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Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Last Wednesday our phone started crackling horrendously and broadband virtually stopped. The line was so bad, caller ID even stopped working most of the time.
Gave up holding on the phone and reported it via the site first thing Thursday morning, including ticking the box saying "poor line quality", and specially mentioning that I'd already tried different filters and plugged the phone into the test socket.
Standard default time-waste copy and paste "haven't read the job, just keeping the stats right" reply came: We can see your broadband is slow but can't think why that would be; please let us know when you've tried a new filter and plugged your phone into the test socket".
A polite but, ahem, "robust" phone call from me got things back on track, and an engineer came Monday morning at 9am, found a badly corroded bundle of wires sitting in a connection box on top of a pole, fixed it, and the line connection speed jumped to 4Mb down, 800k up as it should be. Except, here we are 24 hours, STILL slower than dialup, because, apparently "nothing" can be done to give the IP profile a nudge. And it could take "up to 3 days".
This is on a line which usually gets 3Mb/sec as the BT Line Speed predictor thingy says it should (roll on ADSL2+ in May - 3.5mb/sec, maybe even 4 apparently - whoo-hoo)
In order to help plusnet speed things along, I'll be logging a new speed fault every hour it's still stuck at 0.5Mb/s after 10am (24 hours after fix). Would that seem fair in the circumstances?
What else can I do? I can't get any work done.
19/04/2012 07:20
 Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.18 Mbps
 For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.25 Mbps.
 Additional Information:
 Your DSL Connection Rate :0.29 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
 IP Profile for your line is - 0.25 Mbps
19/04/2012 08:20
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.21 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.25 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.29 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.25 Mbps

Here's the latest speed test - 19/04/2012 at 23:45
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
20/04/2012 07:30
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.4 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
20/04/2012 14:36
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.14 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
21/04/2012 09:45
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.45 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
22/04/2012 15:10
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.38 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
22/04/2012 18:00
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.14 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
23/04/2012 09:00
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.4 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.83 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps

At about 10am on 23/04/12, the line was fixed.
23/04/2012 @ 10:19 - 30 mins after fix
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.16 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.58 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps

23/04/2012 @ 12:00 Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.16 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.58 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps

23/04/2012 @ 15:45
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.15 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.58 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps

23/04/2012 @ 16:55
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.58 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
24/04/12 08:15
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.39 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :4.03 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps

Date 24/04/12 08:45
Down 0.22mb UP 0.19mb
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1912306821.png
Date 24/04/12 08:50
Down: 234k
UP: 375K
http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/bimages/96872189.jpg
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/133525314749771712901.html
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ is warning that it "is currently experiencing technical difficulty and may display misleading test results. Thanks for bearing with us while we fix things."
69 REPLIES 69
itsme
Grafter
Posts: 5,924
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎07-04-2007

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

You have to have a stable connection rate before the profile increase. Do you know why you lost connection between 16:55 yesterday and 08:15 today?
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Best to leave the modem/router on 24/7 until things stabilise. Whether a complete line reset would help depends.
Can you post your modem/router ADSL line stats?
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

HI racquel,
I've reset the SNR in an attempt to raise the profile, as I would have expected it to have changed by now. I'll let you know how it goes.
Jojo Smiley
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Hi racquel,
That seems to have done the trick. The profile is now up to 3000. You should see the increase shortly.
Jojo Smiley
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote from: Joanne
Hi racquel,
That seems to have done the trick. The profile is now up to 3000. You should see the increase shortly

Depends what you mean by "the trick". Around mid-day Tuesday I got a text saying the SNR had been reset. Around 10 minutes later I got a panicked call from my partner (she's Racquel) saying that no matter what she did, she couldn't connect.
Following a phone call to Plusnet, 2 different filters and routers, they finally agreed that it was something that they'd done, and passed it back to BT.
I'd driven the 15 miles back home during lunch to sort this out; fortunately we have a mutual friend who let us use her BB yesterday morning, and in the afternoon we did a bit of WAR-driving and managed to latch on to a BT Openzone thingy using a helpful friend's BT details.
This morning, I am now the proud owner of £50 of 3 Mobile portable hotspot and one month of data, which is how I'm posting here. It also marks one week effectively without broadband. Phoned Plusnet yesterday and this morning, no news, no info, no timescale as to when a fix would be.
Yes, I'm sure the dongle will come in useful in the future; yes, I know it's not Plusnets fault that o2 don't have 3g round here (otherwise I'd have just tethered, which I did on 2g... not fun!). But I also feel things could have been handled better.
Right down to the engineer asking my partner to do a full hard reset on the router without checking if it was actually part of a repeater pair and had a load of fixed IP addresses, custom firewall ports etc.
(to be fair, that's an unusual configuration, so I'm not really blaming him for that).
It's in the hands of BT now. Hearing those words is what prompted me to buy the dongle! Could be days..weeks!  Once I've caught up with work, I'll post more about the way I think things have been handled. Just thought I'd fill people in as to how it wasn't going.
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote
I'll post more about the way I think things have been handled

