Am I asking too much?

[#1]

It has now been a month and three service calls and I am still getting a poor service, or am I expecting too much?
I'm having what sounds like and engaged tone on my phone (although I can still dial out and receive calls) and my internet speed has dropped from 3.5mbps to around 1.5mps. Just to compare, my next door neighbour's is running at just under 5mbps whilst the neighbour on the other side is running at around 2.5mbps - and we are sharing the same cable run from the house to the telegraph pole.
We read that urban areas can expect around 70mbps and that rural areas such as ours "'are as low as 20mbps" yet checking the BT web site as a 'prospective new customer' giving my phone number and post code, I'm advised that they can only guarantee 1mbps so what the heck is going on? I could just ditch plusnet of course and try somebody else but a) they have me tied into a contract and b) I might be going from the frying pan into the fire.
As a pensioner I'm paying a difficult to afford amount to Plusnet each month for what has become a rotten service..... or as said, am I expecting too much? 

[#2]

dont ditch them yet why not report a fault with your speeds, and see what they come up with.. you may have a fault.

[#3]

You won't see 70mbps unless you're in area with fibre; rare in rural areas.
Start raising a fault ticket:
https://portal.plus.net/apps/kbdfaults

[#4]

What speed any fault free  line is capable of will be determined by two things
1 Physics
2 Economics.
In other words:
In economic terms, whether your exchange is still on ADSL and supplying broadband from the exchange or whether it has been upgraded and  converted to fibre based FTTC and is supplying broadband from the local distribution cabinets round the area.
In physics terms, how far your house is from the exchange if it is ADSL and from the local distribution cabinet if it is FTTC.  The further it is away in both cases the signal deteriorates in the wires and you get a worse speed - and the FTTC signal degrade faster with distance than the ADSL signal does with distance.
In rural area houses are more spread out so it is less likely that lots will be able to get the max of 70Mbps if on FTTC - though the lucky few near to the cabinet may well be able to.
So for the higher speed FTTC service It all depends on where the cabinet is compared to where the the highest density of houses - and the cabinets were all put in the the 1960's.
It is also the case that in rural areas the cabinet and exchange service areas are larger due to the smaller population density and so there will be more longer lines so more lines which can only get a poor broadband service.
You'd be surprised to hear that there are urban areas particularly in London which have a very poor broadband service.

[#5]

I think I follow most of that but as said, neighbours each side are getting higher speeds well above my useless 1.5mbps and my phone is still not working properly.

[#6]

Have I missed something, but no one appears to have  suggested asking OP to post the stats from his router? Nor have they asked anything about the telephone service e.g. noise on line?

[#7]

@ Luzern1966
I was given these.
xDSL Status Test Summary
Sync Status: Circuit In Sync
General Information
NTE Status: NTE Power Status: PowerOn Bypass Status:

Upstream DSL Link Information Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss: 23.6 45.0
SNR Margin: 20.0 5.8
Errored Seconds: 0 13
HEC Errors: 0
Cell Count: 4250176 27064715
Speed: 444 1815

Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS): 4544 Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS): 3635
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds): 19221 Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds): 7688
Indicative Line Quality: A Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds): 18

Profile Info: WBC 160K - 24M Medium delay (INP 1) 6dB Downstream, 448 Medium delay (INP 2) 6dB Upstream
Not being a telecoms engineer they do not make much sense to me.

[#8]

Speed:   444   1815
Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS):   3635
Estimates (not shown in previous post) 3-5Mbps

These are the parts that show your speeds. Basically your estimates are between 3-5Mbps, and with the FTR being 3635 any sync speeds below this can be reported as a fault. Your line is currently in sync at 1815.

[#9]

Well the engineer has been and agreed as does his manager that we do have a fault...... but we don't have a fault because they cannot find what is wrong. George Orwell, 1984, and  doublespeak?
So where does this leave me? It leaves me with paying for a service that both myself and plusnet find unacceptable - and on that we can at least agree. What now needs to be agreed is on how we can get to a point acceptable to each and the thing I can think of is a reduced monthly payment because after all, I cannot live stream and 'downloads to watch later' hang up before they are completed.
Would it be fair to suggest this and for it to continue until fibre optic is available at which time I would be more that happy to pay for any increased cost. No point in any service calls being requested as it's an issues that cannot be resolved any time soon.
Comments and suggestions welcome guys.
 

[#10]

I have no doubt the fault CAN be found and fixed , but only by competent engineers!  You need to keep pressing for a result . Some times faults take a long time to diagnose and can take even longer to get fixed if there is physical damage to the line for instance .
Also  if you do get (FTTC ) fibre in your area and you have it installed and the fault still exists then your fibre speeds could well  be awful too, if it works at all. The fibre optic system terminates at your local green cabinet,  not in your home,  and no new wires or fibre cables are used for the last mile which is sent down the existing copper conenction. So if the fault is between the green box and your home then fibre is not going improve things.
Equallly swapping to a new ISP although tempting will likely as not,  produce no improvement either , as the new ISP  will be usuing the same wires & Cables to provide the service.  (Unless you use Virgin - which uses its own network) All that MAY change is the exchange equipment and this is one area that BT OR should attempt to eliminate anyway
If PN or their supplier BTOR cannot resolve the fault, and speeds remain below the acceptable lower limit , then  you should recieve some kind of appolgy and a refund in lieu of the time it has been like this.
One way forward is to  prove  that you have a fault by 24/7 monitoring of the line and DSL connection . That can be achieved by instaling a sam knows white box .
I would  recommend not adopting the mind set that PN neither care nor wish to fix  the problem and keep up your correspondence on this forum and try all the possible solutions suggested .

[#11]

Cheers, will take that on board.

[#12]

Earlier you said your phone wasn't working properly, so that sounds like you have a phone line fault and that will also mess up the broadband. What problems were you having with the phone?

[#13]

Ah yes, that phone and what a farce that turned out to be.

It was a tone telling me I had a message on a phone answering service I never knew I had or one I had asked for. Had the line for about six years now, and a message had been left by.... plusnet who then hung up. Four consecutive engineers said it was a fault with my phone, but eventually a call from plusnet informed me they had left a message on it about month ago! 

All sorted with that now but it really was leading everybody (myself included) up a blind alley as it was assumed it was as you suggested, messing up the broadband which is still giving me less than 1.5mbps - and sometimes a lot less than that would you believe? I now lose my internet entirely for about an hour every afternoon.  

[#14]

Is the modem/router you have the 2704n? And do you have another one at all, if so what is it, who was your previous ISP?

[#15]

It's a TG582n, last ISP was BT, and no spare.

I have suggested trying a new modem but the guy from Openreach said Plusnet would probably charge me. Suppose I could buy one but they do not come cheap.

Cheers