Intermittent / poor quality broadband connection

[#1]

I'm having ongoing issues with an intermittent broadband connection and don't seem to be able to create a ticket with Plusnet online, so am logging it here in the hope someone will be able to help.

The broadband connection drops frequently - 4 or 5 times an hour this afternoon. It's most noticeable when steaming video, but affects Internet browsing both through wired and wireless connections.

I had a ticket open for about 4 months about this during which the line profile was changed, multiple changes were made to the SNR, a "battery connection" fault on the line was repaired, a new router was provided, an engineer visit took place and finally some more changes were made to fix the downstream SNR at a certain rate. This ticket was closed a couple of months ago when it seemed OK for a short period and I just started to accept the regular drop outs.

Today I've competed a quiet line test which sounded fine and restarted the router, but the connection is still unusable.

Please could someone (anyone!) help with sorting this out. I've had 5 different ISP's provide services on this line, all without issue.

Thanks,

Tom

[#2]

Forgot to add - the router is plugged directly in to the master socket which has an integrated faceplate (Openreach NTE5C), along with a telephone. There are no extension sockets.

[#3]

Hi @inky ,

I've had a look into your line and can see your connections is actually quite stable, as the below graph indicates:

This would indicate that your issue stems from the wireless connectivity in which case please follow the below:

The guide below will show you how to log into the router and change the wireless channel as it's usually another router in the area on the same or similar channel that will be causing issues for both wireless frequencies. Before picking a channel I'd suggest downloading a free app called wifi analyzer which will scan your area for all the routers and show what channels they are on between 1-13. Although the above app isn't essential it helps you pick where your router would be best in terms of channels and saves a lot of time doing it via trial and error.

1) To connect to your Hub One, you will need to open a browser and go to 192.168.1.254 If you have any issues doing this via Wireless, we recommend trying to do it via Ethernet cable instead.

2) You should come to a page with information about your connection, click 'Advanced Settings' at the top and it will ask you to sign in with a Password. This is located on the back of your router under 'Admin Password'

3) Select the option for 'Wireless' followed by '5 GHz Wireless'. What we want to do to begin with is turn 'Sync with 2.4 GHz Wireless' to 'Off' and update the SSID to be different. The easiest way would be to add '-5G' to the end so it is identified as its own connection. Once this is changed, we will need to keep an eye on it for a day or 2 to see if the issue continues. If it does, the next step would be to change the wireless channel. Keeping in mind the original 2.4Ghz unchanged name network connection would be the best to connect your devices to for a stronger signal.

4) Following the above guide to get to your 'Advanced Settings' page, you will need to change the settings within the 2.4 GHz Wireless tab and the 5 GHz Wireless tab.

5) Under the correct heading, you will need to find 'Channel Selection' on the list and change this from 'Automatic' to any one of the other channels, This can also need doing under '5 GHz Wireless' to cover both signals. Give it 3-4 hours of testing to see if the issue still persists and try to change the channel again if you see little or no improvement.
 

If you're still experiencing issues after these tweaks, please let us know.

[#4]

Hi,

Thanks for the response, but as stated, the issue occurs consistently via wired connections. As such I'm not sure how changing the wireless frequency will improve the situation.

Please could this be reviewed alongside the considerable amount of diagnostic information that is available in the support ticket which is was created for this issue around the April this year.

Thanks,

Tom

[#5]

Sorry to hear you're having issues Tom.

You can raise a fault to us online still at http://faults.plus.net

While broadband tests are finding no issues with absolutely no errors on the line as shown by the MTBE at 86400 seconds, which shows how often your line errors in a 24 hour period, line tests are detecting a "Battery Contact" fault again.

I've reported this through to our suppliers and we'll update you when we know more.

The diagnostics I've run can be found below:

xDSL Status Test Summary
Sync Status:		Circuit In Sync
General Information
NTE Status:		NTE Power Status:	PowerOn	Bypass Status:

	Upstream DSL Link Information	Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss:	10.3	18.5
SNR Margin:	17.0	6.1
Errored Seconds:	0	0
HEC Errors:	0
Cell Count:	1842916	20894402
Speed:	888	20744

Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS):	20416	Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS):	16333
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds):	86400	Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds):	86400
Indicative Line Quality:	G	Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds):	86400

[#6]

Many thanks for the detailed response @Gandalf - I'll await a further update once the line issue has been investigated by your supplier.

[#7]

So the battery contact fault was fixed and things were fine for a day or so, then the same service interruptions started again. I updated the support ticket I have open on Tuesday evening but still haven't had a response - does it usually take this long to respond to support tickets?

If any of the helpful staff here can assist it would be most appreciated!

[#8]

Sorry that the problems are back and for the delayed response to your ticket. We'd aim to reply to a fault ticket within 72 hours, but i'm disappointed to see it's been much longer than that for you. Ultimately it'd be due to resourcing, we're working on ways to improve our response times.

Moving on to the issue at hand, line tests aren't showing any causes for the drops you've had, so I'd recommend reporting a fault to us at http://faults.plus.net letting us know over here when you've completed it so we can pass this on to our suppliers as a broadband fault for further investigation.