Line fault still not fixed after 3 months - is this normal for Plusnet?

[#1]

@Flummoxed 

A few thoughts:

1. Be aware that Plusnet routers come with a 12 monrh guarantee. Whilst they may give you one, especially if you agree to recontract, it's not really their responsibility if you are outside of that window.

2. I assume that being on ADSL that you have a Hub Zero router. These suffer badly from buffer bloat so make sure that no user is uploading when you are doing a speed test.

3. You are a long way from your exchange. Is there a closer fibre cabinet? If so an upgrade to fibre might solve your problem.

4. Do not buy a replacement Hub Zero from Plusnet if it's suggested. There are far better and cheaper alternatives.

5. If push comes to shove, using mobile broadband is no longer that expensive an option, especially if you can manage without a landline for telephone calls.

[#2]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Baldrick.

1. Point taken about the router being my responsibility. I have just renewed my broadband contract, but didn't get a new router, so I expect this one is over a year old. The previous Plusnet one did pack up, but it failed completely, whereas this one always shows a full set of green lights and the first mention I heard that it may be faulty was from the most recent (3rd) engineer. I don't actually think it is, because each time the SNR has been reset on the line, it works fine.

2. Yes it is a Hub Zero router. Since the last engineer's visit, whenever I do a speed test, I have made sure nothing else is using the internet - either wired or wifi. Just my PC is connected via ethernet cable to the router, which is plugged directly into the master socket.

3. The nearest cabinet is a couple of hundred metres away, but it does not have fibre. Our only accessible fibre has recently been laid in the road outside by Gigaclear. Their cheapest package is £35/month plus £120 activation fee, which is much more than I would want to pay.

4. Perhaps I should just buy a new router, which would at least mean I could verify whether that is the problem and then have a spare if it is not. Do you have any recommendations? I would need one with 4 ethernet ports.

5. Interesting point about mobile broadband. We don't really use the landline, but I suppose having three kids in the family means we would need 5 separate contracts, which sounds expensive at todays rates.

[#3]

I just had a reply from Plusnet:-

"I have tested your line since work has been completed on it. I can see that it is stable and the speed is operating within expected limits for the length of your line. I therefore conclude that this matter is resolved. However the fault ticket will remain open for 14 days allowing you to monitor the service."

I am no expert, but looking at the attached data, it seems that in 5 days the SNR has gone back up to 17.1 after being reset to 9. The speed has been steadily dropping since last Tuesday and got even slower today - now averaging less than 2.5. I think the Plusnet data shows the downstream speed at 3.185 earlier today, which is clearly not 'operating within expected limits' when previous data shows speeds of 6.887. Furthermore, I believe the reason the SNR keeps rising is due to line errors and today's data shows downstream errors occurring every 1057 seconds, whereas previously they were only occurring every 7700 seconds.

Does anyone understand the data below?

Telephone NO.:

NA

Test Executed On:

10-11-2019 12:33:06

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

	Upstream DSL Link Information	Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss:	32.3	54.0
SNR Margin:	9.4	17.1
Errored Seconds:	0	0
HEC Errors:	0
Cell Count:	11147	145641
Speed:	879	3185

Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS):	6816	Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS):	5452
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds):	84572	Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds):	42286
Indicative Line Quality:	G	Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds):	1057
Custom Thresholds
MTBR_RED:	MTBE_RED:
MTBR_GREEN:	MTBE_GREEN:

[#4]

@Flummoxed 

In reply to your earlier post.

If you want to try a different router then get a BT Smarthub 6. These can be picked up for less than £20 on auction sites such as EBay. They work on both ADSL and VDSL, are dual channel and far superior to the Hub Zero. To be honest I doubt it will fix your problem but you never can be sure. Setting instructions are here  https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Using-the-BT-Smarthub-6-on-a-Plusnet-Account/m-p/1587673#M85...

Whilst there is no doubt that your SNR is increasing leading to loss of speed that doesn’t necessarily prove that you have a physical fault. It could be caused by electrical interference getting onto your telephone lines. This could be a nightmare to find.and may take specialist BT skills to run to earth. If you are not getting your guaranteed minimum speed you have the choice of keeping complaining or ask Plusnet to release you from your contract penalty free. The problem if you do that is where do you go? All ISPs use the same BT infrastructure for ADSL.

If you wanted to go the mobile data route there are ways of using a single SIM for the whole family. The best solution is to get a MiFi (not WiFi) router. I keep a Huawei E5577 for holidays etc. With a mobile data.SIM this behaves just like a conventional broadband router only uses the mobile network rather than telephone wires to connect to the outside world. The cost of running such a set up depends on how much data you use. This can be an issue with children, especially if they can get a faster connection.

I fear that in reality you are stuck between either paying more or keeping plugging away at Plusnet to get some specialist Openreach resources onto your problem.

[#5]

@Flummoxed 

A correction to my last post. All ISPs use the BT cabling between your property and the exchange. However some ISPs put their own equipment in the larger local exchanges and take over the line from there on ADSL services. This is called Local Loop Unbundling or LLU. To see if this is available to you put your phone number in here. https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

Whether this would help  is debatable.

