topic Re: What is going on with this ISP in Broadband

What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 11:28:35 GMT

These last few days the service has been abysmal, the router is like a bloody disco ball and it is extremely rare to see it not flashing!
I am having to reset to factory settings to try and resolve things to no avail. I have just run a speed test and the result was a 1.3mb speed.
I'm paying nearly £50 for a broadband speed that is no better than the old dial up connection.
It's outright fraud but it didn't stop them from paying tens of thousands on TV adverts in an attempt to betray customers into thinking Plusnet is of any value.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

jab1 — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 11:36:39 GMT

@whitbycolin I suspect, from the price you are quoting, that you are on FTTC and not ADSL, but irrespective, and bearing in mind that the Help Team are a bit thin on the ground, I will post a 'check-list' that may give us a clue as to what is happening - if you are prepared to follow it.

For Community members to be able to help, information from these two sites, as screenshots:-

BT Broadband(obscuring your phone number) and BTW Performance Tester - Over a wired (ethernet) connection if at all possible, please report the 'ADDITIONAL DIAGNOSTICS', and sight of the broadband connection status from your Hub would be a good starting point.

For the Hub One -

Navigate from the Home Screen to Troubleshooting > Helpdesk

For the Hub Two -

Navigate from the Home Screen to Advanced Settings > Technical Log > Information

It may also be a good idea to report the results of a Quiet Line Test - dial 17070 option 2 from a (preferably corded) phone. After the confirmation of your phone number, there should be total silence apart from the regular 'Quiet Line Test' announcement. Any other noise - report a PHONE fault first.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

Baldrick1 — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 14:00:44 GMT

@whitbycolin

It’s easy to blame the ISP when things go wrong but your symptoms indicate that this is an Openreach network problem, which you would experience if you used any other ISP that uses the Openreach infrastructure.

A very slow speed can indicate that one of the phone connections that delivers your broadband is disconnected. This can be checked by doing the QLT suggested by @jab1

Re: What is going on with this ISP

pint — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 14:11:47 GMT

Nearly £50 a month sounds a bit steep, are you out of the minimum term contract period and onto the standard ( expensive) rolling contract price?

Re: What is going on with this ISP

jab1 — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 15:18:57 GMT

@Baldrick1 , @pint - don't expect any reply to this from the OP. I've just, out of curiosity checked his last four posts - he never comes back after the initial moan - even when he gets a response - another time-waster.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

Longliner — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 16:19:53 GMT

Well spotted John. Plusnet has its faults -- that accounting system -- but its cheery helpful staff are not among them. I have noticed that some of the strongest attacks on PN are from customers who, on investigation, turn out not to have not paid their bills and are surprised when they are disconnected.

Regards to everyone, Mike

Re: What is going on with this ISP

LaurenB — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:01:57 GMT

Hiya @whitbycolin, thanks for getting in touch.

I'm really sorry for the issues that you're seeing with your connection and problems with your speed. I'd like to do what I can to help you here.

I have tested your line and we are seeing a sync speed of 19.6mb which no faults detected. I can see there has been some intermittency (I've provided an image below for you) though the tests haven't highlighted what could be causing this.

I've created a fault ticket here for you: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=223709432 with the next steps in getting this resolved and if you give me a nudge if you add a reply to the ticket, I'll get that picked up for you.

With regards to your monthly cost, I would advise to call and discuss this with our Customer Options Team, they are contactable directly on 0800 013 2632 and they are open between the following hours:

Monday - Friday: 08:00 - 20:00
Saturday: 09:00 - 19:00
Sunday: 09:00 - 18:00

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:22:53 GMT

The costs mentioned include the telephone options, although I rarely make many calls.

I cannot comment on whether i am on FTTC as I have always thought it was an ASDL package, one thing I can confirm is that it is a simple broadband deal where I am not contracted and moved to this ISP around 2012. I would like to say this is an isolated incident but if you check you will see that this has been going on for years. I was once advised to switch to Fibre but when I checked on the community forums there seemed to be as many clients who were dissatisfied with the service, so I chose not to waste even bigger sums with Plusnet.

I will not accept that the help team is thin on the ground as that is an excuse nearly every business in the country is using to pacify its clients.

I regularly use the BTW Performance Tester - and have run countless 'ADDITIONAL DIAGNOSTICS', the hub is connected to the master socket and my microfilters do not need changing. I carried out the Quiet Line Test and had no issues with it, hence the phone line is not the fault!

Colin

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:30:16 GMT

The costs mentioned include the telephone options, although I rarely make many calls.

In answer to Johns suggestions.

I cannot comment on whether I am on FTTC as I have always thought it was an ASDL package, one thing I can confirm is that it is a simple broadband deal where I am not contracted and moved to this ISP around 2012. I would like to say this is an isolated incident but if you check you will see that this has been going on for years. I was once advised to switch to Fibre but when I checked on the community forums there seemed to be as many clients who were dissatisfied with the service, so I chose not to waste even bigger sums with Plusnet.

I will not accept that the help team is thin on the ground as that is an excuse nearly every business in the country is using to pacify its clients.

Colin

I tried to send a reply to John, but it returned an error (no surprise there), so I tried to resend the post and it has now been flagged as Post Flooding.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

bmc — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:32:50 GMT

@whitbycolin

Have you checked recently to see what's available to you via the OpenReach system.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

VDSL is (FTTC) and will give you good and impacted line results (high and low).

