Watchdog.

[#1]

Did anyone watch Watchdog on BBC1 last Wednesday?
Interesting piece on BT Infinity on there which course P/N use. Gripes about installation times but more important are the slow speeds way below expectations & estimates. The "excuse" is that too many people are using the service & the cabinets can't cope. Obviously future planning was not considered why the system was installed. One person was offered FTTP because their speeds were so slow, the problem? It would of cost them £9000 to install!
Anyway all this has been investigated & BT have been taken to task. As P/N customers including myself have speed issues with fibre I thought it would be interesting.
Link here, 3 days left to watch from today (Sunday).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0480vcn/watchdog-series-33-episode-6 ; Starts about 22 minutes in.

[#2]

Thanks for the link, very interesting.
They give a email address for complaining to BT about Infinity speeds.
watchdogcomplaints@bt.com
Don't know if it also applies for Plusnet's fibre broadband, I'll give it a go and find out

[#3]

It PN uses the same infrastructure, then it is a 50 / 50 possibility
Perhaps BT should drop the word Infinity & replace it with something that is more appropriate

[#4]

How about "MinFinity"! 

[#5]

Having had both how about go with cable if you can get it - because I waited years to go to this FTTC and now I have i wish I hadn't bothered.

[#6]

Hehe, so the excuse is effectively that they are making too much money 

[#7]

I also found it interesting, if short on useful accurate information - the par for such a program, it appears. IIRC, one person stating they only get downloads at 80% of the (minimum) checker sync rate and a business user using a domestic product (it seemed).
I have some sympathy for the former*, but little for the latter.

* I would love 6x my current rate, but cannot justify £168pa for a 26.5x/33.3x increase to 79.5/19.9Mbps sync

[#8]

This should be available on the Plusnet website. It will show to PN customers just how dependent they are on the BTOR infrastructure.
No doubt, that at some time in the future, once BT have used up both the government funding plus that from local government to install the basic fibre network, they will return & replace the "final mile" of copper with fibre. I imagine that won't happen in my life time. (born 1947).

[#9]

Sent an email to them complaining about the speeds! I'll let you know what happens!

[#10]

Nothing will come of this, so a few people get out of their contract big deal they will do Sweet F A about DLM, cab capacity, and any thing else about their infrastructure that causes the majority of problems with FTTC, I have had my line estimate cut by more than half so  BTW / BTO and Plusnet don't have to do anything should my speed drop,  i have had the "it's more than the estimate" speech from Plusnet already when i complained that DLM hasn't given my full speed back after a line fault was fixed it most likely wont give it back It's done nothing so far, It nothing more than a joke to them.
       

[#11]

The reason they are getting away with the

Quote from: Terranova667

<snip> "it's more than the estimate" speech from Plusnet

Is clearly because their estimators / DSLchecker sites are out of date, I have just proved that when seeing if PN can supply me FTTC when BT & TalkTalk can
Just yesterday, I confirmed & BT stated

Quote from: TORPC

Cheers Chris I can confirm that the DSLchecker says no BT infinity site says yes (see screenshot) TalkTalk says yes (see screenshot) Just got off the phone to BT & they confirm that they can supply me & that they will look into getting the DSLchecker website updated <snip>

There is no rhyme or reason other than they want to be the main / only supplier to the ones they drag out to update (that I can think of at this moment in time)
With my previous provider albeit on LLU on there 6db profile on non congested times I could get 10 - 11MB & on average was getting anywhere between 9 - 10 MB, now I am on PN's 3db I can not get any more than 7.5MB & they say there in nothing wrong (Go Figure) as I cant, although before committing to PN & PN should still have the recording (I was promised better speeds than I was getting with my previous provider)

[#12]

The higher bandwidth with the previous LLU ISP was due to them applying interleaving, but it seemed like every time I suggested switching on interleaving, someone from Plusnet would always advise against that, either based on made up nonsense sprinkled with technical jargon, or just with no reason given. Interleaving would increase the coding gain, increasing the effective SNR, allowing more bandwidth, but the trouble is a correct explanation is more complicated to understand, and it's easier to make up something that is simpler and easier to understand but is at best unhelpfully oversimplified and at worst a complete load of nonsensical garbage. Clearly it would have been unimaginably awful to just turn on interleaving for a week, and if it didn't do what you wanted, just have it turned off again. Instead, set the SNR margin to 3db then demand an investigation every time the line drops. 

[#13]

PN also advise against going on a 3db profile due to the amount of stability errors etc (it could potentially cause)
As many a member know from my support threads I have been on a 3db profile for several months & my connection is very stable
Yet
Beginning of May
BTO was playing in the cabinet & disturbed my connection & I clearly stated that BTO disturbed the connection
I opened a ticket 08^th May for it to be investigated & for it to be put right & I was immediately placed on the 6db profile, with the 3db profile being blamed, without being consulted in the 1^st instance (Question #85377469) for PN's verification,
It took 14 days from my request including 1 complete refusal to place me back on the 3db profile for it to be actioned, even though I asked them to speak to Matt turner who is dealing with the DNS resolver issue(s)

Quote

BOT - DSL Logged Faults 12:55pm, Sunday 25 May 2014 Dear Sir Thank you for your patience. I have tested your connection and can see you are staying connected to the internet at a good speed for your line. The line is still at 6db and we won't be lowering this as a 3db line can cause problem even if the it was working fine before or not.

A obvious cop out, to , NOT investigate why the working 3db was affected
Which IMHO is NOT acceptable

[#14]

We advise, generally, not to use 3db as it can cause the line to be unstable. That doesn't mean we say no to every request, we look at the line and the line quality and length plays a factor as to what advice we give before moving customers on to 3db.
I've personally had my line on 3db and on 6db before, other than a slight speed increase, there's very little difference. It's at our discretion as to what SNR Target your line is set at, however we do change SNR Target's at request from time to time.
Does FTTC show available for you on say, Zen's website? I know they also offer FTTC so it would be a good test to see if a smaller ISP can offer you FTTC which Talk Talk and BT can provide you with. The point till stands though, unless our availability checker states that FTTC is available, we can't place an order. We pull the data from the same placed at BT so the information should be the same. If you want to take up FTTC with them or want to discuss how they can offer it, you'd be best speaking to BT.

Quote

now I am on PN's 3db I can not get any more than 7.5MB & they say there in nothing wrong

...were your speeds completely fine on the 6db profile? Was your line error free on 6db?

[#15]

Hi Chris
Please see added info to my previous post
Can you please explain, why they refused to to uphold my request, rather than them investigating the disturbance (after all it was working before BTO disturbed the connection in the cabinet ?
Funny you should ask that, as thanks to ejs for already, linked to the appropriate thread which is indepth of 4 pages
ejs must be psychic  

Quote from: ejs

The higher bandwidth with the previous LLU ISP was due to them applying interleaving, but it seemed like every time I suggested switching on interleaving, someone from Plusnet would always advise against that, <snip>

www.zen.co.uk/home-office/broadband/fibre-optic-broadband/fibre-and-phone-packages.aspx#fibre1
Says

Will try again later