8 Months on and My Fibre Profile is Still Dropping

[#1]

Well in true BT Openreach Style they sent the same engineer as before and not a PTO as they promised, infact I was lucky to get anyone turn up at all as the engineer said he was called in about half an hour after he turned up on my doorstep as BTOR had forgotten about the appointment!
The engineer once again tested the line and once again found a high resistance on the line, he said that as he has swapped me to a different pair previously and its still showing high resistance on the line then their is obviously a problem elsewhere he said that he would not be able to do anything today as this his day off, but would come back in the morning with another engineer and they would go and check at every connection point between the cabinet and my property, he said that he did not need access to my property he would do the testing from the pole.
The engineer arrive the following day as promised but alone, I had to leave for work about 15 minutes after he turned up, so I left him too it, when I returned home later I noticed that my connection was back up and running, I checked the logs in my router and it looks like the connection came back on 63 minutes after it was lost, when I read the engineers notes it says "pair changed again and have coop with the triage team who confirm that the customers line looks ok now with no errors ,i have changed the d/side and also reterminated on pole line now seems stable pq test ok line test ok adsl test ok" so  from this I can only assume that he has just changed me to another pair again? And not checked the other distribution points.
A WORD OF WARNING TO ANYONE THINKING OF GETTING FIBRE:
I have been told by PN and BTOR that as more people join fibre the more crosstalk is introduced into the copper/ali cables the slower fibre will become, since January when I joined fibre and was told my estimated speed would be 40mbs (accurate to +/- 1mb)  my speeds have dropped from 36mbs to 28mbs now to 22mbs (last week prior to BTOR visit was down to 13mbs), the way things are going I will be back to dialup modem speeds by this time next year,
I currently feel that I am just going round in circles with this problem as the speed and profile is still not back to what it was in July and worse still the speeds seem to be dropping again, I am monitoring this at present but feel if the speed continues to drop will have to take things further as 10 months of problems is beyond a joke.

[#2]

As more FTTC lines are connected to a cabinet crosstalk is introduced and can cause a reduction in speed.
The first line connected will initially have no crosstalk from other FTTC lines (obviously) and the last one connected (once cabinet is full) will have full crosstalk from the beginning (so no reduction in time unless a fault develops).
The BT estimates usually take into account expected crosstalk, many people initially get a connection significantly above estimate which eventually settles close to (original) estimate, if you end up significantly below your original estimate then I do not think crosstalk alone is to blame (though it could be down to poor quality lines which may not be economically fixable - worst case is often if aluminium lines have been used locally).

[#3]

Quote

A WORD OF WARNING TO ANYONE THINKING OF GETTING FIBRE: I have been told by PN and BTOR that as more people join fibre the more crosstalk is introduced into the copper/ali cables the slower fibre will become, since January when I joined fibre and was told my estimated speed would be 40mbs (accurate to +/- 1mb)  my speeds have dropped from 36mbs to 28mbs now to 22mbs (last week prior to BTOR visit was down to 13mbs), the way things are going I will be back to dialup modem speeds by this time next year,

Speeds can be reduced due to crosstalk, not to anyway near dial-up level. As far as I'm aware BT are trialling technology to overcome this.
We'll keep your fault ticket open and see how your line is over the next few days,
dick:green Quote fixed.

[#4]

Well Surprise, Surprise I have received a call from PN to say the errors on the line are back and BTOR want to send another engineer out, I have to take a day off work (unpaid) to wait for the engineer, this will be the 15th visit I have had since joining plus.net in January hence the 15th day I have not been able to work. I cant afford to take any more time off. BTOR need to pull their finger out and as the previous engineer said check the junctions all the way back to the cabinet, rather than waist my time and just change pairs.
I have asked PN to instruct BTOR to check the junctions further down the d-side (as the previous engineer said he was going to do, but didn't) and repair/replace the stretch of cable that is causing the errors and hence an ever decreasing upload and download speed. I know that everyone has their procedures but really for me to have to take another day off work is not acceptable especially when BT know the fault is on the D-side and do not need access to my property to check this.

[#5]

I had a similiar issue and the plusnet guy cited crosstalk and also said that my line was probably over performing previously. Prior to losing speed my estimated speed on the plusnet website vanished and when it returned it matched my new reduced speed.
It is now missing again, and I am hoping this doesn't mean yet another reduction in speed is imminent.

[#6]

Strangely enough over the past couple of weeks my speed has started returning to it's initial level.

[#7]

I'll get this picked up, I think the points you've made in your ticket reply are fair enough and make sense.

