High Attenuation & High SNR = continued confusion

[#1]

Hi there,
I have been a PlusNet customer for many years now since we moved into a converted barn and have broadband installed. For around 3 years+ we had a constant download speed of around 600Kb/s and nothing higher. Only last year did the speed increase to 1Mb/s and over up to probably a maximum of 1.5Mb/s.
The problem is as soon as the speed increased it decreased to a lower speed than before going to about 400Kb/s and so on.
After numerous speed tests and fault checks resolving nothing out of order the cause is just put down to the high attenuation as we live approximately 2 miles from the local telephone exchange.
About 3 weeks ago our connection had been running at 2300Kb/s downstream for about 2 months stable and out of nowhere our speed has dropped to around 1.1Mb/s.
DSL Connection
Uptime: 11 days, 5:36:51
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,632
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 17.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 13.0 / 15.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 2 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 1,431 / 95,427
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 1,431 / 634
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 789 / 559
Download speedachieved during the test was - 1077 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 400-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :1632 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1250 Kbps
Is there anyway that the high SNR can be reduced to give a higher speed possibly or not available due to the high noise attenuation down our phone line?
It's just slightly irritating when a connection can be running stable for 2/3 months at the highest speed we have had ever on our line and then drop to what it was 3/4 years ago.
Using one computer whilst playing on my xbox can't happen due to lagging out of games etc and horribly slow speed on the computer.
Thanks

[#2]

The number of CRC, HEC and FEC errors is remarkably small for 11 days up time.
Your target noise (SN) margin is probably 15dB so simply restarting the router won't increase sync speed. When the Digital Care Team are on the forums again tomorrow they may be happy to reset your connection which will reduce the target noise margin to 6dB and restart the 10 day training period. This would significantly increase sync speed, but could lead to disconnections and target noise margin increasing again. Worth a try though I would think.

[#3]

Yeah well in the past I had been told to restart my router a few times to see if it made a change and other times that could make it worse so from the contradictions I didn't know what would help and what would make it worse. Okay that sounds like best if it's possible to do so and definitely worth a try 
Thanks

[#4]

Hi there,
I've just put the SNR reset through for you, should take effect in a couple of hours. Given the line's been stable you should be fine, but please let us know how it goes.

[#5]

Okay thank you very much!
I will keep you posted

[#6]

Hi there
After about 10 minutes of you starting the reset process the connection kept resetting every 30 seconds or so and has been doing so since then, so has been difficult to post this reply but here are the stats from the router.
Does this mean that the connection has become unstable or is it the expected results and will take a little longer?
Uptime: 0 days, 0:00:23
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,688
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 17.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 12.0 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 2,497 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 193 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 4 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 359
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 120

[#7]

Hi Dexter619,
Our connection logs show this clearly:

Can you please power off your broadband router and then power back on again to see if this stops this cycle.  Most of the connections appear to be 8 minutes in length exactly which is very odd indeed.  If this has no effect then please get back to us as our faults team may be able to resolve this via another method.

[#8]

Hi Alex
I have managed to power off my router and reset but it seems to be cycling through still.
Declan Whitfield

[#9]

I'm on it.

[#10]

I think it's stopped cycling and seems to be a lot better now as the stats show and connection for 22 minutes.
Uptime: 0 days, 0:22:44
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,848
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 13.0 / 7.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 390 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 30 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 166 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,323,351
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 44
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 21

[#11]

Looks good our side too.  I asked one of the BT agents to modify your line profile slightly.  It was set to "6dB/Fast" which was causing the line to disconnect.  "Fast" meaning Interleaving off.  I requested this to be changed to "6dB/Interleaved" and the line has stabilised.
Keep an eye on it and let us know if it continues.

[#12]

Ahh thank you very much for your help, really appreciated
I will do indeed and get back to you soon.
Thanks again
Declan

[#13]

Hi again
This might just be me being impatient as I was told there would be a 10 day training period again but doing several tests with only my pc connected I can't seem to get over 500kb/s download, would lower speeds be normal in this case as sync speeds are a lot higher?

[#14]

I have adjusted your speed profile on our systems to 2000kbps to match the current BT profile.  Please retest your speed and let us know if the problem persists.
http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

[#15]

I tested through BT speedtester as you increased the profile speed and increased to around 950kb/s which still indicates a lot less than sync speed. I would copy and paste but closed the window it was open in and can't retest within an hour
Just used a broadband speed test and got 1800kb/s download within a couple of minutes.