To Plusnet Staff

[#1]

Hi Jcook76
Because this alteration of profiles hasn't resolved this, we'll need to get an engineer to visit and test the equipment you have and then your exchange.
I have raised a ticket on your account about this (ref  91788224) and sent you a text regarding this.
Thank you for your patience.

[#2]

Ok, I've responded to the ticket asking for the earliest possible afternoon appointment...
Looking at the test info that's attached to the ticket, it says:
Radio Frequency Ingress Detected
Cross Talk Detected
Are these things that I'm able to control/influence...?
For reference - the BTOR guy who fitted my phone/fibre ran a new cable from the telegraph pole straight to a new socket on the wall in my hallway. Into this, I have the modem and a phone plugged in - there are no extensions wired into the box.
Thanks,
Jon

[#3]

Is the phone a corded or cordless phone?
If it's cordless it might be worth getting Jack to rerun the test with the phone unplugged and powered off.

[#4]

It's a Dect phone - that, the modem & my router are sat next to each other on a small table...
Could it be picking up interference & that affecting the connection speed??
I had the same 3 in my old property before moving, perhaps spaced a bit further apart, but with no problems whatsoever.
Thanks.

[#5]

Quote from: Jcook76

Looking at the test info that's attached to the ticket, it says: Radio Frequency Ingress Detected Cross Talk Detected Are these things that I'm able to control/influence...?

Hi Jon,
Cross talk is a characteristic of VDSL and can be made worse by poor quality BTOR wires / joints and is therefore outside of your control or influence.
RFI (REIN) could be from anywhere - if this were an ADSL installation I would be recommending running RouterStats to monitor the modem stats / performance which would clearly show REIN events and enable you to explore if the events matched any patterns of equipment use within your home.  In the context of FTTC given that you cannot monitor the problem you would have difficulty in controlling it or influencing it, however you might just the same be responsible for it.
REIN is darned hard to identify and eliminate at the best of times - FTTC modems being locked down makes this practice impossible for the end user.
BTOR have variable levels of ability to identify, locate and cause the source of REIN to be eliminated - they have no enforcement powers.
I hope that your issue does get resolved by BTOR soon.

Kevin

[#6]

Quote from: Jcook76

Could it be picking up interference & that affecting the connection speed??

It's a possibility that needs to be eliminated.

[#7]

Thanks both - I'll try without the phone later to see if that makes any difference...

[#8]

Have done a little bit of experimenting & have tried tests with my dect phone disconnected & powered off, and with my router & modem separated by a good 5m. Each time I get the same results - a download speed of just under 30mb & upload of just under 2mb. This is using both the original plusnet router and my own Asus.
Nothing else is connected to the phone line, so it looks like it's definitely an external factor that's causing my problem.

[#9]

Thanks for letting us know of this, jcook76.
I am just liaising with our suppliers this morning, I'm pretty sure it's something from their side, I will update you on ticket 91788224 shortly.

[#10]

Thanks Matty - sorry to have missed your call just now.
An appointment tomorrow would be great, if you can arrange it. I'll be at home all day so any time (morning or afternoon) will be fine.

Cheers,
Jon

[#11]

Afternoon,
This is booked in as a PM appointment. It's a pretty strange one, so I hope it gets resolved. Hopefully this doesn't take up too much of your Saturday 

[#12]

Matty, have you got any update on this - I'm hoping that you've received the Openreach Engineer's report and can suggest how we proceed from here...
On Saturday, the guy turned up and spent about 3 hours trying to fix my speed problem. He tested my line, and several of the spare lines available on my part of the circuit, but was unable to improve my upload speed by more than 0.1mb
At the cabinet I'm getting the full down & upload speed that I should, so I guess this shows that my account/profile has been set up correctly. As he moved away from the cabinet, at the road adjacent to mine, the speed had started to drop off as you would expect - nothing too drastic. As the line comes up my road, however, it apparently turns into aluminium, and at each of the junctions along my road that the engineer was able to tap into and test he could only record a max upload speed of around 2mb.
In all fairness to the guy, he spent quite a bit of time trying to track the fault, testing a few spare pairs at various stages along the line including up the telegraph pole so I've no issue with the work he put in - but, I've been left with things as they were before and with no real prospect of it ever improving.
I'm concerned (and I'll be honest, I'm not even sure if these are legitimate concerns) that the connection speed could drop further in the future - from what I've read, aluminium cable is more susceptible to environmental conditions so the 2mb upload speed that I've been getting during the hot and dry weather could deteriorate once the winter sets in. Also, in future, if more people take up FTTC in my area, this could lead to a further drop in my speed - which, when I'm starting from such a low point, could cause me real issues in say 6 or 12 months time.
Is there anything that can be done from here to improve my connection?
Thanks,
Jon

[#13]

Hi Jon
I have just left you a voicemail,
This is bad news.
In my experience, Openreach have never replaced aluminium cables at our request, and I do think that this is the sole reason behind the poor upload speeds.
I'd imagine that the engineer has now put you on the best pair possible to accommodate your connection now. Whilst it is possible that the cable can be environmentally affected, there is nothing to say that it will so I am confident that 2.1mbps will remain (although I completely understand that it's not great as it is).
My colleague has been dealing with a similar circumstance, and whilst we sent out multiple engineers they were unable to improve the upload speed from 3.4mb in the long run.  They seem to do the best that they can with the existing infrastructure, rather than press to improve it.
Really sorry to be the bearer of unfortunate news on this one. 
Matty

[#14]

Jon,
In this situation, the only remaining suggestion is that you write direct to David Livingstone CEO of the BT Group and ask why BT will not replace aluminium cables known to be unsuitable for VDSL operation.
Good luck,
Kevin

[#15]

Sad to say the amount it would cost to do in terms of materials/time/men plus incidentals far exceeds the amount of revenue they will get in over a reasonable time frame - and they cannot charge more for a "brand new copper not ali' line".
I've posted on here before an example.
Pole replacement plus new DP at top and copper tail lead down to Joint box below
Pole raw cost £600, plus two men plus pole lorry & man.
So we are probably looking at £1500 to £2000 all in.
Pole feeds 3 houses
so that is £16/month line rental times 3 houses times 12 to get £576 gross revenue for all three houses.
So one simple replacement repair has wiped out the gross revenue from these three properties for nearly 4 years and probably the net revenue for more like 10 years.
Now suppose you were renting out a property and were told that you might need to do a repair than was going to wipe out all your profits for the next 10 years.
I'll bet you would think there is no way on earth that I am even going to consider doing the work
I'm just going to struggle on bodging it up here and there and hope it lasts a bit longer.
and in essence that is why BT will only replace line sections when it is a totally essential replace/repair/line has failed totally.
Doing this sort of work is expensive - its not like its £50 job done.