The continuing download saga

[Tim Lamb]

Open Reach notified me of their intent to replace the pole in our garden ( rot issues) so I held off bothering Plusnet further with speed complaints.

Pole duly replaced Monday. No impact on download performance so an engineer had another look Wednesday. This time he unplugged the incoming connection and did some tests from the cabinet. Sadly the fault appears to be in a section of underground cable rather than from wind blown branches upsetting the 500m of overhead.

Voice calls are not impacted and *quiet line* tests don't show noticeable crackles. My suspicion is damaged insulation and a path between cables or to earth. Rats?

Any way of triggering a different connection or does this involve a number change?

Currently running at 10meg down and 1.5 up so I'll see what Christmas brings.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh, just keep moaning and bitching. The engineer *should* have picked a different underground pair and moved you onto that.

My excellent ISP plus copious coffee and biscuits had an engineer spend an hour selecting the 'best' back to the exchange pair from the local streetside cabinet, he could find - lowest noise/crosstalk, and got me up to 6Mbps when 4 had been usual.

is that fibre to the cabinet? That seems high for ADSL2...

It sounds like he MAY have actually moved you *anyway*.

[Tim Lamb]

Plusnet don't offer much by way of direct bitching opportunity and prefer SMS. There is provision for d-i-y fault checking.

Pass. It was rock steady 13meg. for years. Cabinet to exchange might be

800m in ducts. Then 400m ducted before the overhead down the lane.

No poles climbed. We have 4 extra users from our barn dwellers so there may be none available:-(

I'm recording am/pm tests. So far it has been down to 2meg and now back up again.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You don't climb poles to fix underground faults.

Not good then.

In the limit they are required to run a new U/G cable or put you on FTTP.

2Mbps is below OFCOM quality limits

[charles]

If there's spare.

[AnthonyL]

I didn't even have to keep moaning and bitching. OR/BT engineer said I should be getting better speeds and spent an hour on the junction (is that what it's called, not a cabinet) box outside, found a good spare pair and gave it to me with nearly a 50% improvement in the speeds I'd been used to.

[Fredxx]

Some providers supply minimum speeds, BT did at one point and resolved an issue.

For my current provider I ended paying for a lower tier of service, with a refund of the months I had been with them.

My argument was Service A gave a typical speed of X, and Service B gave a typical speed of Y. Since my speed was close to X, then shouldn't I be paying for Service A?

There was some to-ing and fro-ing with my last question being, ok what technical difference (specified in my contract) between X and Y speeds means that I was not on Service A.

[Andy Burns]

BT still do, if you visit their line checker and fill-in your details

The result should include "Downstream Handback Threshold" if the speed falls below that they'll investigate ...

[Fredxx]

I wonder if Tim was to put his details in the checker whether it would return expected speeds, or those known after testing more asking to the speeds he's currently getting?

After a quick google I came up with this:

"If you can’t get a download speed of at least 10 Mbit/s and an upload speed of at least 1 Mbit/s (this is defined as a 'decent connection'), you can request an upgraded connection".

[John Rumm]

Probably ADSL2+ these days rather than vanilla ADSL2. The former can go to ~24Mbps at distances under 1km - it should be able to keep over

10Mbps for at leas 2.5km

(ADSL2 should be able to do a max of about 12Mbps - and should do that at least to 1.5km)

If you stick your number in here:

It will tell you what is supported on your exchange

[Tim+]

…many years ago. I don’t think anyone is updating or maintaining Samknows anymore. Certainly well out of date for my exchange information.

Tim

[Tim Lamb]

Indeed! ADSL, ADSL MAX, ADSL2+ available from the exchange. The village was cabled up by Virgin? 25+ years ago. Our lane was classed as *not worth trenching* based on the lack of properties.

The downside of early adoption seems to be little profit in coming back to finish the job:-(

>

[Tim Lamb]

er. I can't make that site work.

[Andy Burns]

it was occasionally saying "busy" earlier, try later ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Too many trees down and lines f***ed probably

[nothanks]

Eeee lad, yer lucky. On a good day I get 3.7 down and 0.35 up. A less-positive aspect of living in the sticks.

[Tim Lamb]

Indeed. A lot better than *dial up* days. Still a bit frustrating when it has been a reliable 13 for several years. Makes the TV links to *on line* goodies less than helpful:-(

[The Natural Philosopher]

Round here those sorts of installations were the first to get fibre to the house.

[SH]

10 meg down & 1.4 meg up..... I feel so sorry for you...... :-(

(someone who currently has 900 meg down AND 900 meg UP)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Frankly I decided to stop at 40Mbps down and 10Mbps up because I couldn't see the point of any higher.