New Fibre install went from good to bad

[#1]

Hi all
Im a new plusnet customer, Had my plusnet fibre installed yesterday and straight away I was really impressed with my 70mb down 16mb up but today after running a speed check my downstream is now only 18mb! My upload has stayed the same at around the 16mb mark. My billion router is showing the current connection as being up for over 24hrs now so there doesn't appear to have been a re sync.
Just curious to know why my download speed would have dropped so much in under 24 hrs?
Hope someone may be able to advise
Thnks
Liam

[#2]

How were you connected to the router when you ran the check, wired or wireless?

[#3]

Hi Jelv
I only ever use wired connections mate, just ran another speed test and got 55mb down and 17mb up. I checked on the bt speed test as well and went through the diagnostic test which showed that I was on the 77mb down IP profile and the 20mb up profile
Thanks for your kind response as well much appreciated. One thing I would like to add is just how good PlusNet customer service is! From the day I ordered to the install day I have had text after text and lots of emails keeping me in the loop of what is going on, the service so far has been 1st class

[#4]

It's possible you're just suffering from a congested gateway  which can have detrimental effects at peak times.
You can see what gateway you are connected to by going to the Usertools Gateway Checker and check how many customers are on it here.
If you are on one of the busy gateways,  disconnecting and reconnecting (via the router interface) should result in a change to a new gateway.

[#5]

I've had a couple of slowdowns in the past which have been cured by disonnecting the router from the modem (through the web interface) and reconnecting 30 seconds later.
Sometimes at peak times my connection will slow from 72Mb/s to 50-60Mb/s but this is quite rare.

[#6]

Thanks so much for that mate, I am on gateway ptw-ag01 which was showing at around 36k. If I was to disconnect via the router interface and reconnect wold that be deemed as a disconnection though and cause the exchange to think there could be a fault and lower my throughput? The reason I ask is that this is only day 2 for me with my plusnet fibre package and I wasn't sure if there was a DLM period which looked for disconnects? My router has disconnected as of yet and is showing 28hrs up time
Picbits - Thanks for that mate, when you say disconnect from the modem via the web interface do you mean just log into the router page and disconnect that way rather than just powering it off? Im not using the plusnet supplied router im using my Billion 7800n router, I take it there is now way to actually log into the modem? and even see some line stats to see what is going on as the only way I can find out my speed is via speed testers which is kinda frustrating

[#7]

If you disconnect via the routers interface,  it won't cause any DLM issues as the system knows you've disconnected. DLM is only interested in unexpected disconnects and  their frequency.
Occasional reboots of the router and modem shouldn't causes issues though, but it's preferable to play nice! 
The BT modems are locked down  (some makes can be hacked) so line stats are not available to us mortals...   

[#8]

As stated above - the router disconnect is the proper way to do it.
I have however gained a large speed increase by a modem reboot (65Mb to 72Mb) previously when I had no other option than to cycle power.
When I first got my installation I went through four different routers in the first two hours  testing which performed best with the modem. I didn't notice and slow downs although I was cautious to leave it well alone one it was all up and running

[#9]

Quote from: craney

If I was to disconnect via the router interface and reconnect wold that be deemed as a disconnection though and cause the exchange to think there could be a fault and lower my throughput?

No. The connection is a two levels, firstly the modem syncs with the exchange, then the router establishes a PPP session with the Plusnet gateways. When you drop the connection via the router it is only the PPP session that is dropped, the modem stays in sync. It is only loss of sync that could be interpreted as a fault and possibly result in lower speeds.

[#10]

I slowed dramatically the other night from 43 down to 10-12 down. I did a soft reboot, now on pcl=ag02, & my speed immediately returned to normal.
Thanks "kmilburn" for the tip about checking the # of users on gateways.

[#11]

Thanks so much for all the info guys  my speed seems to have gone back up to 72mb down again this morning without the need for a disconnect or reboot which was good. I take it there is no way to disconnect the modem without doing a power cycle on it as there is no web interface?
Thanks again all for your kind help
Liam

[#12]

Indeed - to power off the modem you have to kill the power.
I normally wait at least a few minutes with the power off to it so the exchange gets the hint that it's a proper disconnect rather than a sudden line drop but I could be being overcautious.
It sounds like you might have either had a congested exchange or congested gateway - to be honest with you, I rarely need over 20Mb/s myself and only really use the full bandwidth when I'm downloading Linux image files or doing Linux updates.