[#6]

Thanks again, Baldrick.

I have just bought the router you suggested and it should arrive within 2 days, so I will post an update once it is up and running. It would be great if that fixes the issue, but realistically I don't see that as being the problem, because it doesn't seem to tie in with the sequence of deteriation of line speed.

Most times when the line is reset, it appears to reliably give download speeds in excess of 5Mb. Afterwards, the speed starts to gradually reduce as the SNR rises again. By yesterday afternoon, we were down to about 2.8Mb. Actually, this morning we seem to be averaging slightly above that at around 3.1Mb - perhaps the figures are skewed a little due to heavier demand on the network over the weekend?

In any case, I find it astonishing that Plusnet replied to my last message, saying as far as they were concerned, the matter has been resolved, when in the same message they post figures which clearly show it hasn't!

I know I have a right to leave, but the whole point of me chasing this along for so many months is to get it SOLVED!

[#7]

Re your last post about ISPs,  Baldrick. The last engineer explained that although the wiring is maintained by Openreach, the actual equipment at the exchange (and possibly in the cabinet?) is the responsibility of the ISP and he could not do any testing or work on that equipment. Apparently, this has to be done by Plusnet, so unless anyone suggests otherwise, that is the next thing I will be trying to get actioned. At this rate, I might have to physically go to the exchange and do it myself!

I am aware that TalkTalk use LLU and also that this can sometimes provide a faster service (due to the way data is handled?). In fact, we did used to have BB via TalkTalk and I think we were getting about 8Mb back then.

[#8]

@Flummoxed 

I bet that the claim that equipment in the exchange is the responsibility of Plusnet to maintain will come as big a surprise to Plusnet as it does to me! What a load of rubbish!

Plusnet is not an LLU operator and uses the bog standard BT infrastructure.

It just demonstates the skills and knowledge of these poorly trained technicians who like to call themselves Engineers!

[#9]

Thanks for your post @Flummoxed & also to @Baldrick1 for your support with this issue.

I'm in agreement with @Baldrick1 that our best option is going to be to again progress to an SFI visit, to hopefully locate and resolve the issue once and for all.

Due to this, I've just updated the ongoing fault ticket, accessible here.

Please let us know here once you've responded and we'll get onto it ASAP for you.

[#10]

Thank you Oscar Papa. I have just spoken with a very helpful guy in the faults team, who actually told me what speeds were logged at the times when I had done speed tests that came in below 2Mb. It seems that while I was seeing these dismal speeds, my router was actually getting well in excess of 3Mb. Granted, the disconnects and dips are continuing, so an SFI visit is probably inevitable, but I am happy to wait now until after the new router is installed, which apparently has its own speed test facility.

[#11]

That's no trouble at all @Flummoxed.

If it does indeed need to be progressed, please do let me know.

Aside from that, have a great evening.

[#12]

@Flummoxed 

The Smarthub used to have a link to the BTw speedtester built in but the latest version requires you to log into your BT account first. So that's become a none starter..

It's not a problem as you can still get access to this tester through your browswe.

[#13]

Ok, so the BT Homehub 6 has been up and running for almost 5 days now. When I check the 'status' page on 192.168......., it has been showing an almost constant 6.27 downstream sync speed. Generally, when I do a 'speed test' from this PC on the web, the results come in at around 5.3. However, this figure varies wildly and the much slower speeds are still evident. We had another complete outage 4 days ago, so the problem is still there, according to internet speed tests from my PC.

For example; a few minutes ago, my PC could not load a web page, let alone perform a speed test. This is with just myself and 1 daughter are at home. The others have gone out with their phones and there are no other connected devices switched on in the house, yet neither my daughter or I could get an internet connection on our phones, even though the wifi signal was fine. Even after shutting our phones down completely, my PC could still not connect to the internet (the blue light on the router suggested it was still connected and the 192.... page was still showing the same 6.27).

Ten minutes later and everything is working again. I'm afraid I have no idea what this means, except that the 'downstream sync speed' bears no relation to what we actually see at this end. Also, surely this shows it is not a router problem?

[#14]

Thanks for getting back to us @Flummoxed 

Looking back, the SNRM seems to have settled down to 9dB since the 10th November and your router is getting a line speed of 6.2mbps as you've said with no drops for the past 5 days.

If your throughput is fluctuating, I'd recommend replying to your fault ticket 192879595 with when you'd be free for another engineer visit giving us around 2 to 3 working days notice and posting back afterwards so we can get this escalated with our suppliers escalation team and they'll email the field operations manager again.

[#15]

After monitoring our connection for the last few days, it seems that the changing the router has had little effect. Just now, I had a recurrence of the 'can't connect right now' and timeouts when trying to download web pages. The router light stayed blue and it's 'status' page showed a stable sync speed of 6.35 throughout (although that page does show the uptime as only 12 hours).

Can anyone explain a scenario that could cause this?

In the meantime, I can't be here to see another engineer for the next couple of weeks, so will see what happens.