topic Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be in Plusnet Feedback

You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 16:30:56 GMT

OK so putting my other problems with your current service to one side for a second, please be available for your business Customers when you say you're going to be available *as a minimum*.
Should I be cynical?

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

catelliott — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 17:09:58 GMT

Hi there,
I'm really sorry about this, our Business chat teams should be available until 17:30, this may be a system issue. Did you manage to get through to someone in the end?

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 17:37:31 GMT

No. Frankly this might just be the straw which breaks the camels back.
Can you outline my home & business account cancellation rights please (both are with you). We've today requested a house move with you but clearly I don't want that happen after recent performance issues at home and *the worst* experience with my work account.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

catelliott — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 17:46:34 GMT

Looking at the account, there would be early termination charges if you wished to leave, this is something that you are probably best discussing with our Business Customer Options team. They can be reached on 0800 013 2632 Monday - Friday 9:00am - 5:30pm.
Alternatively, our Business Support team is available until 8:00pm on 0800 028 0282 if you need help with another problem.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:34:23 GMT

Would this not apply though?
"4. What if you don't fix my problem?
If you have a speed problem within the first three months of your service and we cannot fix it we will waive all contractual obligations and allow you to leave us for free...."
We were pointed at BTW by PN (at the time of signup) which said, 14-16Mb. Now the line is active that has miraculously dropped to 6Mb. We're actually seeing <2Mb.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Townman — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 10:09:58 GMT

Hi YellowBarley,
What has thus far been done to investigate / rectify these issues? Other than internal wiring synch speed is entirely predicated on the quality of the BTOR supplied phone line between your premises and the exchange. If there is an issue with this, then it is highly likely that any fault will transfer with you if you change ISP at the same property. SYNCH speed is not something which the ISP has direct influence over.
Have the end user domain issues been eliminated? Internal phone extension wiring, changed filters etc.?
Is there any noise on the phone line? Dial 17070 option 2 using a corded phone in the master socket. Do this regularly - noise can be intermittent, which can also make it difficult to locate and fix. PlusNet business support can be very persistent in trying to work with BTOR / BTw to resolve such issues, but it can be like trying to push water uphill. I had an issue which ran over 6 months until finally I got a BTOR engineer committed to doing the job properly, after which the line performed well above expectations and those in the area.
Are you rural?
Are the speeds to which you refer SYNCH speed or DATA test speeds? If the latter is that over WiFi or wired?
A full set of diagnostic data (as per the speed issues link below) would be most useful.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 10:50:28 GMT

What has been done? Lots - the thread for the performance issue is here http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,138426.0.html
Essentially we're paying for 16Mb (as estimated at the time of sale), being delivered 3Mb and following a livechat today, I know now that PN plan to say this is acceptable. We've been downgraded to 40/2 in an attempt to resolve the speed but I've already been advised by a chap at PN called Nick Godbehere that we'll see that speed some time "never in a million years" so I'm not holding my breath.
Yes, we are rural but that hasn't changed since we started this process. As I see it the problem is that we're 2+ miles from our cabinet so should never have been sold fibre in the first place as it is completely unsuitable over this distance (again that is from Nick Godbehere). PN knew our location and the location of our cabinet when we placed our order but they wanted the sale and now they're saying that we're tied into a contract with them. I find that absolutely disgusting.
A few minutes ago I was cut-off mid chat with a business team member called Jamie and I'm absolutely ______ fuming. I asked where I could view my tickets in the Business Member centre (which Jamie had previously told me I could do) and the chat mysteriously ended.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:33:33 GMT

Hi @Townman, to more specifically answer your questions:

Quote from: Townman
SYNCH speed is not something which the ISP has direct influence over.

Is this the speed BTW tells us? That is currently 15.81Mbps with a profile of 16.49Mbps - I've attached a further diagnostics test to this post.

Quote from: Townman
Have the end user domain issues been eliminated? Internal phone extension wiring, changed filters etc.?

Our setup has moved from BT copper to Fibre. Everything else has remained the same and previously we were getting around 6Mb on the copper connection. We've tried three separate routers at this end and the problem is present in each of them. We can ping the routers at <1ms.

Quote from: Townman
Is there any noise on the phone line? Dial 17070 option 2 using a corded phone in the master socket. Do this regularly - noise can be intermittent, which can also make it difficult to locate and fix.

BTOR engineer who came to investigate why - since the PN install - we're now also having calls dropped on our other (BT) phoneline, tested both and said they pass the noise & quiet line tests "so everything is fine with those". Also, I don't have the hardware available to me to do a wired test of the phoneline.

Quote from: Townman
PlusNet business support can be very persistent in trying to work with BTOR / BTw to resolve such issues, but it can be like trying to push water uphill.

