topic Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed in Plusnet Feedback

Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

r8bwp — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:41:39 GMT

My story begins last year when i upgraded to Plusnet fibre unlimited, receiving 68-73mb, all smiles and praises for plusnet on every social site, posting the speedtests as proof...I was happy and I thought i should shout the praise of Plusnet.
Unfortunately a random fault appeared on my line and an BT engineer was sent out, he discovered a fault on the external wiring and fixed it(A connection box had corroded and when damp created loopbacks). However my speed mysteriously dropped to 64mb and then 54mb. Over the next 3 months i queried the drop with plusnet and another bt engineer was sent out (2 missed appointments by BT)i was told it was down to BT as originally the line test stated 60mb and that basically plusnet couldn`t do anything about it. Over the following 9 months this speed dropped to a max of 54mb. The last few months lost connections and low speed (highest and Lowest 54- 7mb)
I recently received an email saying my line rental was going up, it was time I revisited the contract with plusnet. After speaking to a gentleman a new contract was proposed I rarely make instant decisions and asked for him to call back in a week, this was agreed. At this point I thought i`d mention about the speed and dropouts I was getting, I was passed to the technical line he asked me to run some tests which confirmed the dropouts and speed fluctuations,he asked me to do a direct connection for 24hrs bypassing the modem and to call with the results the following day.
The next day i phoned to say that I hadn`t had a dropout he said send out a new router he also said that he would run some tests but both tests would`t work, he`d pass it onto the engineers and I`d get a call back 3 days later with the results....No Call Back. 3 days later i decide to phone again, I told the lady I had not received either a call back from the salesperson or from technical, she apologized and i repeated my story again....she Booked an appointment for a bt engineer for the next day.....The engineer arrived and I explained my situation to him and he checked the line using his laptop and cables and could not find a fault, he even phoned the wholesaler to see if my line was capped by them and was told "no cap the line is 80/20mb with a sync of "70mb" but for the life of him he could not get the speed past 54mb. In the end he said it seems you have been capped by your isp and that he will be reporting this back to Plus-net. The engineer told me they should receive the report in 1 hour, two hours later i told customer services at plus-net what the engineer said.they changed my line speed to from 56 to70 and after a power down and on with the router and bt box my internet speed has gone up to approx 65mb(increase of 11mb). I asked him to log a complaint about being capped/or not capped depending on what you might call it and why a bt engineer was necessary.
As I write this just checked my connection line speed via my account and the line speed has already been changed to 67.8 from 70 and phoned the support to find out why within 2 hours it has changed(will it change further? :-\)....9/9/14 7.30pm approx I was told that plus-net gets updates from bt and software changes the settings automatically... even though it had been changed manually 2 hrs ago. he also stated that the line was within the 25% so an engineer wasn't necessary(do i need one as ive just had one hours ago) that bt has oversold the cabinets line interference..that there are faults on my line and plus-net don't cap purposely (guess that's what the software is for...blame that) that he wasn't sure why i was phoning and that i was lucky to be getting 54mb and some customers don`t even get that to which i explained that i am in the cool off period for a new contract hence the reason for the bt engineer today(I was trying to decide whether i needed the super fast speed of an extra 16mb) I now understand that even though a manual change of my line speed can be done it can be changed automatically with the monitoring software.After all of those suggestions and feeling very lucky about my 54mb download speed i ended the call.
I have been told that if i move down to the 40mb speed as my line has no problem getting 56 i should get between 38-40mb........is that 14mb(25mb at the moment) increase worth double the cost when the software automatically downgrades my line.
I`m sorry if it is a bit messy the writing but i`m as confused as when i first started writing this
The truth of the matter is in there somewhere.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

AndyH — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 07:26:02 GMT

Can you run http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ and then the Further Diagnostics and post your downstream IP Profile? What's your current line speed here https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed ?

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

picbits — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:01:36 GMT

When I first signed up around 20 months ago, my estimated speed was around 50Mb. Initially I got 73Mb but this has since dropped to a pretty steady 56Mb (still slightly ahead of estimate).
I know quite a few neighbours have joined up on FTTC and the issue of crosstalk was always going to be present but I'm still happy with my speed. It certainly beats next doors TalkTalk offering which is around half of what I am getting.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

Townman — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 18:05:41 GMT

Quote from: r8bwp
...when the software automatically downgrades my line.

Just to be clear, the PlusNet systems are simply applying a revised line profile AS INSTRUCTED BY BTOR SYSTEMS to do so.
Regardless of what the BTOR engineers and BT Wholesale have advised you, if it is PlusNet systems which are "capping" your line, then it is only because the BTOR owned and managed DLM has told the PN systems to do so.
Cross talk is a major issue for FTTC, it arises from poor quality BTOR wiring and has a very detrimental impact on synch speeds. Note it is one thing to get a high raw synch speed, it is something else to get such a synch speed which is error free. The DLM acts to deliver an error free service.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

ejs — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 18:37:31 GMT

I think crosstalk is more of a fundamental limitation of the technology, which is trying to transfer far more data over the telephone wires than they were ever intended for. Crosstalk might be worse with poor quality wiring, but they'd still be crosstalk once a lot of people get connected to the cabinet, all with perfectly adequate quality telephone cabling.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

chrcoluk — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:56:28 GMT

vectoring will bring consistency in that it aims to remove the bulk of crosstalk. Then the only variables should be if assuming no faults down to the quality of the cable as sadly that is not consistent on openreach's local loop. e.g. the last 40m to my property is ali. 40m should be dirt cheap to replace but they wont spend unless they absolutely need to.
The problem is openreach appear to have no motivation to rollout vectoring, they are just conducting very low volume slow testing, and I believe they have done no testing at all yet on ECI equipment.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

AndyH — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 20:03:34 GMT

They have tested ECI kit.
The purpose of the trial is to:
1) Do a cost/benefit analysis
2) Develop the best vectoring engine for the Openreach network
3) Find any potential issues

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

chrcoluk — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 22:49:23 GMT

source of info andyh? you seem to know a lot for just a typical end user 😛

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

AndyH — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 03:39:12 GMT

I ask lots of people questions.
I am pretty sure Dave confirmed the ECI kit bit on the vectoring thread.

Re: Plus Net fibre Unlimited: Search for the lost superspeed

chrcoluk — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 10:05:52 GMT

I think I remember him saying it will be part of the rollout or something along those lines but didnt confirm it had been tested, but maybe I remember wrong.