Contention ratio at an unacceptible level.

[#1]

Hi.  I hope I am in the right place for my question.
I joined Plusnet on the 16th Nov Last year. Option 2.
Before this I was with Tiscali on a 1mbps speed package and their was never a speed issue except I wanted faster.
So when I joined Plusnet  on option 2 package  up to 8mbps. I was always running at about 3000kbps.
Which for my needs is absolutely fine.
Then after a few weeks the contention ratio increased dramaticly. Every day, during the day it hovers around 2900kbps which is fine, But every night during peak period it drops to below 56kbps, Frequantly down to 20kbps at the evening.This means that every night from approximately 19.00hrs to 23.00hrs their is an unacceptable speed for me to do anything on my computer.
I have put in several fault findings. And all that plusnet comes up with is that the contention ratio is fine and nothing wrong at their end.
I have even spoke to them on the phone and they say "I must go through the process of fault finding again".
Even though it is so obvious what is happening they say they cannot do anything about it.
I am at the point now of doing something drastic.
When I first joined plusnet I felt as though I was joining a very professional company. But alas they are worse than most ISP.

[#2]

Hi Len,
PlusNet will do there utmost to get any faults resolved for you, but unfortunately there are a number of diagnostics that you need to go through first. James Bailey, a member of the PlusNet comms team has written this article on broadband speed faults. Which is definitely worth a read, even if it is a lot of text.
Another worth while thing to do is to check your exchange status if you go here and enter your telephone number it will tell you a number of things about your exchange including VP (Virtual Path) status. VP status is basically the a Red Amber or Green rating, decided on by BT as to whether your exchange has a big enough link back to the ISP's. If it is at red this means that BT feel there isn't enough capacity in place at the exchange and more needs to be added. As a result of there being not enough capacity people can experience slow speeds - especially at peak times.
I have a feeling this may be what is wrong in your case, which if it is, unfortunately it's a case of waiting for BT to pull their finger out and add more capacity. The exchange checker will show an estimated date, but this is notorious for slipping. If the VP's are showing as green, then exchange contention may still be the case, so cannot be ruled out however, if you complete the diagnostics, then PlusNet will be able to investigate and raise a fault for you, which IIRC they can't do if exchange contention is at Red.
I hope this helps, if you have any more questions feel free to ask and someone from the community will be more than happy to help

[#3]

>> below 56kbps,
I wouldnt even expect contention at the exchange to go that low.
Just to check are we talking sync speed or throughput speed?
Wondering - what are your line stats like - if your line has deteriorated.. or you have lowSNR problems or even a REIN fault.. then it could well be CRC/HEC errors that are causing such slow throughput.
Much more likely IMHO than contention.