Drop in broadband speed, now only getting 289KB/S

[#1]

@Anoush

Its been plugged into the internal part of the master socket for months.

There is an audible tick every 1.5 seconds on the phone, would that have anything to do with it?

I've tried several different filters

[#2]

It's possible. I'd advise to raise a fault to us, so we can get it looked into by an engineer.

[#3]

Btw, just trying to determine if this would be a broadband or phone fault...

Does the ticking happen without the router plugged in?

Also, with a different phone handset?

[#4]

Sounds exchange-side to me.  Take a look at the following:-

https://community.bt.com/t5/Phones/Loud-Clicking-noise-on-phone-line/m-p/61228#M4651

[#5]

Are you in a rural area? A click every second or so could be an electric fence, a classic source of interference. A fence will be regular, for example our energiser has settings for once every 1.5 seconds, or once in 3 seconds. The fence that's giving us trouble at the moment is just slightly longer than a second between pulses.

[#6]

Thats interesting, there is an electric fence.

Is there a way for me to see the broadband errors in real time so I can see if they match up to the ticking sound?

[#7]

I'm afraid I'm not sure that's possible to see the errors in real time as you suggest.

If the fence isn't on your property, I'd probably advise to go for the engineer to try to diagnose and fix the problem.

(If the fence is on your property, it may be worth getting that looked into a bit further, as an engineer callout may be chargeable if it is the problem)

[#8]

A simple bit of deduction - can you get the fence turned off for a while, and does the noise go away?  Try dialling 17070 and selecting option 2 "quiet line" to hear the sound of silence.  It's what engineers use.

[#9]

Is there a way for me to see the broadband errors in real time so I can see if they match up to the ticking sound?

It's unlikely that your router has a real time view like that.  Most will let you see total errors so you can see if they stop counting up.  Do you know the owner of the electric fence?  If so you could see if it can be switched off for a period, then check your line (as described) and also look at router stats.   If it is the fence then there are two probabilities, either there's a fault on your line making it vulnerable to interference that a good line wouldn't pick up.  Or the interference is so severe that it will affect a line that's within spec, in this second case it will almost certainly be affecting other users along the same cable run, so you may get some cooperation from others in trying to track it down.

If Plusnet are offering an engineer visit then I'd go for that as a first step, make sure there's nothing wrong at the line level.