WBC FTTP is another matter if it's available.

Brian

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:40:07 GMT

Hello Lauren

I could only dream of the thought of having speeds that go into double figures, getting 19.6mb is definitely not what I am getting in use. In fact last night it was actually that bad that I could not get programs from catch up on Sky with the constant blue box message "There appears to be an issue with the broadband connection at this time" so I gave up and thought I would just have YouTube music videos playing which was a nightmare as they were frequently stopping leaving me with a blank screen with the message "Loading"?

The results in the chart look good on paper but do they represent the aforementioned 19.6mb or just represent being online.

Colin

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:42:39 GMT

Criey that returned a plethora of information,

Thanks Colin

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:54:04 GMT

My telephone exchange is currently not in a current fibre priority programme.

I can get WLR, SOADSL is restricted at the exchange and FFTP is not available.

I have considered other ISP's but when you research them there isn't a clear provider that does not seem to provide an adequate system free from trouble.

Colin

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:57:36 GMT

Having checked my last posts the reason I "never come back even when I get a response" is because they have not been very useful, I am certainly not another time-waster. that I leave to Plusnet.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

jab1 — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 14:57:43 GMT

@whitbycolin Now you are back, and if you really want help, it would be a very good idea to reply in detail to my original reply to you (at post #2 on this topic).

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:20:06 GMT

Hi John,

I tried to do so but had to include it in post #9 as it didn't go the first time and then was flagged as scattergun posting when I tried again

Colin

Re: What is going on with this ISP

jab1 — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:23:31 GMT

I see no detailed screen shots in post #9. Your interpretation of them, as posted, does not help me, or anyone else to offer constructive advise.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

LaurenB — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 18:48:33 GMT

Hiya @whitbycolin, if you are experiencing drop outs this is likely also impacting your speed.

I can see our faults team have since picked up your fault ticket and have amended some of your line settings, to see if this helps with the issues.

I'd advise to monitor over the next 24 hours. Let me know how things go!

Re: What is going on with this ISP

Townman — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 08:22:12 GMT

Lets step back here, take some heat out of the situation and see if we can find a solution.

This sounds so much like an issue I'm dealing with locally with one of my elderly referrals - ADSL is not delivering streaming services overly well - sync rate looks fine - BT engineer has been out and says all is fine - yet his football watching is constantly being interrupted.

There are difficult cases which need a cool approach - I suspect that this is one such case! This has ZERO to do with the ISP billing for the service, but potentially everything to do with the CUSTOMER and their home environment, if not BT.

In the case of my referral, there is a definite correlation of issues when the telephone is in use. though @whitbycolin says they do not use the phone, if there is no telephone connected, they will have no idea if some scam caller is ringing the number.

There is also the possibility of electrical interference (REIN or SHINE) which is present in the case I'm dealing with mentioned above.

So back to the basics - @whitbycolin

Can you please post the line stats from your router here. Please include sync rate, attenuation and SNRM figures
Which router are you using?
How old is it?
Is it connected direct to the master socket?
Would you be willing able to set up 24x7 monitoring of the router using routerstats (see link below) or DSL stats

For interest, the SNRM graph below is from the case I'm dealing with - it clearly indicates an issue with the line / the local environment, even though the BT engineer reports there is no fault on the line. Plusnet has twice reported that the line is imbalanced, but that is intermittent. @LaurenB what does the line balance look like here?

I now need to track down the source of the REIN with my new diagnostic tool - a cheap (£10) basic AM portable radio which arrived yesterday.

This line is perfectly quiet. The sync speed is fairly good, but not as good as that reported for Colin's, but unlike here there are clearly more line drops than is shown on Colin's VR plot. That said, similar to Colin, this user sees delays in their football streaming even though the line was up at the time.

Colin, something not asked / advised - at the time you find Netflix to be failing, what else is the internet being used for at the same time? When you see the router flashing like disco lights can you please do a QLT AT THAT TIME.

I suspect that we are looking for an intermittent issue here and / or REIN / SHINE. Fixing that needs partnership between user and supplier, as invariably the issue will not be present when inspected. In my local case, most of the time, there is nothing to be seen, the SNRM plots are flat as pancakes as they should be.

Re: What is going on with this ISP

whitbycolin — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 15:01:36 GMT

The reason for mentioning the costs is there because I am paying every month for a service that I am not getting, in any other sector that fails to provide a customer with a paid for product the customer would of course complain.

In my case here is no definite correlation of issues when the telephone is in use, as I don't use it that much, it is permanently connected and I would therefore be aware if some scam caller is ringing the number.

Can you advise me on how to access the stats from my router, so I can provide the sync rate, attenuation and SNRM figures

I have the 2704n router and have had it for approximately 3 or 4 years after having these issues with the original router for over a decade.

Throughout my internet endeavours going back 3 decades or so the routers have always been fitted to the master socket

What is involved and for how long would setting up 24x7 monitoring of the router using routerstats be necessary

As a rule if I am watching Netflix or attempting to just have YouTube music videos on whilst I decorate there are no other devices using the internet. I can do a QLT test at anytime of the day or night as the disco lights are an almost permanent feature

Colin