Thus far my experience (after the initial honeymoon 'let's do you proud' period) is much the same as riding a bycicle into a brick wall. Repeatedly.

Quote from: Townman
Are you rural?

We are, and herein lies the problem (I think). At 2+ miles from the cabinet which serves our premises fibre just isn't a suitable product for us. Of course you don't find *that* little nugget of information out until the contract is signed, monies are paid and the sales-spiel speeds become completely unrealistic.

Quote from: Townman
Are the speeds to which you refer SYNCH speed or DATA test speeds? If the latter is that over WiFi or wired?

I confestt I don't know the difference, although I *do* know my connection is always wired. As above, our BTW line profile is 16Mb. We're running a connection quality test over at ISP Geeks dot com which is backing up our real-world experience of things. That of a VERY slow connection.

Quote from: Townman
A full set of diagnostic data (as per the speed issues link below) would be most useful.

I think I've attached what you refer to but clearly, if not do let me know. I'm also updating the other thread with daily ping stats to try and keep this moving (otherwise all I'm getting from PN is silence at the moment) - todays make for grimly familiar reading. Although they're better than yesterdays.
Sorry for the long, multi-quote post - twas the only way I could think to remember everything.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Townman — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:54:36 GMT

Hi YellowBarley,
Given the figures you were quoting in the feedback thread I rather (foolishly?) presumed your were discussing ADSL - fibre is somewhat different!

Quote from: YellowBarley
Quote from: Townman
SYNCH speed is not something which the ISP has direct influence over.

Is this the speed BTW tells us? That is currently 15.81Mbps with a profile of 16.49Mbps - I've attached a further diagnostics test to this post.

That is a good question and possibly one to start clarifying matters for you. The "what you can get figures" always refers to LINE SYNCH speed, which is the raw speed at which ones and noughts are sent over the wires.
How much of that you can exploit into DATA speed is very much a matter of the quality of the line and the performance of the "end" equipment. The synch speed is entirely in the gift of BTOR and is nothing to do with any ISP product offer. At 2 miles, VDSL is working on the edge of viability - certainly "down grading" to the slower "up to" fibre product is good a good fiscal move. However the length and state of the BTOR wires connecting your premises to the cabinet will always be the limiting factor.
I know much more about ADSL than Fibre, but I believe the basic principles still apply...
The "Profile speed" is a fraction of the SYNCH speed and is the maximum rate at which PlusNet will try to send data so as to not "stress" the weakest part of the link. For ADSL this is 88.2% of the synch speed. That might imply that the line synch is around 18.7Mbps which is well aligned to the expectation which was set at the time of sale.

Quote from: YellowBarley
Essentially we're paying for 16Mb (as estimated at the time of sale)

The BTw speed test reports a down load speed of 15.81Mbps and is quite respectable for the line's profile, however the upload is rather poor by any measure.
Data Speed tests are a black art all of their own - the BTw speed report is a DATA download and up load test - it states that the download speed is within expectations, so one needs to explore the accuracy of the other tests you are running. Different tests run tests in less than obvious methods and not all of them are truly representative of real world use.
Have you run the Think Broadband Speed test? It is both single and multi threading and might point to something to be examined.
The upload speed and slow ping times are of concern and could be related. Down loaded data needs to be "acknowledged" so slow ack replies will impact the perceived performance of down load testing, which might explain why those particular data speed tests are so very different form the "same space" test results from BTw.
I would advise against jumping back to ADSL as you are never going to see 16Mbps+ SYNCH speed (as you have at the moment) over ADSL.. The focus needs to be on why you apparently are getting so little effective DATA speed out of a line hitting the expectations for SYNCH speed.
The dropping of phone calls is not good news - that needs fixing, even if it means that BTOR have to trace the d-side line and re-fix every joint - sometimes that is the only way of fixing intermittent issues.
Long story short...
Your LINE SYNCH speed appears to be right for your estimate (based on the BT reported profile)
The BTw DS DATA SPEED test is respectable for the reported profile
The BTw US DATA SPEED test rather points to an issue which needs investigating
The ping speeds are of some concern; they might be simply related to the US speed
There could be noise on the line - difficult to locate and fix by BTOR
There could be intermittent interference - REIN - even more difficult for BTOR to locate and they do not have a remit to fix
There could be issues with the speed test technology which reports 2Mbps DATA speeds, given the BTw results - do consider trying other test tools.
@CRT / others can cross talk affect US more than DS on VDSL?