Are your issues with that more related to the BT engineers or the way we've handled the issue? (or both) Just asking so I know where to direct my feedback.
Adam
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_
Quote
I'll post more about the way I think things have been handled

Are your issues with that more related to the BT engineers or the way we've handled the issue? (or both) Just asking so I know where to direct my feedback.

Hi Adam;
Quick lunchbreak reply.
I think my problem with the way it was handled was a bit of both really; from the "haven't read the ticket" copy-n-paste reply at the beginning, to the way that, despite the fact that you're an arm of BT, no-one had a clue who was doing what and where.
Yes, I know BT Wholesale are separate from everyone else, but surely if a supplier of a product is as reliant on a wholesaler for everything that needs doing as it seems, you'd think there'd be some kind of ticketing/messaging system between the two, rather than the current situation which seems to be "we've passed it to them and won't know anything until they've fixed it".
The other thing is follow-up: If a physically damaged line had caused the IP profile to drop, why isn't a check on that system part of the follow-up?
At first I was told the SNR or IP or whatever it was COULDN'T be reset, then when it turns out it was stuck, it COULD be reset, but then it somehow disconnects our account from the line. So badly in fact that even the various test logins didn't work!
I'm delighted to say that, following an email from Plusnet, I'm back online! The line speed has slowed back down again significantly - when we first connected after the physical repair (when ADSL connected but actual account wasn't) we were synched at 4Mb, with a line profile of 500k.
Now we're getting:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2.3 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 2 Mbps

Date   Download Speed Upload Speed
Before line repair: Monday 11:02 174 kbps (21.8kB/s) 25 kbps (3.13kB/s)
After line repair: Monday 17:56 551 kbps (68.9kB/s) 700 kbps (87.5kB/s)
On 3g mobile dongle: Today 09:42 1865 kbps (233kB/s) 775 kbps (96.9kB/s)
Back on Plusnet: Today 11:47 2108 kbps (264kB/s) 705 kbps (88.1kB/s)
Shows what a sad state rural broadband is in when a 3g dongle with 1 bar of signal gives almost-as-good download and better upload speeds than a wired connection.
That's not Plusnet's fault though; just a bit galling when you pay over twice as much as a Market 2 or Market 3 area, but get less than 1/8th the speed.
I'd still love to know what was so technically difficult with an SNR reset that it took two days, a specialist team and me purchasing a £50 dongle.
Sounds like there's some elements of the system, be it monitoring or procedure, that could be tightened up.
Anyway, it appears to be sorted for now - but I think I might keep that dongle charged and handy, just in case!
All of the above said, Plusnet are STILL better than Orange, Bulldog, C&W, 1&1, BT or any of the other broadband suppliers I've ever had.
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

That's some pretty awesome feedback for a quick lunchtime reply Smiley
Thanks very much I'm going to take the time this afternoon to do a more detailed post mortem of what happened from our point of view of how the fault was handled. From that I'll aim to identify any feedback we need to give to the agents that dealt with you, look for any possible system or process (more likely the latter) improvements that I can pick up and compile any feedback for our suppliers that can be passed on.
Quote
you'd think there'd be some kind of ticketing/messaging system between the two, rather than the current situation which seems to be "we've passed it to them and won't know anything until they've fixed it".

I'd not call it a ticket system but we do have channels of obtaining information from BT Wholesale with regards to diagnostic test results and fault investigation notes from engineers. We do this via online systems, over the phone and via an online chat system so the channels are there and I'll do what I can to make sure that we're using them effectively. Sorry if they weren't in your case.
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

So, here we are, 5th of May, still not fixed. Just waiting in for the promised engineer visit.
Got an email and text at 15:30 yesterday saying
Quote
An appointment has now been booked for you for the
05/05/2012 between 0800-1300

