Broadband Speed Issues - 03/10/09

[#1]

Hi Orbrey
Many thanks for the update, I have been doing some checks on my line, as I know what type of kit is in our BT exchange, in fact I was there when it was put in... I don't work for BT, I may add.
I live not far from the BT exchange, and do see the workers comings and goings, and I may add it has only been down once, last month around the 27th Oct 09, full loss of mux, hopefully my line will settle down.
I am very thankfull that I have a very decent ADSL connection for my location, as I do live out in the sticks.
I didn't raise a ticket because, the BT line checker was playing up, and the Plusnet team had enough to contend with, but again many thanks for your reply.

[#2]

Not sure if this is a good place to post (apologies if not), but can anybody help on a broader question, please? I'm on Broadband Premier Option 1, which I assumed was a premium product originally chosen for its 20:1 contention ratio. I regularly and routinely achieved speeds of 5.5 Mbps apart from the odd blip in the evening. I was happy enough with this to continue to pay a premium for the product when prices elsewhere were dropping rapidly.
Nowadays I count myself lucky if I can get 2.6 Mbps, and in the evening it can drop to way below this. As you can see below, Speedtester reports a DSL connection rate of 4576 kbps and an IP profile for my line is 4000 kbps (don't fully understand what this tells me, other than I reckon it's not as good as it used to be!).
My questions:
- how come my product is an increasingly mediocre one?
- will it get any better?
- why on earth am I dumb enough to carry on paying for it?
- can I expect better by switching to ADSL2+ ?
1.  Product type - PlusNet Broadband Premier Option 1
2.  Current usage
Peak usage:              516.97MB  4pm - Midnight
Off-Peak                    762.02MB Midnight - 4pm
Total usage:            1.28GB
3.  IP Profile (PlusNet)
Current line speed:  3000
4.  BT Speedtester
Your DSL connection rate: 4576 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 4000 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2596 kbps
5.  A Speedtest from an external testing site.
19/11/09, 12h20 : 2478 / 334
20/11/09, 14h25 : 2655 / 373

6.  Your gateway
You are currently connected to the "City Lifeline, Juniper 8" gateway. This gateway is sometimes known as pcl-ag01.
7.  Your exchange status
"VP capacity at this exchange is currently showing as Green."

[#3]

1. Your product type
Force9 Value with included 10GB bandwidth

2. Your current usage from the VMBU

Paid-for usage 744.39MB
8am - Midnight
Paid-for allowance: Up-to 10GB
8am - Midnight
Free usage: 24.4MB
Midnight - 8am
Total Usage: 768.79MB
3. Your IP Profile, as reported by Plusnet
Telephone number:
[removed]
Phone exchange:
WILMSLOW
Estimated line speed:
1.5 - Checked on 2009-08-29 21:17:03
Current line speed:
1500
4. Information from the BT Speedtester
Can’t get BT Speedster test to work
5. A Speedtest from an external testing site
Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 14:51 252 kbps (31.5kB/s) 236 kbps (29.5kB/s)
6. Your gateway
Which gateway
You are currently connected to the "Telehouse East, Juniper 4" gateway. This gateway is sometimes known as pte-ag2.

7. Your exchange status
Exchange Status Checker
Results: Wilmslow Code: MRWIL
County: Cheshire
Enabled: 11 Oct 1999
Market: 3

VP capacity at this exchange is currently showing as Green.

BT have advised that this exchange is enabled for WBC on 21CN

8. Other information
Speed slow all the time, can't download anything.
dick:green Phone number removed.

[#4]

webbyates you might want to edit your post to mask your personal information such as your telephone number

[#5]

Quote from: NJH

Not sure if this is a good place to post (apologies if not), but can anybody help on a broader question, please? I'm on Broadband Premier Option 1, which I assumed was a premium product originally chosen for its 20:1 contention ratio. I regularly and routinely achieved speeds of 5.5 Mbps apart from the odd blip in the evening. I was happy enough with this to continue to pay a premium for the product when prices elsewhere were dropping rapidly.