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:40 GMT

I tried that test a few days ago and just got 100% packet loss. Turned off firewall, still 100% packet loss. I've just tried it again, same result.
FYI, we're using the connection quality test from ISPgeeks.com.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Jaggies — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 18:36:15 GMT

Hmm...
ISPgeeks.com is a US based site, so you're basing your perceived speeds on a round trip across the Atlantic, and possibly trans-continental as well, depending on which test site you choose. It also uses Java.
The test at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html is certainly worth trying, and you can paste the results like this:

(Obtained by selecting the "BB Code for Forums" option and pasting the text in here)

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 19:26:37 GMT

As before, when I try to run the TBB quality test, as stated above, I just get 100% packet loss. I'm not on site now so I can't try the speed test again.
However, at present our fibre broadband is unable to stream music and we're seeing ping results (to the BBC) which are both unacceptably slow - up to 900ms - *and* consistently highly variable. You can see these in the other thread mentioned above.
I'm afraid I just don't believe that we're seeing 15+Mb speed (which is what Ookla, BTW and most other speed tests return). I've got 6Mb ADSL at home and can quite happily stream HD movies to the chromecast with multiple devices connected both wired & wireless. Yet a supposedly faster service at work can't cope with one machine trying to stream music, or browse the Web (30sec page loads) or access email/remote database data.
I'm now getting nothing but silence from PN and a BT Openreach engineer said that as it all tests OK "there isn't a problem" and if any alleged problem is intermittent they'll never find it - this is unbelievably frustrating.
Particularly as this is my business account and PN come across as though they really, really couldn't care less.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Jaggies — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:55:35 GMT

I'm certainly not making excuses for PN, but it's very odd that you can't get the TBB Speedtest to work. Can you get to any part of the site?
Perhaps try a download from http://www.thinkbroadband.com/download/?

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

scrookes — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 20:55:27 GMT

@YellowBarley
Please drop me a PM with your ticket ref or username. I am keen to investigate your connection issues further, and work within the escalation s team at Plusnet Business.
At the very least, I can raise this to BT Wholesale Managers and see if there is anything we can do to help.
I will also discuss this with our Business Manager tomorrow.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 21:11:46 GMT

@Jaggies, I can do the speed test: it typically returns 14-16Mb, although this morning this was down to 9Mb.
What I can't run is the broadband quality monitor, with security on or off it just returns 100% packet loss.
@Scrookes, you'll notice there is still no response to my ticket or other thread - I have sent you a PM with the information you asked for.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Jaggies — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 06:05:06 GMT

I see. So it looks like your router does not respond to pings - which make/model are you using?

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Townman — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:54:29 GMT

Quote from: YellowBarley
What I can't run is the broadband quality monitor, with security on or off it just returns 100% packet loss.

Ah - clarity! If its the "new" 2704n router it (rather unfortunately) does not support ping response on the WAN. A bit of a hole shot in own foot (by PN) in respect of congestion diagnostics.
I'd stick with the consistency of the majority of speed test results - if they say 15Mbps, then that is what you are getting.
As for streaming lags, then may be there is exchange congestion - something you cannot assess with a router which does not allow inbound ping response, though as I stated before a slow US is not overly helpful. Hopefully Steve can get an angle grinder on that.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 21:50:24 GMT

Long story, short: we're going back to ADSL 2+.
scrookes and I had a long discussion today. He doesn't think fibre is viable to our premises over a 2.5km line length. He also said any further diagnosis will serve only to confirm the situation rather than reveal solutions.
Apparently the root of our problem, as others have stated, is twofold: line length and upstream performance. We're maxing it out each and every day right through until 5am. This is causing the unusable downstream performance.
However, our usage hasn't changed in the time we've been using fibre. So I sincerely hope the further downgrade to ADSL improves things. Our ADSL will be 'uncapped' - which I believe opens up a possible performance gain both up & down.
Thankfully we have an un-utilised phone line to which this can be provisioned, otherwise we'd be looking at likely downtime on top of everything else.
We may then look to go for 2x ADSL connections in an attempt to get the performance we were sold (but which doesn't appear deliverable in one connection) by Plusnet.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

Townman — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 16:02:33 GMT

...or by any ISP on those long BTOR phone lines.
If you want to load balance across two lines, you'll need a completely different set of kit - ADSL modems plus a load balancing router in place of the PlusNET router / modems.

Re: You should at least be available when you say you're going to be

YellowBarley — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 07:22:36 GMT

Yes of course @Townman my phrasing could have been better - *no one* can deliver fibre at acceptable speed to our property.
Having said that it was a service PN were happy to sell us all the same and whether they should have is debatable. It's wasted a lot of time all round and left us trying to operate a business with a vastly substandard connection for 7 weeks (so far). A simple check at the time of sale would have prevented all that, but also lost them a fibre sale. To PN's credit they did do that once I highlighted the problem and complained but it's all a bit reactionary and takes *so long* to sort out.
My understanding is that we'll be supplied with the required modems as part of the new ADSL install/s and I had a chat with our tech guy last week who advised we already own (but aren't using) a dual WAN router which should do the trick.

topic Re: You should *at least* be available when you say you're going to be in Plusnet Feedback

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