Hmmm, a Saturday morning visit booked 19 hours ago to visit a site in the middle of no-where in the middle of the most sparsely populated county in the UK.
Of course, there's 90 minutes left, but given it's very rarely that we both get time off together when it isn't raining, I'm going to be so unbelievably p****d off if we've wasted the morning waiting in for nothing.
But I'm sure he/she will get here. They said they would.
So, while we sit here waiting, why not enjoy reading through some speed tests and imagine trying to conduct business at 110K? (You can't, which is why I've just topped up the 3 dongle with another £10 of broadband although at £10/Gb we can forget about iplayer and our Lovefilm sub)
Quote
-----------------------------------------------------------
30/04/12 @ 09:00
Download speedachieved during the test was - 1.66 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.8 Mbps-2 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :4.45 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 2 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
01/05/12 @ 13:00
Download speedachieved during the test was - 1 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.8 Mbps-2 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :1.47 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1.25 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
01/05/12 @ 19:50 via norml
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.26 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.8 Mbps-2 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :1.47 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1.25 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
01/05/2012 @ 19:52 via test3
http://test3.speedtester.bt.com/PerformanceTester/indexTap3Frames.jsp
aka http://217.35.209.210/
Download speedachieved during the test was - 1.17 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.8 Mbps-2 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :1.47 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1.25 Mbps
Your service was found to be performing poorly. Please raise a fault with your service provider, stating that the BT Performance Tester tool indicates poor service throughput performance after the third test.
-----------------------------------------------------------
02/05/2012 @ 18:25
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.28 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :0.99 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.8 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mybroadbandspeed
02/05/2012 20:25 564 kbps (70.5kB/s) 647 kbps (80.9kB/s) Share
01/05/201220:01 1322 kbps (165kB/s) 690 kbps (86.3kB/s) Share
01/05/2012 19:49 629 kbps (78.6kB/s) 589 kbps (73.6kB/s) Share
-----------------------------------------------------------
02/05/2012 @ 20:49
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.45 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.71 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
03/05/2012 @ 18:15
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.39 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.71 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
03/05/2012 @ 19:25
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.41 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.71 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
04/05/2012 @ 07:50
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.06 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :3.71 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
04/05/2012 @ 22:15
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.35 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2.43 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
-----------------------------------------------------------
05/05/2012 @ 09:05
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.11 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.1 Mbps-0.5 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2.43 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.83 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 0.5 Mbps
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote from: racquel
Of course, there's 90 minutes left, but given it's very rarely that we both get time off together when it isn't raining, I'm going to be so unbelievably p****d off if we've wasted the morning waiting in for nothing.
Guess what? We got the call at 12:40. They can't get here today. Rather surprisingly, he promised someone would be here around 8am tomorrow morning. I double-checked he meant Sunday, and he did.
One the one hand, at least we're not now looking at Tuesday, but on the other hand.... grrrrrr!
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote from: racquel
Guess what? We got the call at 12:40. They can't get here today. Rather surprisingly, he promised someone would be here around 8am tomorrow morning. I double-checked he meant Sunday, and he did.

Guess what (again!). Sunday came and went. No visit, no phone call, no apology, nothing. So that's the second missed appointment. It'll be interesting to see how much Plusnet value their customers when billing get back to work on Tuesday....
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Hi racquel,
I can't believe that, what a nuisance! I'll speak to a manager this morning and ask for this to be investigated for you.
Jojo Smiley
racquel
Grafter
Posts: 181
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎21-11-2008

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Quote from: Joanne
I can't believe that, what a nuisance! I'll speak to a manager this morning and ask for this to be investigated for you.

Credit where it's due: A BT engineer phoned me at mid-day to say that my line might go dead as they attempted to fix the problem. Shortly after, a manager from Plusnet called me to say he was taking personal charge of the case, had kicked butt at BT,  and would liaise daily until it was resolved.
I saw the engineer about 4 hours later and he said they had found another wet joint, a piece of failed equipment, and a "battery fault" (apparently where two pairs are electrically interfering with each other) on the line and had repaired all three.
On a 3km stretch of wire, that's a total of 4 physical faults. It's good that they've found them all, we appear to be synching at about 4Mb now, and although the IP profile is still 500k he said he'd get that sorted and just to leave everything connected.
As I said, credit where it's due, however, although it's clearly a fault with a combination of BT and BT Openreach who should have done more diagnosis on the first visit to find all the faults, my contract is with Plusnet and I feel they could have kicked more butt earlier on.
So, fingers crossed for an IP profile reset soon. Smiley
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: Coming up to one week at 28k. WHY can't the IP profile be given a nudge?!

Hi racquel,
I'm so glad to hear that you didn't have more delays. I've just ran a line test and your current BT IP profile is 1500, so you won't see more than that until the DLM picks up your new sync speed. I'll check again in the morning.
Jojo Smiley