Speed drop after moving to Plusnet from Sky

[#1]

That sounds about par for the course, but why didn't you provide comment on that here in this thread back at the time. If your issue had been handled here with one of the CRT guys, then things may have been resolved and quicker. As it is now you are moving there is nothing else that can be done.
But just FYI there is another user on here who has a similar attenuation line and currently syncs at 3.3/3.4Mbps although they do suffer occasional drops in connection.
Good luck with Sky., don't forget to post back your stats when connected with Sky., it'll be interesting to see the differences.

[#2]

You're right, the 2Wire DOES have a good reputation for long lines, although I was always under the impression that was more of a case of being able to sync AT ALL on extremely long lines, rather than maximizing speed. Personally I've never seen anything sync higher than the DG834v4, and if you can live without Wireless-N it's still better than the Sky Hub SR102, which is what you'll be getting if you migrate to them anyway.
One thing which I find quite curious is your output power... I've seen it lowered before on long lines to minimize crosstalk, usually on older copper/untwisted overheads, but I can't help but wonder if bumping that back up to 19dBm might help you significantly. It's worth giving them one last call just in case it makes the difference, I'd say.
If you have any old stats from Sky, I'd wager that your downstream output power is higher than it is currently.
EDIT: If you do go through with the move, I'd be interested to see the results as well, if only out of a sense of morbid curiosity as to whether or not Sky's DSLAMs really do work for anyone.

[#3]

Quote from: mdc

Personally I've never seen anything sync higher than the DG834v4..........

There'll be a lot of people who will tell you that historically the 2700HGV has done the best job on their very long lines.

Quote from: mdc

One thing which I find quite curious is your output power... I've seen it lowered before on long lines to minimize crosstalk

It's not been lowered, it's simply a matter of attenuation, it's what you modem says its seeing so reporting it as transmitted power.
I think you are thinking of very short lines.

[#4]

Well, that too (DPBO), but I've seen (in an extreme case) 13-14dBm DOWNSTREAM output power on a ~50dB line, which is an even lower effective rating at the modem than tony's.

[#5]

I thought the downstream output power figure as reported in modem/router stats must be a number sent from the DSLAM. Your modem/router can measure the strength of the signal it receives, but it's not going to know the strength of the signal at the start when it was sent down the line from the other end. To calculate the attenuation, it needs to know the strength of the signal received at its end and the strength of the signal that was transmitted from the other end.

[#6]

As we should know, what modem/routers actually report is totally dependant on it's firmware, and in addition, if it's gone faulty or there are errors in the formware, it can report spurious figures (not that Implying that's true in this instant).

[#7]

My return to Sky has just happened and already I have seen a speed increase. I can now stream videos and everything.   I will post the stats that show the improvement after the DLM period, but at present connected at 2.9 Mbps with a noise margin of 6.1. Happy days.

[#8]

Good to hear. Let's hope it continues. You were at one point connecting with PlusNet at 2.6 so it will be interesting to see how it progresses through Sky's DLM period. It only kicks in after 3 days usually so will be interesting to follow it.

[#9]

Here are the router stats after my move back to Sky.
Router Statistics
System Up Time: 04:02:37
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collision Pkts Tx b/s Rx b/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 152934 236527 0 0 0 03:59:31
LAN Up 122089 90197 0 0 0 04:02:37
WLAN Up 147709 83663 0 1 0 04:02:14
Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3316 kbps 413 kbps
Line Attenuation 66.5 dB 43.0 dB
Noise Margin 3.4 dB 16.16 dB

I know that the attenuation is higher as is the upstream noise margin, but the speed is also higher.

[#10]

Thanks for that Tony, interesting, certainly an improvement on the Downstream albeit with a 3dB SNRM and a marginally slower upstream compared to your previous stats.

