Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
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09-09-2017 10:42 PM
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Hi, I'm on an ADSL connection
Attainable Sync speed used to be around 4.5 Mb/s and it's dropped over the last few months to around 3.5 Mb/s.
I've been "living with" ~3.5Mb/s actual connection speed, but recently my line has become quite flaky.
Last week my connection seemed to be capping at around 3.1 Mb/s
In the last few days it's now dropped to ~1.1 Mb/s (actual - and still reporting ~3.5 Mb/s attainable),
Quiet line test is fine.
LAN - 2ms response to my Router.
PIng typically 33-40 ms - though it's been quite spiky in the last few days as well.
I can kill all the clients on the LAN, so I know this is WAN side.
Router Stats in the attached image. That's shortly after a reboot, but there are no HEC errors etc.
Connection is:
LAN - Ubiquiti USG - Billion 8800 AXL - NTE5a
I have no internal phone wiring. .
Have I been capped?
Help
Fixed! Go to the fix.
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
09-09-2017 10:56 PM - edited 10-09-2017 8:58 AM
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Hello there. From looking at what you’ve posted here, your speed doesn’t look capped. If you PM me your landline phone number if you know it I’ll be happy to run a line test for you.
If your sync speed is below your estimates shown at www.dslchecker.bt.com it may also be worth raising a fault to us at http://faults.plus.net
EDIT:
It looks like your speed is capped as the line is banded at:
Profile Info: | WBC 576K - 1M Medium delay (INP 4) 6dB Downstream, UC Low delay (INP 0) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+) |
Line tests aren't identifying the cause of that. Is there any noise on your phone line when you dial 17070?
I'll also take a closer look tomorrow when I'm back in the office and can see your connection logs as if it's dropping then that may be the reason why it's banded. In the meantime, I've removed the banding for you now.
I hope this helps,
Anoush
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 11:22 AM
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A 52dB attenuated line might reasonably be expected to run at 4.5Mbps with a SNRM of 6dB.
Your SNRM is 9dB so 3.5Mbps is not unreasonable.
So the question requiring an answer is "What has been happening on your line to cause the SNRM to be 9dB?". Gandalf notes that it is banded ... have you been bouncing the router a lot in an attempt to make it go faster? We need to base line your line here...
What are the expectations for your line?
Please use the following links to check the services available and their estimated speeds. From the first link, please record and report back the distance from the exchange. The second link advises of which fibre services (if any) are available on your line and their anticipated speed.
In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links
Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.
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Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 12:57 PM
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Thanks both for responding and investigating.
@Gandalf Openreach Quiet Line test seems absolutely fine, and I retested it again this morning.
Something has caused the router to bounce at ~0901 today as I've now connected @ 3.5Mb/s - probably you lifting the banding I'm assuming? As I describe below I can also force a higher sync rate - which I've not been able to do for some time). I'll now monitor the stability.
Can you tell how long I've been banded for - and whether I was previously on a higher band at around 3 Mb/s? That would explain what I've been observing.
@Townman I've been a Plusnet customer for years and worked to squeeze every last bit of performance out of my copper tail and then pull back to something that offers stability first and foremost. My line's ability to support a higher sync rate has dropped over the last year or so. I was able to sync at @4.5 MB/s stably and consistently. I can test this by fixing the SNR on the line and testing the results on an unloaded connection. .
Below are some tests I did when I upgraded my router in 2015 from a Billion 7800n to the 8800AXL. As you can see it's considerably higher than I can (could) achieve yesterday and recently.
The router has been bouncing recently though I hadn't particularly noticed as I hadn't been checking (partly because it's always been stable). Lifting the banding has certainly improved things again. When the router has been disconnecting previously I would have tried to force a higher speed resync but I have not been able to do so. This could have forced the banding.
At 1237pm today I forced a resync and manually set the SNR at -5db to see if I could achieve a higher sync. The good news for me is that I can now once again set the SNR and influence the sync rate (connecting at 4003 Kb/s ) - something I haven't been able to force for some time.
Could someone advise what the banding trigger is (disconnect count over what period of time) as I'd like to do some higher sync speed tests as well, but don't want to re-trigger the banding!
Many thanks!
Example sync speeds achieved on my line (2015)
SNR 5
-1dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
793 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
3600 |
SNR 4
-2dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
797 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
3815 |
SNR 3
-3dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
804 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
3894 |
SNR 2
-4db
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
817 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
4192 |
SNR 1
-5dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
806 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
4278 |
From <http://192.168.0.1/info.html>
SNR 4096 (Undocumented Values follow - see this post
-6.5dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
821 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
4370 |
SNR 4094
-8.5dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
798 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
5273 |
SNR 4093
-9dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
824 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
5095 |
SNR 4092
-10.5dB
FAIL
Returned to 4093 (~-dB
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
812 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
5515 |
Stable for approx 40 mins, then resynced to
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps) |
833 |
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps) |
4701 |
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 1:17 PM
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I suggest that the above figures are not overly helpful. A negative SNR is simply nonsense as would imply that the noise if greater than the signal and therefore not discernible.
