speed worse than dial up for over a week, no replies to ticket UPDATED line info

[#1]

I am so frustrated with plusnet I could scream. I am now desperate to leave but will probably have a fight on my hands to not be charged a severance fee.
If anyone from faults or customer services is reading this PLEASE look at tickets 31231690 and 31548028. I had disconnection problems due to a faulty filter which were resolved by 3rd Jan, but my speeds were then down to 0.12mg. Here is a summary of my nightmare with customer service from my ticket comments....
9th Jan 4.14pm My connection speed is still very slow, i was told it would be back to normal between 24-48 hours
9th Jan 5.01pm I spoke to someone at customer support and turned router off and unplugged phone etc. This made no difference and customer support were supposed to call me back in 10 minutes when phone was reconnected. No one called me back so I attempted to call customer support and after waiting nearly 7 minutes I was cut off. I am not at all happy about this and my connection speed is 0.13 m, am now totally frustrated attempting to contact customer services and have just been informed waiting times are 10 minutes (if I am not cut off again). Would someone please deal with my slow connection problem asap.
6:57pm, Monday 11th January 2010 (after being asked about the original connection problem)
just to make it clear the disconnection problem was only due to a faulty filter which has been changed, the problem now is that my speeds have not been reset since then and I am getting connection speeds of 0.1 mg worse than dial up!!!
7:13pm, Monday 11th January 2010
Dear Ms ****,
This fault is currently undergoing testing. Further information will be appended to this ticket shortly.
Kind regards,
[removed]
7:16pm, Monday 11th January 2010
Dear Ms ****,
Can you confirm at the time of the last test performed on your line ( Today 11/01/10 19:14 ) that your modem/router was still connected to the test socket? If not please can you reconnect to this socket so that we can further test the line for you.
Kind regards,
[removed]
10:36pm, Monday 11th January 2010
I am now losing patience with the way my complaint has been handled so far. When I plugged my router into the test socket yesterday I was told to plug it in normally afterwards, not to leave it plugged in for further testing.
My connection has been stable since Wednesday. When my speeds did not come back after 48 hours and I rang to see what was happening I was told 'they lied, it is 72 hours!'. It was then after 72 hours and I was told to unplug the router a couple of times and unplug the phone. I was promised a call back which never happened. I got cut off trying to get in touch and then the waiting times were unacceptable. When I eventually got through I was told I must now leave the router on for ANOTHER 72 hours as I had unplugged it more than once! I calmly said that was because I was told to do so by telephone support. I was then told by yet another person that it was something to do with the exchange. It took until yesterday afternoon for someone to raise the slow speeds as a fault, my disconnection problems which were a separate issue kept being used as an excuse.
I am very, very dissatisfied with these delays and mixed messages, my speeds are slower than dial up and I am seriously thinking of changing isp's if this matter is not resolved immediately.
My partner works abroad and we speak on msn live, my connection speeds are so slow it is not worth going on there.
I would be grateful if someone could get back to me asap, the router is still connected through the test socket which is really inconvenient as this causes noises on my phone line.
I have had NO reply from plusnet on my ticket since then despite calling customer support at midnight Tues (the ONLY time I seem to be able to get through by which time faults team are safely tucked up in bed (or if they are with plusnet themselves maybe still waiting for a 1 byte file to download which they started before going to work) and getting a promise this would be looked into.
Finally I have raised a new ticket.
12:43pm, Wednesday 13th January 2010
I am now absolutely disgusted with the lack of communication and the time it is taking for my fault to be sorted. I have had speeds worse than dial up for well over a week and no one is writing to me with updates as to what is happening.
Due to waiting times the only time I seem to get through on the phone is after the faults team have gone home.
If something is not done about this tomorrow (I will give the benefit if the doubt and assume today you are short staffed because of the snow) I will be looking to move to another isp, I will NOT be expecting to pay for the router (which I will happily return if postage is provided) and I will also be expecting a refund for the time in which my speeds were slow. I will also be writing to Which and the magazines for which you were previously best buys and telling them of my experience with plusnet. I do not want to move because you are cheap, but it looks like you get what you pay for, or maybe not....I am not even getting dial up speeds at the moment!!!!
I hope to hear from you asap.
so far have only had
Dear Ms ****,
Thank you for contacting Plusnet Customer Services.
Please be advised that I am passing your query to the relevant department for further assistance.
Kind regards,
[removed]
Aaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!
[Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim): CSA name removed as per the forum rules.]
Just done bt sped test, looks like someone has set my speeds low and not reinstated them???
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
Download  Speed
59 Kbps

0 Kbps 250 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed
Download speedachieved during the test was - 59 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 50-250 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :352 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 192 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 135 Kbps
Oldjim if you are still here...sorry didn't read rules properly, can you advise me at all on this speed problem?
FROM BT SITE
Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line rate up to 2Mbps.
Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 5Mbps or greater.
Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL2+ broadband line rate of 6Mbps or greater. Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line rate of 500Kbps and downstream line rate of 4Mbps.

[#2]

Your router is only syncing with the exchange at 352 Kbps which indicates that something is very wrong.
1. Is there any background noise on the line when you use the telephone?
2. Please post the stats reported by your router - sync speed, attenuation and noise margin. (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php may help if you don't know where to find them)
3. Plug the filter in to the test socket inside the master socket and without the telephone or anything else connected and post the router stats from that.
If you post this information we'll be able to start giving you advice.