Premier was never provisioned on 20:1. It's always been an IPStream Max product which was advertised as 50:1 when Wholesale used to use contention ratios to advertise their products. I think we may have advertised it as being 20:1 on our network at one point but that became confusing and was subsequently changed.

Quote

Nowadays I count myself lucky if I can get 2.6 Mbps, and in the evening it can drop to way below this. As you can see below, Speedtester reports a DSL connection rate of 4576 kbps and an IP profile for my line is 4000 kbps (don't fully understand what this tells me, other than I reckon it's not as good as it used to be!).

Just checked and you IP profile is set to 3000kbps in both BTw's and our systems. Does a ]BT Speedtest still show your IP profile to be 4000kbps?

Quote

My questions: - how come my product is an increasingly mediocre one?

Nothing's changed with your package, all the traffic management policies etc. remain the same as they were the day you signed up.

Quote

- will it get any better?

The performance of the network (for everybody) will get better, yes.

Quote

- why on earth am I dumb enough to carry on paying for it?

Not quite sure what to say to that but you don't seem to be a particularly heavy user, have you checked to see if you'd be better off on one of the more recent product offerings?

Quote

- can I expect better by switching to ADSL2+ ?

Would need to see you line stats to be able to answer that one with any degree of accuracy (downstream SNR , line attenuation, errored seconds etc.)

[#6]

Noted that we now working on Plan A, but in fact my speeds have dropped.

[#7]

Quote

We will remain operating under 'Plan A' over the weekend and will review the situation again on Monday when we will provide another update. There is still the potential for your connection to become slower than normal when things get busy,

There is still more work to be done.

[#8]

Quote

There is still more work to be done

I do understand that work is in progress, by the Plusnet staff, but I do my these speed checks in the morning, not at night when the network is being hammered.
It's the way of networks, everybody wants it to be fast all the time, many factors do come into it, but a bit of consistence would be nice.

[#9]

Sadly consistency is a luxury we don't have available to us just now but as has been said here it's definitely work in progress.

[#10]

Nice article very informative. I read it and do see that they are trying to resolve the problems they are having at the moment, will just have to wait and see what the outcome will be, a more reliable network or just the same old problems rearing it's ugly head.
Will customers vote with there feet and move on? Not a case cutting off your nose to spite your face, just plain economics or in this case just reliable speeds.
The grass always looks greener on the other side, but sometimes somebody comes along and sprays weed killer on it and then you are back to square one.
dick:quote

[#11]

Well asked for my MAC key time to move on.  Yes I will pay more, but time to see if the grass is greener on the other side.
I think what the problem was, is that Interleaving on my line was switched "ON" due the very high Uncorrected Blocks that my router reported on the Sunday morning, and thats why the snyc rate went from 8128 down to 7616.
This would account for the increased latency on my line and my download speeds taking a dive, and my IP profile moving from 7150 down to 6500.

[#12]

Unless you are moving to a LLU supplier you will take your interleaving, latency, sync speed and high error rate with you to any other ISP. Take care who you chose, there are ISPs far worse than Plusnet at sorting out problems!

[#13]

Yes, I do know that I may take the problem with me to another ISP, but my stats have always been good.  Router Draytek 2800V (Latest Firmware)  SNR = 12, ATT = 15.5, my Uncorrected Blocks always been 2, never more than that, until that Sunday morning.
Was going to try this, after reading the posts under "Interleaving" in the forum dated 22/11/09 , and I have checked under Plusnet Member Centre, and I can't find this option anywhere.
Must be me, to much time on my hands.

[#14]

Does anyone know [e.g. PN], has this feature been taken off.  I found it a week ago and seems no longer available under 'Connection'

[#15]

I don't have it on my account but it just raises a request ticket to PN.