ADSL vs ADLS2+ Provisioning issue

[#1]

I've recently referred my brother to Plusnet.  His line was activated last week, and his sync speed was 7400 (ish - I forget the exact figure) with 448 upload.  BT's line checker was suggesting a line speed of 12Mb, so we queried with Plusnet whether the line was on ADSL2+ or ADSL, and requested a regrade to ADSL2+ if the line wasn't already provisioned on that service.  Plusnet responded saying that they'd placed a regrade order and that this would complete yesterday. 
Nothing happened yesterday: speeds were still the same, and the router showed no disconnections/resyncs.  We spoke to an adviser last night who said the regrade should completed today.
Again, there were no disconnections today, and the speeds are still the same.  I've just spoken the support and they say their system is now showing the that line has been changed to ADSL2+.  Whilst I don't dispute that the system might be saying that, I don't think it reflects reality as far as the line is concerned.  The router is still reporting the DSL type as G.992.1 annex A, which I think is ADSL as opposed to ADSL2+ (right?).
Either way, could somebody from Plus please double check this to confirm that the line is ADSL2+, that the speed profile at your side is correct, that the line has uncapped upload speed (which we requested as part of the regrade) and that interleaving is off?  The account name is jwood86.
Many thanks,
Gary

[#2]

Hi there,
Currently the account is on the up to 8Mb/s service on 21CN, though I can see there's an order going through now that will complete on Wednesday (22nd) which will move it onto the up to 20Mb/s service with an uncapped upstream as requested. I'm sorry for the delay there, but hope that helps clear things up for you.

[#3]

Thanks for checking this, Matt - hopefully everything will be sorted on Wednesday.
Gary

[#4]

Quote from: Matt

Currently the account is on the up to 8Mb/s service on 21CN, though I can see there's an order going through now that will complete on Wednesday (22nd) which will move it onto the up to 20Mb/s service with an uncapped upstream as requested. I'm sorry for the delay there, but hope that helps clear things up for you.

Hi again, Matt,
This has now completed, and the upload speed has increased.  However, the downstream speed is still at 7Mbps - this hasn't changed as a result of whatever BT has done.  I think something odd is going on, because when I run the BT Speedtester, it shows me the maximum line speed as 7.15, and then my speed as slightly less than that.  When I've run the Speedtester on ADSL2+ lines in the past, it usually shows the maximum as 20Mbps, and then indicates the current line speed relative to that. 
Please can you double-check that everything is correct with the provisioning of this line/profile etc?  BT's line checker still estimates 12Mb for the line, and the line stats (copied below) look good to me, so I'm sure it should be running faster than it is.
Thanks in advance for checking this (user name jwood86),
Gary

Uptime: 0 days, 1:20:38
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 23,533 / 8,076
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 828 / 7,544
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 13.79 / 29.64
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 20.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.5 / 36.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 10.0 / 9.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 65,539 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 65,539 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 856 / 2,571
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 38,992 / 9
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 395 / NA

[#5]

What does the BT tester show your IP profile as? It sounds to me that you may be being limited by the IP profile on BT's side, which would inturn limit PN's profile. Its probably just taking a while for the DLM to kick in and find a better rate for your connection.

[#6]

i dont know if im reading it wrong but there looks to be a lot of errors on the line

[#7]

Quote from: mikeyriot

What does the BT tester show your IP profile as?

The speedtester shows the profile as 6.66Mbps.
But, the worrying thing is that it says the accpetable range of speeds is 2Mbps-7.15Mbps, and the max achievable speed is 7.15Mbps.  These figures don't match ADSL2+.  It looks to me like the line has been moved to ADSL2+ but the exchange systems haven't updated so its still listing my speeds as ADSL Max.

[#8]

The stats would indicate that his line is still on the up to 8Mb/s service on 21CN, however the upstream has now been uncapped.

[#9]

Thanks rhohne - that's exactly what I thought, and I called in to support tonight and said this with a view to getting it changed, and the agent just wouldn't hear of it.  I'm hoping that a member of Plusnet staff will pick this up tomorrow and action the change for us.  I don't know why ever it was provisioned as DSL Max - because my brother signed up for the up to 20Mb service, and that's what he's paying for.
adie:quote

[#10]

The router shows the DSL Type is G.992.5 annex A which is ADSL2+, so that is correct. It looks like your target SN (noise) Margin is 9dB - presumably carried over from the 20CN ADSLmax service - rather than the normal 6dB. This will reduce achievable sync speed. Also the router was restarted after dark when SN Margins are generally at their lowest, further reducing sync speed.
I suggest restarting the router (using its web interface) in daylight hours which hopefully will lead to a slightly higher sync speed. The line will be in its 21CN training period and by demonstrating a stable connection with satisfactory error rates the DLM might reduce the target noise margin after a few days.

[#11]

Quote from: spraxyt

The router shows the DSL Type is G.992.5 annex A which is ADSL2+, so that is correct.

Thanks spraxyt - but can't ADSL2+ run at different speeds?  I'm concerned about why the BT speedtester reports a maximum achievable rate of 7.15Mbps - it seems that there's something limiting the speec to MaxDSL rates.  Even the BT line checker - which is generally conservative - suggests a line speed of 12Mbps.

[#12]

The line output by the BT speedtester that mentions an acceptable range of speeds has no technical relevance. The line displayed appears to depend only on the IP Profile that is currently set. It was probably added to stop users complaining when they were on an "Up to 8Mbps" service but the best sync speed they could achieve was considerably less than that. Displaying "acceptable range 1000 to 4000kbps" looked very authentic and made users happier.
There is only one ADSL2+. Possibly you are thinking of ADSL2 which doesn't use the 1.1kHz to 2.2kHz tones and ADSL1 which uses the tones differently. If your connection was ADSL2 the router would show DSL Type G.992.3 annex A, if ADSL1 it would show G.992.1 annex A. ADSL2+ is G.992.5 annex A which is what you have. The sync speed is the highest achievable while respecting the target noise margin.
What range of estimated speeds does the BT Availability checker give? For your attenuation 12Mbps seems on the high side to me. Bearing in mind your target noise margin appears to be 9dB and the router was restarted after dark the sync speed achieved seems slightly low but not by that much.
David

[#13]

Quote from: spraxyt

...your target noise margin appears to be 9dB...

What can I do to bring this down?

[#14]

Quote

What can I do to bring this down?

An SNR reset may help but I don't really want to do that whilst the line is still in its training period as SNR and the line rate should be automatically calculated within that period.

[#15]

Thanks Adam - so if we wait until next week, when the 10 days is up, and it's still not increased, we could do the SNR reset then?