Very low download & upload speeds on a new fibre connection

[#1]

Thanks for the top half of the shot - that clearly shows that you are close to the cab - much closer than you are to the exchange, and you are getting close to max U/L and D/L speeds, as shown by the 'Observed Speeds' lines.

It also confirms what I said about your old ADSL connection - the max speed - to your hub - was 7.5Mbps, which would not be the D/L speed you would see for a download via the download monitor - unless it was defective.

[#2]

Further to the time lengths of downloading a 1 GB file that I mentioned earlier :

I just googled "how long should a 1gb download take" and got this :

             Broadband speed

File size	10Mb	65Mb
1GB	13.3 mins	2.1 mins
10GB	2.2 hours	20.5 mins
50GB	11.1 hours	1.7 hours

That shows that on a 65Mb connection, it should take about 2.1 mins for a 1GB file.

That was roughly how long it took me to download a 1GB file on my previous package (at peak speed),

so I guess my previous non-fibre speed must have been around 65 mega bits (which aligns with

the 7.5 mega bytes per second download speed).

So again, it's looking like I've accidently downgraded.

[#3]

I'm confused here. Non-fibre, i.e ADSL cannot go above a 21Mbps connection speed, even if you were next door to the exchange on a perfect line - which you weren't, and your current connection is 'Fibre Extra' - 80/20 which is what the BTW report confirms.

[#4]

Well here's the thing. I signed up for my previous Plusnet package around 8-9 years ago & I assume it was just standard Broadband (Fibre certainly wasn't mentioned, was it even available or common-place back then?).

My original download speed was about the same as I'm getting now on this new package (I think, anyway, it may have lower).

However, about 2 or 3 years ago, I got a surprise apology letter from Plusnet saying that I should have been previously been getting a faster speed. They refunded me about £200 and my download speed went up to the 7.5 MB/sec.

Maybe they had upgraded me to fibre & I didn't know it ?

If that's the case, then this new fibre package is slower than that one was so I might have to ring & see about upgrading.

[#5]

Anyway, thanks for trying to help jab1.

It looks like (dissapointingly to me), the speeds I'm getting now are actually correct, and I must have just been on a better package previously (but wasn't aware of it).

I'll ask them when I phone them.

[#6]

Sorry, @bixy but you are on the fastest Fibre package available Fibre Extra. The only way you can get faster is if Fibre To The Premises was available, which, according to that two-part screen shot, it isn't.

Your whole above explanation just doesn't add up, sorry.

[#7]

"Sorry, @bixy but you are on the fastest Fibre package available Fibre Extra. The only way you can get faster is if Fibre To The Premises was available, which, according to that two-part screen shot, it isn't."

The package I'm on is called "Unlimited Fibre", currently on offer at £21.95 per month & with a quoted average 36Mb download speed (which I can now see is roughly what I am getting).

There's a faster package available, called "Unlimited Fibre Extra" with an average quoted speed of 66Mb, so I was going to ask about being upgraded to that.

I've just tried to phone them but they're closed now until 8am.

I've entered my details onto the site & it says I can get this package fine, with a guaranteed minimum speed of 56.6Mb.

I assume that package would be basically the same speed as my old package (after the refund and apparent upgrade), since dividing 66 by 8 to work out my download speed in mega bytes, would be close to the 7.5 MB/sec I was previously getting.

[#8]

@bixy 

This is all very confusing.

Mb/s means Mega bits per second. MB/s means Mega Bytes per second. There are 8 bits in a byte..

 ADSL has a maximum download speed of about 20 Mb/s, your fibre 40 Mb/s 

4.4 MB/s is the same as 35.2 Mb/s.

When doing speed tests it is far less confusing to use a proper speed tester.

[#9]

Sorry, either I'm reading two completely different topics at once, or something in this account is wrong - if you look at the BTW report - providing BT aren't telling porkies, you got a D/L speed of 70Mbps and an upload of 20 on a test their system ran 3 days ago - which is the Unlimited Fibre Extra (80/20) package, the other lower one being restricted to a max of 40/10.

[#10]

@Baldrick1 I think I might leave this to you - my head is spinning.

[#11]

@jab1  As I read it.

1. @bixy  believed they had signed up for ADSL.

2. Plusnet provisioned 40/10 fibre.

3. Sometime later Plusnet decided that they should have provisioned 80/20 so gave a refund and upgraded the service to 80/20.

4. In the belief that they were upgrading from ADSL @bixy  has actually downgraded from 80/20 fibre extra to 40/10.fibre.

This begs the question to @bixy, what prompted you to decide to change the service that you were on?

[#12]

@Baldrick1 I think I see your logic, but would that not have been obvious to the OP, or am I still missing something - surely , 8/9 years ago, the VDSL connection would have been a BT installation, using the separate modem, or am I getting it wrong - again?

[#13]

@jab1  Very true. Openreach would have installed a modem in those days. Unless we can see what the line is capable of by seeing the results from the BT dsl checker as you requested earlier and some speed test results from a proper checker then all that we can do is surmise.

[#14]

Hi,

Well here's what I now think has happened - bare with me!

I'm pretty sure I originally signed up for a non-fibre package 8-9 years ago (could be wrong, my memory isn't great).

I can't remember what speed I was getting initially, but I do remember that in recent years (before I received the refund & speed boost), I was getting a download speed roughly the same as what I'm getting now (around 4 mega bytes per second).

I vaguely remember phoning Plusnet several years ago and negotiating prices in order to stay with them.

Perhaps at that point, I was moved to their fastest fibre package & I should have been receiving download speeds of around 7.5 mega bytes per second, but was only actually getting a speed of around 4 mega bytes per second.

That would certainly explain the refund & speed boost later on.

Like I say though, my memory is pretty vague on all this.

This all seems a bit irrelevant though.

The main issue here, is that I've recently assumed everything is measured in mega bytes.

Perhaps many years ago I knew the difference between mega bits & mega bytes, but I can't remember.

When looking at broadband packages just before my recent "upgrade", I knew that my download speed was roughly 7.5 mega bytes per second.

I would see typical packages offering a speed of 30-40 Mbps and wrongly assumed that was also "mega bytes".

In other words, I was thinking "That looks great, my download speed will be around 4 or 5 times faster than it was before".

Thanks to this thread, I now know that's not the case.

As a result of that "wrong-think", it seems I've basically downgraded to a slower speed due to my ignorance, and the "4 or 5 times faster" speeds probably don't exist, I was probably already on their fastest package just before I changed.

Hope that all makes sense!

[#15]

---

@Baldrick1 wrote:

@jab1  Very true. Openreach would have installed a modem in those days. Unless we can see what the line is capable of by seeing the results from the BT dsl checker as you requested earlier and some speed test results from a proper checker then all that we can do is surmise.

---

Don't think we are going to see those results, @Baldrick1 , but if people ask for help, then decide not to give us some valid data to go on, what can you do?