[#8]

BTOR have identified an issue known as REIN http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/rein.htm which as stated on Kitz website is Electrical interference. I have noted that the Streetlamp which is located right next to the cabinet I am connected to emits a loud hum when its switched on I videoed this with my phone and uploaded it to youtube and sent the link to PN
>
, instead of sending an engineer to the cabinet when the street light is switched they are sending another engineer to my property which is a complete waste of my time. Also still not seen this PTO that was due to be sent out in September.

[#9]

Well the engineer came to the property today, he was given the job 45 minutes before he was due to end his shift and was told that my broadband was disconnected (which it isn't)  as he only had 45 minutes he didn't have much time to investigate the issue also surprise, surprise he was not trained or had the equipment to investigate the REIN issue! So I cannot understand why after BT have identified a REIN issue they sent someone out who was unable to test for this!
The engineer felt there was nothing he could do as this was a REIN issue but I did say to him whilst he was here he may as well go through the motions for the 15th time and run some tests on the line and once again found over 1100 CRC errors in just 1 minute on my line and said this was very high apparently the tolerance is 500 CRC errors every 5 minutes.
The engineer said he would come back on Monday with another engineer to carry out further investigation (deja vu)!
 

[#10]

Quick aside.
When we sign up on a contract and are given an estimated line speed surely we should be able to expect that that estimate will be honoured as far as is possible?
Adding further customers to the infrastructure and reducing the estimated speeds through the contract and saying all is well and good is overselling and moving the goal posts surely. I get that BT have to add more customers but surely they should be bound by some service level agreement somewhere - if the infrastructure doesn't support the estimated speeds then the infrastructure needs to be improved/extended to honour what was advertised and sold not moving the goalposts .....
I seriously wonder whether this one is a legitimate ofcom complaint.

[#11]

I've just read over your fault ticket notes and sorry to see it hasn't progressed much, I'll keep an eye on this today as I can see we're expecting an update regarding the REIN engineer.

[#12]

@cwaite - I've popped you an update on your Fault Ticket.

[#13]

BTOR have said that there is a high number of errors on my line nightly from 23:30pm to 6:30am and wanted to send a REIN engineer out to investigate.
The REIN engineer turned up unannounced on Friday 22nd November at 8:30am, he said that something was a bit high and fitted a filter next to my socket, he retested the line and said he would mozy on down to the cabinet and check out the line from there, he said he would not need to drop the line anymore and would not need to come back to the property, so he left in his van and I left for work, my route to work actually followed the cable back to the cabinet, suprise, suprise, the REIN engineer was nowhere to be seen, I can only assume that he had done an hour at my property so just closed the job then went on to the next job.
I have now been told by Plus.net that the engineer has closed the case and said he could not find any REIN issues on the line and plusnet now just want to close the case as they feel it has they don't see what any further investigation would achieve, well if the REIN engineer actually had of followed the line back to the cabinet and done this between the times that the errors are actually happening then he may stand a chance of actually finding a problem, surely this is just simple common sense.
Below is my line stats which have been taken over the past few weeks from my side using the excellent HG612 Modem Stats program (there is a gap in the data from 12/11/13 to 23/11/13 due to my modem getting an update which stopped the program from gathering any data) If some one here has any experience in reading these stats could they have a look to see if they agree that there is still a high number of errors going on between 23:30 and 06:30.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/26abmkwytmj8lde/P6ycHT4gxS
Thanks in advance

[#14]

Could you upload your updated modem_stats.log to Dropbox so I/we could have a closer look at the raw stats?
At the time of writing, the latest one on there at the moment was uploaded 17 days ago.

Looking at your graphs, it does appear that your connection experiences increased error seconds & CRC/OHFErr counts between 23:30 & 06:30.

There's also quite a lot of DS bitswapping going on, although it does seem the recently updated firmware performs and/or reports things slightly differently (I see the same effect on my own connection).

Just for reference, I have attached your 'snapshot' stats montage from 14:00 today along with mine from the same time.
My line is between 1000m & 1100m from the cabinet & yours is slightly more attenuated than mine (Line attenuation), but from memory, your line is quite a bit shorter than mine?
That would normally suggest a longer line length, or aluminium cabling or possibly some sort of a HR issue.

[#15]

Thanks for a swift response Bald_Eagle1,
Yes my line was measured by BTOR earlier this year and is approximately 650 meters.
BTOR have identified intermittently a High Resistance Issue on the line they seem to swap me to a different pair then when the speed drops a few weeks later they come back and find High Resistance again.
Anyway I have updated my logs and included the most up to date modem_stats.log to enable you to have a closer look at the raw stats.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/26abmkwytmj8lde/P6ycHT4gxS
Thanks again for taking the time to have a look for me.