[#3]

Hi winterjasmine,
I've just tested your line with the intention of getting the fault raised, it's proved there's a fault there (a lower threshold breach, which is to say your sync speed is well below the fault threshold rate - on your line this is currently 5452 vs a sync speed of 288) - I've held off because the test reported an inconsistency between the DSLAM and the B-RAS.
I'll update your ticket with the results and follow that with another test in half an hour (as specified by the BT test system) and will either raise the fault off the back of those results or let you know if there have been any changes.

[#4]

Right - the further test confirmed the issue so the fault has been raised. I expect we'll get an update later on today, so will post back then.

[#5]

hi Matt and Jelv,
Thank you so much, obviously the way to go with a fault is to raise it on here.
JELV...When I am running my phone through the test socket, there is background noise, usually there isn't. Phone and router are still connected via test socket and filter, should I leave it like that for now?
Do you want me to do the tests you mentioned with the phone unplugged?
MATT...Either tomorrow or Monday I am having extra memory put in both computers, I will leave router switched on and both computers plugged into router. If this will cause a problem I can reschedule.
Thanks again, I have been tearing my hair out here.

[#6]

If you could post the router stats as it is at the moment and with the phone unplugged so that we can compare the figures please.
When you stop using the test socket and put things back to normal the stats should be compared immediately before and after.

[#7]

Hi winterjasmine,
As long as the router stays powered up and connected things will be fine - it doesn't matter if the computers are connected to that or not so the memory upgrade shouldn't interfere with anything. Don't let that interfere with any testing though - if you do need to move the router that's fine, please just try not to leave it powered off and/or disconnected for any long period of time.

[#8]

Matt, you and Jelv are my heros!

[#9]

Jelv, I have got the router info. (below) I also plugged in a new asdl cable and my speeds are still chronically slow but almost twice as fast as they were. from Maidenhead ping 78 download 0.23 upload 0.35 From London ping 70 download 0.23 upload 0.37
Will plug phone back in, aaargh maybe that will make speeds go down again.
--- System Information ---
Vendor: Linksys
ModelName: WAG160N
Firmware Version: A1.00.09 , 2008-05-05T17:46:41
GUI Version: A1.00.09_007
Boot Version: 1.0.37-5.4
Hardware Version: 0.01
--- DSL Information ---
DSL Driver Version:  AnnexA version - A2pB022g.d20e
DSL VPI/VCI:         0/38
DSL Status:          ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 1
DSL Mode:            G.DMT
DSL Channel:         INTR
DSL Upstream Rate:   448 Kbps
DSL Downstream Rate: 7648 Kbps
                     Down         up    
DSL Noise Margin:    12.1 dB      24.0 dB
DSL Attenuation:     21.0 dB      10.5 dB
DSL Transmit Power:  19.8 dBm     12.3 dBm
jim:green possible security risk info removed mod:end

[#10]

forget about speed test at the moment - they wil be limited by the ipProfile just look at sync rates
DSL Upstream Rate:  448 Kbps
DSL Downstream Rate: 7648 Kbps
as compared to the abysmal results earlier

[#11]

It is absolutely pointless you running speed tests at the moment. Your router could be synced at the maximum 8Mbps with the exchange but while your IP Profile is down below 500, that is the fastest possible speed you will see on a speed test for a few days until BT increase your IP Profile.
The key figures from your router stats (we look at the downstream only):
DSL Attenuation:    21.0 dB That tells us that you are approximately 1.5km from the exchange and you should be able to connect at or near full speed.
DSL Downstream Rate: 7648 Kbps That means your router is syncing with the exchange at a sensible speed for your attenuation. When everything is sorted and settles down you should see speed test results of around 6000Kbps.
DSL Noise Margin:    12.1 dB BT have pushed up your target noise margin from the default 6dB because of problems it has been seeing on the line. In doing so it will have reduced your sync speed. In time (several weeks) if your line remains totally stable you should see this reduce until you are syncing at full speed.
If you could post just those three figures as you try combinations of putting things back to normal please.

[#12]

what I don't understand is why is my ip profile still low after my connection has been stable for almost 2 weeks (apart from when I unplugged the router as advised by plusnet helpline.

[#13]

This will be because your connection was syncing at 288kb/s, due to a high SNR (63.5dB when I tested the line this morning).
Some good news - the fault has been cleared back to us and I've tested the line again - you're now showing in sync at ~7600kb/s with a loop loss of 21dB, so I suspect there was a misconfiguration at the exchange that has now been cleared. Your BT profile was still showing as 288kb/s so I've requested an SNR reset for you which should be taking effect within the next few minutes.
Therefore for the next 10 days or so (or at least until the line settles) please try and avoid rebooting the router if possible, you should find however that your line will find a decent profile within the next couple of days. With any luck, that should be things sorted for you.

[#14]

great, I will see how things go, hope it is nearer a couple of days than 10 though.
thanks for making sure something is done.

[#15]

Can you check what https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed says for your current line speed please.
It might need Matt to do another little poke.