topic Re: Short Periods of Disconnection in Broadband

Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 06:36:13 GMT

Hi,

I don't think I'm getting disconnected as such, but as if the connection is "freezing", and my speed is down to a third.

This is from my logs - the first one for 2m 42s is a disconnection. The rest - just these short freezes.

Speed is around 20Mbps whereas normal is around 60Mbps.

Plugged into the test socket, with the face plate off.

Failure Start Length
26/08/2022 21:41:23 0:02:42
29/08/2022 22:50:16 0:00:25
30/08/2022 22:04:53 0:00:24
31/08/2022 12:02:14 0:00:25
01/09/2022 12:54:06 0:00:21
03/09/2022 07:06:48 0:01:10
03/09/2022 12:04:35 0:01:08
03/09/2022 12:35:37 0:01:19
03/09/2022 13:36:40 0:01:09
04/09/2022 02:42:26 0:01:18
04/09/2022 07:15:57 0:10:38
04/09/2022 07:27:11 0:01:29
04/09/2022 07:40:20 0:01:18
04/09/2022 07:53:40 0:01:11
04/09/2022 08:18:32 0:01:33
04/09/2022 10:13:18 0:03:46
04/09/2022 21:16:41 0:01:42
04/09/2022 21:24:41 0:01:38
04/09/2022 21:30:40 0:01:42
05/09/2022 02:19:51 0:01:31
05/09/2022 07:15:08 0:00:20

Can someone at PlusNet have a look or advise what to do?

Cheers,

Mark.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 07:42:00 GMT

Hi @markos

response times can be disappointing on the forum, if you think you have a fault report it using the automated system.

https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/broadband/ use the text service

HTH

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 08:53:19 GMT

Thanks Dan, will do.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

adamwalker — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 13:55:06 GMT

Hi Markos, cheers for reporting a fault with us. I can see an Openreach engineer has been dispatched to work on it today so I'd expect that to be resolved very soon.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 13:59:50 GMT

Thanks Adam, pleased to report the OpenReach fella has just this second left, and both myself and my neighbour are on new "pairs" - something to do with a break under the road and some spare "pairs" were free.

Do we need to do anything to get the internet connection to re-balance itself again? I think it's slowed down with the noise on the line and the speed has dropped - almost back up to what it normally is but I wondered if it needed to be told to "settle back in" again?

Thanks,

Mark.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

adamwalker — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 15:18:42 GMT

No worries and I'm glad to hear that Mark, I've just tested your line and I'm not seeing an indication that speeds have been lowered, what connection speeds are you seeing at the moment? - Adam

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 15:22:48 GMT

On a desktop, directly connected by ethernet cable to the PN Hub, my usual speed app shows it's 52Mbps down and 17Mbps up.

We are usually at 62Mbps down. Give or take.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

adamwalker — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 17:36:15 GMT

I've just tested the line again and it's showing signs of a "high resistance cable fault" just to check is the landline working OK for calls now?

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 07:51:17 GMT

Thanks for double checking. Pleased to report Ring Back and Quiet Line tests seem to be working fine.

Speed (from the same desktop) is heading in the right direction at 55Mbps, but still slightly short of where we were.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Gandalf — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 16:52:01 GMT

Looking promising! As line tests are still showing a high resistance fault, can I arrange an engineer visit with you to investigate further? If so when could you be available? The engineers are available weekdays 8am to 1pm, or 1pm to 6pm.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:25:09 GMT

Thank you for your diligence. Yes please, do go ahead and book an engineer to attend to investigate the high resistance fault. The preference would be for the 8am to 1pm slots.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Gandalf — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:46:05 GMT

No problem Mark, I've booked the engineer to visit you tomorrow morning. Let me know how it goes.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:29:30 GMT

Thanks again for following this up.

OpenReach turned up as you said, and they did their checks and found a "nipped" wire in the junction box at the top of the pole that runs to our house. The nipped wire had got stripped and was exposed to the elements. They've cut that back and reconnected. Top job.

The speed is edging back to where we were before. Happy customer again.

All the best.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Gandalf — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:50:01 GMT

Nice! Looking good Mark. Sounds like the engineer's done a good job.

If you'd want to extend your thanks to them, fill out the form here https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/thank-an-engineer-form to let Openreach know as I'm sure they'll appreciate it a lot.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd need help with.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 14:33:13 GMT

Hmmm.... @Gandalf

Something still doesn't feel quite right. I thought the speeds might return once it settled in, but it sadly hasn't. I'm not running super slow, but I'm not back where I was. And in actual fact the speed is getting slower.

Historically I was around 60-64 down. Not just for a short while, for years. The upload used to be 16-18, and that has slowed over the years to around 15 but I'm happy.

The US date format is confusing at first, but this is from the same desktop hard wired to the PN Hub from late July to early Sep:-

And this is what I'm getting now:

Around the 52/53 mark, lets call it around 10Mbps less.

Is there a settling in issue that hasn't gone to plan?

Grateful for anything you can think of.

Cheers,

Mark.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Gandalf — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:48:50 GMT

Sorry to see you're still having issues Mark.

I've tested your line and the tests aren't showing any problems at the moment. From what I can see your router's in sync at a download speed of 57mbps and an upload speed of 18mbps, and there's been no connection drops in 5 days.

When you're running the speed test, are all other devices switched off and nothing else running on your computer?

Cheers

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

markos — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 16:05:26 GMT

Thanks for looking @Gandalf

I totally get the speedtest from the device is an "approximate", but I'd say it's the 57mbps that you're seeing on the router I'm concerned with.

I know the router's sync rate is probably going to be above what I see from a connected device, so that probably ties in with what I am seeing.

But as I say, I was getting average speed tests recently on a connected device around the 63/64 mark. I know 57 doesn't sound that much less, but it "feels" slow ever since the recent works. And it's been 63+ and above for years. For example here's history from 2018 and it's the higher 60's:

I don't raise my hand unless there's an issue, but trust me it doesn't feel quite right. I also don't mind a little bit of degradation, but by my fingers and toes we're looking at 10+ mbps over a few years.

Could it be a change in SNR, etc?

Cheers,

Mark.

Re: Short Periods of Disconnection

Gandalf — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 16:16:04 GMT

Ah okay no problem Mark. It's hard to say what's caused the speed drop as line tests aren't showing an issue.

I could potentially arrange another engineer visit but I'm not sure if they'll investigate further, because your speed's currently where our suppliers expect for your line. I've put your phone number into the broadband availability checker here.

It's not out of the ordinary to see speeds drop over time as it could be degradation as you suggest or it could be cross-talk, which is interference from other lines at the cabinet and there's no fix for this without upgrading the infrastructure.

Having said that, I can see your sync speed is banded to 60mbps so I've done a DLM reset. I'm not sure if this will help seeing as the current sync rate isn't hitting the banding, but here's hoping! The reset should go through within an hour.

Let me know how it goes.

Cheers