrange another engineer, please can you add your availability to the ticket here and let me know so that I can pick this up for you. 

[#11]

Hi, engineer been again.... yet again they cannot see a fault, however I learnt a few things. Openreach have known about the connection issues for more than 6 months and have possibly got a solution. Instead of digging up the road (again) they are looking at putting a new fibre exchange box on our estate! This however does not have a time scale so could be this year, next year who knows I'm only a customer.
They also have said that they apparently have asked broadband suppliers to not send engineers to the estate as they know there is a problem and are trying to sort it, which I can see being a good idea until something goes completely wrong and a engineer is needed. The problem seems to be the cable that goes from exchange box to estate, about 200 pairs are running through one cable and is causing a lot of 'noise' and the road/hill it needs to travel it seems to not like half way up.
However with mine they may see a issue as most days at around 10am I have to reset the hub as my speeds are dropping to 0.02mps which will then mean a reboot. Not entirely sure what is going to happen and when all I know is that since December I have had to reset my hub daily to get interet into the house.

[#12]

If there is an issue with the copper pairs, then there is a possibility of increased sensitivity to REIN.

If something switches on at the same time of day and puts out a blast of REIN as it warms up then there is a fair chance that susceptible circuits will be impacted.

[#13]

Thanks a lot for getting back to us @Sselby123 and I'm really sorry to hear that your services have not imp[roved. I've tested the line again this morning and it does appear that speeds are now coming through  at 45.0 Mbps. I can't go as far back as December on the RRT, but it does show fluctuating speeds and numerous disconnections.

Going forward, we theoretically could arrange another engineer visit, maybe another engineer can spot something that the previous one didn't, however if this issue is being caused by a wider Openreach infrastructure issue, it might be a case of hanging fire until they're able to resolve it. Speeds are currently just above your MGS at the moment.