Quote from: tony8436

ADSL Line Status Connection Information Line state:  Connected Connection time:  0 days, 01:07:03 Downstream:  2.43 Mbps Upstream:  443.9 Kbps ADSL Settings VPI/VCI:  0/38 Type:  PPPoA Modulation:  G.992.3 Annex A Latency type:  Fast Noise margin (Down/Up):  6.2 dB / 13.8 dB Line attenuation (Down/Up):  61.6 dB / 38.0 dB Output power (Down/Up):  17.0 dBm / 12.6 dBm FEC Events (Down/Up):  0 / 0 CRC Events (Down/Up):  41 / 54

It seems their kit has given you a 3dB SNRM fairly quickly, unfortunately the stats don't say whether the line is Interleaved and at what depth.
What would be telling would be what the actual Download speeds are using say speedtest.net and if they remain consistent at various times within a 24hr period and what pings you get from pingtest.net
The question remains is this improvement also down to the different modem/router or just the line card.
For interest and comparison, here's some stats from another PN user's line using the TG582n modem/router who has similar attenuation -

Quote

Link Information         Uptime:  0 days, 10:59:27 DSL Type:  ITU-T G.992.5 Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:  803 / 3,399 Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]:  666.40 / 4.69 Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:  12.6 / 0.0 Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:  38.9 / 62.0 SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:  5.6 / 6.3 System Vendor ID (Local/Remote):  TMMB / ---- Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote):  BDCM / IFTN Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):  9 / 0 Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):  1 / 0 Loss of Power (Local/Remote):  0 / 0 Loss of Link (Remote):  - Error Seconds (Local/Remote):  258 / 0 FEC Errors (Up/Down):  5,735 / 54,478 CRC Errors (Up/Down):  13 / 202 HEC Errors (Up/Down):  11 / 1,419

[#11]

It's like I've always suspected that on ADSL, LLU is definately better/ faster than 21CN with DLM for most subscribers.
Just a shame that the LLU boys don't have a good customer support reputation.

[#12]

Those other stats are from this post in Steevo's thread: https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,133375.msg1188750.html#msg1188750
I'm not convinced the line attenuation figures are directly comparable:
tony8436 with 61.6db measured under G.992.3 (ADSL2)
Steevo with 62.0db measured under G.992.5 (ADSL2+) or 58.5db measured under G.992.3: https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,133375.msg1186940.html#msg1186940
That suggests Steevo's line attenuation is lower than tony8436's.
The attenuation is usually reported about 2db higher on G.992.5 (ADSL2+). The trouble is different modem/routers can also give different figures for the line attenuation which could vary by a few db on the same line in the same mode.

[#13]

Difficult to know about the attenuation reporting there ejs as you say, which is why I said similar, but just look at Tony's reported attenuation on Sky and compare with that reported on BTw kit. It's a shame that setting ADSL1 at the exchange wasn't tried to see what speed that produced..

Quote from: Kremmen

It's like I've always suspected that on ADSL, LLU is definately better/ faster than 21CN with DLM for most subscribers.

Just to be clear, Sky LLU also has its own DLM as you were reminded by jem16 who was also on Sky!

[#14]

Quote from: Kremmen

Just a shame that the LLU boys don't have a good customer support reputation.

I have found the customer support at Sky to be excellent. After the 10 day DLM period was over, I contacted them and asked if they could adjust the target SNR to give me the best possible speed and stability, which they did whilst I was on the phone to them. Also, when I was having speed issues, they very quickly narrowed it down to a router issue by looking at all of the evidence and a new router was delivered 2 days later. To make sure that I could get on-line whilst waiting for the new router, they even talked me through setting up my 3rd party router, but told me that they would advise using the new hub as they can't offer support for non Sky routers.
After the new router arrived and was set up, Sky contacted me to make sure that the new router had indeed fixed the issues I was having. I never had this level of support from PN. It was only people on this forum that even seemed as if they wanted to help. Customer services and tech support just kept passing the issue around until it either fixed itself or somebody on here did their job for them. I would say that the only thing PN got right was this forum, and that is only because of the people who are here to help.

[#15]

I am pleased you've had help in the foru,. but it's disappointing that people in tech support/customer service didn't help. It is also their (or rather our) job to help as well.