Poor ADSL service after cabinet upgrade to FTTC, is that possible?

[#1]

Our cabinet went live for upgrades a couple of weeks ago and we have ordered an upgrade, apparently this can't go live until 8th Jan (not what we were told when we ordered). Our problem is the performance of our current ADSL line seems to have got worse (We were lucky to get 1MB most of the time). Is it possible that the work to upgrade the cabinet could have had an impact on the old copper line?

As further background our original cabinet was too far from the village to offer decent VDSL speeds, this meant moving the cabinet and a 2 year delay. I am assuming this means all of the old copper connections had to be re- terminated in this new cabinet.

I am not at home so can't run a speed test or look at router stats, I am just getting complaints from the family.

[#2]

Sorry to hear you're having issues with your speeds.

Our tests are showing what's known as a high resistance fault which will most likely be the cause.

Are you able to carry out the steps shown here and let us know how you get on?

[#3]

I went through all of this a few weeks ago when it just would not sync at all. I swapped the face plate all cables and router with known good ones and tried all of my components on a known good line next door. I logged a fault but the line reconnected after a day or so so I closed the call.

It has always been very poor. I am there today so will try a speed test. Anything else I can try? I have the new one hub but someone tried that for me and said it would not sync

[#4]

I note that the fault finding guide does not mention using the Test Socket, that's the one you access if you take the front off the Master Socket. Have you tried it with a filter plugged directly in to this?

@MatthewWheeler do you think this should be added into the guide?

[#5]

Hi, I did not have a filter to had as both houses have the integrated filter in the master socket. What I did do was take the face plate which includes the filter off in both houses and swapped them around. So in the property that gets 2MB I have tried both routers, both face plates and both cables. I tried them all the other way around where I get just 800mb and no matter what combination I got poor speed.

The only component I can't eliminate is the back plate of the master socket.

[#6]

Does your comment 'I tried them all the other way around where I get just 800mb and no matter what combination I got poor speed.' mean that you have tried all filtered faceplates and routers in your property? Have you also done this test in the other property and confirmed that you can get full speed using your faceplate and router?

Have you got any extension wiring connected into the removeable filter. The purpose of using the separate filter is to eliminate all extension wiring. You should have been given at least one with the router presumably given to you by Plusnet when you originally signed up.

The back plate is the responsibility of Openreach so if the problem is with that then they are responsible for fixing it. If your router and faceplate work in the other property but not in yours, providing that you have no extension wires connected to it then I would say that the tests you have done indicates that the fault is somewhere on the Openreach side so all you can do is report a fault, keep chasing it and wait for Openreach to do their stuff.

[#7]

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

[#8]

Hi,

There is no extension wiring as we don't use the phone line. I don't have any micro filters at the property unless one came with the new hub one which I have not opened. Unfortunately I am now 150 miles away so can't do any other tests. 

[#9]

I am not at the property and there are no phone handsets there. I did plug one in earlier in the week and there was a clear dial tone with no noise. I did not perform the silence test you refer to.

[#10]

You're not alone. We had a cabinet upgrade (actually a new cabinet closer to the village) which went live on 11 Dec, and I immediately applied for a change to VDSL. Despite an initial date of 19 Dec that has now slipped to 3 Jan - and counting!.

However, in the meantime my ADSL connection is all over the shop, with download speeds between 0.6 and 4.6 mbps, even though the upload speed is extremely stable at 0.85mbps - and at times no download speed at all but still able to upload. SNR margin has been equally strange - one minute 1.5 db, the next 10.8 db

Plusnet tech have been very helpful, twice resetting the line and restoring the speed, but I'm concerned there may be a fault with the cabinet, as our neighbours are experiencing something similar. As yet no one has been upgraded to VDSL so have no idea as to how successful that is going to be. It doesn't help that the cabinet has been placed in a very strange position; right at the side of a main road (the A41) with a lot of HGV traffic thundering past at 60+mph, and in the middle of nowhere with no protection (we're a rural community), and even a power supply had to be dug to it, entailing two weeks of road works!

My only question is how could we confirm/deny a cabinet fault, and what happens when we (eventually) upgrade. Whatever, I expect a long wait now till after the holidays and Openreach re-appear.

PS Phone line fine, no noise on quiet line test - my first thought so first check.

[#11]

@Shackman205

The wildly varying SNR is indicating that there is either an intermittent connection or interference getting into your line. Have you tried a quiet line test by dialling 17070 and selecting option 2 using a wired phone during a period when the SNR is 1.5dB? If this is noisy report a phone not broadband fault.

[#12]

@MVB

Testing your line is still showing a high resistance fault. To progress this, we'll need to arrange an engineer visit.

I'll respond to your fault ticket soon.

[#13]

I'm sorry - I should have replied to this earlier. Finally changed over to VDSL and (almost) all is wonderful!

[#14]

Glad to hear it!