topic Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50) in Full Fibre

Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 17:09:24 GMT

I'm wondering what I am able to do in this situation:

I have a telephone pole in my front drive, both my neighbours and I are connected to it. We are all on Plusnet and when I check my max speed online (via address) it says 20-25, and when I check theirs it's 50-70.

When checking speeds on site he get regularly 45-50, I get circa 20. We are all on Unlimited Fibre Extra.

I'm wondering what could be different that means the expectations and real speeds are so vastly different between the two houses? Where can I follow this up to make my speed to reach the same as theirs?

Appreciate some pointers, I've contacted Plusnet who weren't able to help (focussing on my WiFi instead) and Called BT who don't control the phone lines any longer and just tried to sell me their broadband (I forgot that's now Openreach).

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Gandalf — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 20:37:00 GMT

Thanks for your post @RandomNameGener and welcome to our Community Forums.

I'm sorry to see you're having speed issues. I'm a little disappointed to be honest with how we've handled things when you've rung. I've tested your line tonight and I'm seeing a range of problems. I've arranged for a bit of feedback to be passed onto the adviser so they'll know what to look out for next time.

Your speed is firstly artificially restricted by automated software at the cabinet (the green box in the road) at 27.4mbps. There's what's known as a bridge tap detected along with a line issue.

In addition, the estimated speed range for your line according to Openreach is between 35mbps to 51.4mbps, so just based on this your line's definitely under-performing below where we'd expect.

I'd recommend we arrange an Openreach engineer visit to investigate further. Could you reply to the support ticket I've logged on your account Here with when you'll be available?

If you can post back once you've responded, I'll make sure we book the engineer as soon as we can.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:55:36 GMT

Hi, huge thanks for digging into this. I’ve responded on the support thread.

Why would a tap be installed?

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Gandalf — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 22:42:27 GMT

No problem at all, I've booked the engineer visit and updated the support ticket with the appointment details.

A bridge tap is generally a wiring issue which could be internal or external.

In technical terms, they're what's known as "unterminated wires". Wikipedia could possibly explain it better than I can.

Let me know how the visit goes

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Mustrum — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 22:49:14 GMT

What has happened to the good old unplug everything and plug just the router into the test socket via a dangly filter before getting Openreach out? 😀

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Anoush — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 23:08:40 GMT

Ideally I agree we should ask that or arrange a Qube engineer (working on behalf of BT) to help, but more often than not I find the test socket doesn’t help resolve bridge tap issues, especially if star wiring is involved.

Based on that and other issues I’ve seen when testing the line, I figured an Openreach engineer should be able to resolve all the issues detected in one fell swoop, and if the faceplate’s faulty, they’ll replace it.

Also the issue may very well be external so another good reason for arranging an Openreach engineer.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Mustrum — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 23:37:09 GMT

Thanks @Anoush whilst I agree it will give a quicker end result, and good to see a common sense approach

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:09:34 GMT

I thought I’d exercise some due diligence and try this but no dice; same result.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Mustrum — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:37:20 GMT

You say that, but don't include any info - if using the PN router, sight of the Help Desk tab before and after will tell the story.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 08:15:32 GMT

I’ve attached them here, I did a speed test on each with no significant difference between the two. For reference there’s nothing else connected to the phone lines.

edit to images

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

jab1 — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 08:14:46 GMT

I see no attachments?

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 08:16:39 GMT

Re-added them. I needed to scrub details from there.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

LaurenB — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 10:38:02 GMT

Thanks for the update @RandomNameGener, let us know how the visit goes!

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 10:58:36 GMT

Will do - engineer booked for this afternoon (which is itself astonishing) so if there's a fix today that would be incredible.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

LaurenB — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:23:55 GMT

Fingers crossed for you! Hopefully they get this sorted for you.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Gandalf — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 19:45:29 GMT

@RandomNameGener

Looks like booking the engineer for the next day in this case was a little optimistic of me.

I can see you're likely already aware but due to engineer availability they had to re-arrange the appointment.

Keep us posted on how it goes

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 11:45:44 GMT

Hi, yup it’s been rescheduled to Monday. No issue though, ill come back to this thread with an update after the visit.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:08:22 GMT

First of all I want to say thank you to Gandalf and Anoush for jumping in to this issue, I don't think I've ever had service and support this swift from any utilities provider.

Engineer has just left and addressed one issue; my house had some additional phone jacks (more than I knew I had) that have been isolated with a filter. The jack that the hub is connected to has now been made into the main incoming, and the previous main incoming has been made redundant (which I'll have to remember when I come to try plug something in to it in a couple years).

Speed now has increased from 20-23 to 27-33 ish when I test it, and a hardwired (tested by the engineer) speed of 38.

An improvement for sure, however I'm not sure why this hasn't brought me up to the speed of every house that surrounds mine which are either stated at 35-50 or 46-64. Being the nerd that I am I tested every house that comes off the pole in my drive, as well as others that are connected to a subsequent pole (which I realise isn't the be all and end all) and except a single house, they're all at these higher speeds.

Can anything further be done to diagnose this?

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

Gandalf — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 14:55:24 GMT

Who's Anoush? There's just Gandalf here...

(We're actually the same person, my full name's in the signature at the bottom of my posts ‌‌ Don't worry, you're not the first person I've confused and I suspect you won't be the last. Let the confusion continue.)

I'm glad to see the engineer was able to improve your speed and I'm sorry it's still below what your neighbours are getting.

Testing your line's showing your speed's within Openreach's expectations for your line and the tests aren't finding any issues now. It'll ultimately be down to an engineer whether they're able to improve on this for you and as things are within expectations, they likely wouldn't investigate further so I don't feel arranging another engineer would help.

It's not always possible to provide all lines in an area the same sort of speed as there's a wide range of factors at play, for example the pair quality of each individual line within the cabling back from the cabinet (the green box in the road).

Having said that, I'd recommend keeping an eye on your connection and let me know so we can re-run what's known as RRT (an advanced type of testing) to see if it's picking up an issue. At the moment I can just see data going back to the 13th November using this tool so I suspect we'll get today's or tomorrow's data in a few days.

Re: Max broadband speed: mine (20) vs neighbour (50)

RandomNameGener — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 16:20:26 GMT

Thank you for looking into it further, really appreciate the help.

It's my renewal time now so I'll see what I can do. Thanks again!