Having Problems with Speed

[#1]

Yesterday I got back from work around lunchtime and found my internet was down, well it kept trying to reconnect then i'd say its online but no web pages would load and it'd lose connection and retry, about 14:00 the line managed to stay connected and line was fine, only thing I noticed in my Router's DSL status was my Downstream Rate had Dropped from 10000'ish to around 8000ish. Figured it was just a hiccup with Plusnet somewhere and thought nothing of it.
This morning things still seemed fine, (left things downloading overnight and they were all finished in the morning), Again finished work at lunchtime and decided to pop into town, came back few hours later (around 16:00ish) and started to do my usual internet stuff and found that things seem to be running really sluggish, did a speedtest.net and found my connection was reporting barely 1 Mbps when I've done this before and its usually around 8 Mbps.
So Rebooted the router and this seemed to help and got me up to around 4 Mbps. So after I finished a few things I was doing online I decided to unplug my router for 10mins and reconnect (give the connection a chance to fully register it's offline)
Now I've reconnected and my router is reporting this on the DSL Status page
DSL Status
DSL Status Up
DSL Modulation Mode G992_5_A (ADSL2+)
DSL Path Mode Fast
Downstream Rate 8165 kbps
Upstream Rate 1156 kbps
Downstream Margin 3.9 dB
Upstream Margin 6.0 dB
Downstream Line Attenuation 44.7 dB
Upstream Line Attenuation 24.8 dB
Downstream Transmit Power 19.9 dB
Upstream Transmit Power 12.4 dB
Which isn't too bad considering where I am, (still no the 10,000'ish it was at a week or so ago)
Just done a Speed test and its reporting

I feel there's Something wrong with my line at this point in time
I'm just wondering what's causing my really slow speeds? something wrong with the network in my area? (Carterton Exchange, Oxfordshire) or is this the result of the net going down yesterday for a few hours and its messed up my line speed?

[#2]

Found My old thread about getting my upload speeds changed and there's an old Speedtest result in there, so you can see the huge difference in speed I'm getting
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,107804.0/topicseen.html

[#3]

Can you run a bt speedtest and see what your profile is, does it match the PN one as well?

[#4]

Just before I did BT Speedtest I did another Speedtest.net and came back with

Ran the BT Speed Tester Beta and it said my download speed was 0.54Mbps and upload was 0.89Mbps with a ping of 28
Did the Diagnostics Test and got
1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Download  Speed
0.23 Mbps

Max Achievable Speed
Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.23 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 2 Mbps-7.15 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 7.2 Mbps
2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.
Upload Speed
0.99 Mbps

Max Achievable Speed
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.99Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps

Its getting that bad that Speedtest.net is struggling to load to run a Speedtest.

[#5]

If the current line speed reported by https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=stable_rate doesn't match the IP Profile reported by the BT speed test you need to ring up and ask for it to be corrected.

[#6]

According to that link it says my line speed is 6.6Mbps
So something is up, something this afternoon as messed up my connection while I was out, going to try another reconnect with my router, but going to give them a ring too

[#7]

Did a Reboot with my router and its getting a better speed for the time being, going to keep an eye on it over the next 24-48hrs, if its still playing up I'll ring them during the weekend or Monday when tech support is open.
Update Edit:
Well been keeping eye on it just for the last 10mins and its fluctuating a lot between 3-6Mbps, still may wait till tomorrow and see what its like and ring up Plusnet

[#8]

Don't do any more reboots for the time being. Too many reboots will be seen by the exchange as an unstable line and it will raise the target noise margin to try to make it more stable which lower the sync speed. If that happens it takes a lot more sorting out.
Two things will restrict your speed: (a) the IP Profile reported by the BT speed test, (b) the current line speed on the page I linked. The speed you will see on a speed test will be about 90% or so of the lower of those two figures.
If you'd just rung them up as I said when you found that the current line speed was not 7.2 you'd be seeing higher speeds by now.

[#9]

Already rang them and there is something up with my line, its reporting speeds below the fault threshold so i'm going through the usual routine
Connected up the old Thompson Router
Got the old MicroFilter in
Its all connected to the Master Socket in the wall.
I got a feeling BT have been in my block today and probably connected someone's phone line up and in the process maybe have messed up mine.

[#10]

Well I'm not sure what is going on here, there is certainly something rather odd, but as jelv has said doing reboots and that includes disconnects and swapping could lead to further problems with slower speeds.
Do NOT do any more disconnects or swapping things around without using the following procedure -
Use this Disconnect method -
Do a Disconnect of your PPP Internet session with the ISP - you need to login to the modem/router interface and look for the Disconnect button to click on. On the Thomson modem/routers you will typically find it in the  box marked Internet as shown here.
Now wait a few minutes, power down. Then wait 10 minutes (during this time swap any filters, modem/router, connect to test socket, etc. - it doesn't matter if you take longer than 10 minutes) and then power up again (You may need to login to the modem/router and click on Connect to re-establish the PPP Internet session). Check the stats immediately (The Noise Margin [SNRM] shown is usually the current Target Noise Margin).
I usually recommend you do this no more than 5 times in an hour, and then leave it alone for the rest of the day.  Remember the reason for this procedure is to help prevent the exchange DLM from thinking you have a dropping connection (or a worse one than you may have) which can results in a raise Target Noise margin and slower speeds (and/or banding on 21CN).
You can use the Disconnect/Connect (without a power down) to Gateway hop, which is sometimes a good idea if you think you may currently be on a Gateway that is congested or has other problems.
If you've ran a speed test and got 6.09Mbps with a Plusnet Line speed of 6.6 then it suggests there is nothing wrong with the broadband. One thing you should not do is rely just on download speedtest results in a narrow timeband at peak times. Download speeds can vary by fractions of a second depending on exchange, network and/or speedtest server congestion at the time, so speeds varying between 3-6Mbps over that 10 minute period come as no surprise and in themselves are not necessarily indicative of a fault.
The thing that was wrong was that the Plusnet profile (Line Speed) was not matching the BT IP profile for the line, this is a perennial problems as the BT Delta report that provides this information to Plusnet is not coming through as it should and sometimes a historical report comes through when conditions have changed. In any event when it does, it can take 12hrs for the Plusnet one to update and sometimes they just don't.. If however they have done a copper line test and found a fault that is something else and is dealt with as a Phone fault not a Broadband one and swapping equipment about and rebooting will lead to further problems as explained, BUT -
Looking back at the thread you mentioned in reply #1 and the DSL stats you posted, that is truly remarkable performance for a line of that length. Now a good modem/router will get the best performance it can from a line and that Buffalo seems to be doing a damn good job, but there is more to this me thinks. Considering what you said about your move, I'm wondering if the cable to the exchange to provide the services for the building is a separate one from other main cables and had few services connected at that time. This would mean much lower noise levels and crosstalk and so much higher achievable speed than in a typical environment. If your swap to ADSL2+ and it's training period was whilst this status was the case, the I can understand why there may be a very high FTR for the Line. (Perhaps you could post the details of the fault ticket if that information is present).
Looking at the stats you posted in your OP in this thread, they are more in line with what might be expected for a typical circuit on a normally utilised cable.
If you could post the current stats from the Thomson, the current full Diagnostic results from a BT speedtest and Current line speed, that would give us a clearer picture of what may be going on. I know jelv is scratching his head and I will certainly be interested to hear the outcome of this.

[#11]

Hi KingPenguinUK,
Our faults team have been testing your line and you'll be updated shortly with the results.
If there's anything you need me to chase up please let me know.