I rather think that those negative SNR figures are the ADJUSTMENT which the router applies to the TARGET SNRM sent by the DLM on handshake. Therefore to make a true assessment of those figures you would need to know the TARGET SNRM at the time of the tests.
Generally attempting to mangle the SNRM only leads to difficulty: there is the typical -2dB night time AM interference to be contended with. On good lines you might get away with adjusting the SNRM down to 3dB if the target is 6dB ... anything more is I suggest asking for trouble.
@ejs has a fair knowledge on such matters...
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Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.
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Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 1:34 PM - edited 10-09-2017 1:35 PM
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Something has caused the router to bounce at ~0901 today as I've now connected @ 3.5Mb/s - probably you lifting the banding I'm assuming?
Yeah, that'd be me.
Can you tell how long I've been banded for - and whether I was previously on a higher band at around 3 Mb/s? That would explain what I've been observing.
From looking through the DLM profile data, the banding was placed on the 8th Sept 07:58. As far back as we can look, the circuit was in sync at 3.3mbps on the 27th August, steadily decreasing up until the 8th when it was banded.
Whilst the banding is now removed and the target SNR set to 6db:
Profile Info: | WBC 160K - 24M Medium delay (INP 1) 6dB Downstream, UC Low delay (INP 0) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+) |
the SNR Margin is much lower than I'd expect, generating a considerable amount of errored seconds which will likely cause an intermittent connection and throughput issues.
Upstream DSL Link Information | Downstream DSL Link Information | |
Loop Loss: | 33.1 | 52.5 |
SNR Margin: | 6.0 | 1.6 |
Errored Seconds: | 0 | 203 |
HEC Errors: | 0 | |
Cell Count: | 1538537 | 4135961 |
Speed: | 864 | 4003 |
Could someone advise what the banding trigger is (disconnect count over what period of time) as I'd like to do some higher sync speed tests as well, but don't want to re-trigger the banding!
I think that's difficult to answer as it depends on a variety of other factors. Personally, I'd say 5 drops a day may cause DLM to intervene, depending how many days the circuit has been dropping for.
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 2:35 PM
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Thanks @Gandalf I checked the connection stats and as you had guessed, it was a mess!. I'd had the same hunch as although the sync speed looked great, throughput was terrible.
I forced a resync at ~1343 allowing the router to auto negotiate this time, rather than me forcing the SNR.
However, download speed (actual) is still poor after auto negotiation. Ookla and another test are showing ~0.9Mb downbload & 0.8Mb upload. The upload is fine but previously I would achieve over 2.8Mb actual download and often over 3Mb. Margin is ranging between ~4.2 and 4.8 currently as reported on Routerstats. There are no other clients on my network using bandwidth that could account for the impact (they are all disconnected).
I can see quite a few errors on the line as well - I reset the stats after the sync. (see "Stats after 30 mins on auto sync" attachment)
The other bit I'm still scratching my head over is what could have been causing the "steady decrease" since the 27th Aug to the point it rebanded again - though that's less of a priority!
Thanks once again.
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
10-09-2017 3:09 PM
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Hi @Townman those stats were really to just illustrate I'd previously been able to achieve much higher connection rates on my line. You are obviously right that a -db figure makes little sense and that is the adjustment from the target. I didn't think that would need explaining and they were just a cut and paste from some old notes I had.
Whilst it's helpful to know the target SNR at the DLM, you don't need it. It can remain an unknown variable if you remain structured in the testing process. "Trial and error" may not be sophisticated, but it works...though you need to be mindful to avoid triggering banding.
The critical parts for me were:
1) What connection speed could I achieve at the exchange as a simple indicator.
2) How does that translate in to actual / sustained throughput on the line ... which is really all I'm concerned in optimizing and the part that took the time to get right because of the tradeoff between stability and throughput.
The tests with the larger -ve numbers were out of interest, and ultimately proved unstable on my line. I used a setting of -4 IIRC which is close you your assessment of the practical limit if the target was indeed 6db.
11-09-2017 4:11 PM
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It looks like the speed profile on your account hadn't updated automatically following me unbanding the line over the weekend. I've just manually updated it now. Can you reboot your router and let us know how your speed looks?
Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
11-09-2017 9:40 PM
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Re: Broadband actual speed - Performance is getting worse. Line capped?
11-09-2017 9:43 PM
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