Intermittent broadband. Goes down and then back up

[#1]

I have unlimited fibre broadband (copper) & the internet keeps dropping out and the plusnet router goes orange each time, comes back on after a minute or two but it’s happening all the time. Any idea what’s causing it? What can I do to fix this?!

[#2]

@Offline28 Welcome to the forums.

First thing to check: Is your phoneline clear? Dial 17070 (preferably from a corded phone), select option 2. Once your phone number is confirmed, there should be silence on the line except for the regular 'Quiet Line Test' message - any other noise, report a PHONE problem via: https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/phone/

If the phone test passes, report a broadband problem via: https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/broadband/

Let us know the result - if the tests come back as clear but you still have a problem, we need to investigate further.

[#3]

@Offline28 

Start by following @jab1 advice. The problem with intermittent drop out problems is that the fault diagnostic system might not detect that there’s a problem.
If this fails to detect the issue then to check that this is not your Hub One going on the blink, try the following:

Log into the hub and go to the troubleshooting page then the event log. Look through the pages, where you should see the disconnects and reconnects. Look for any reference to Watchdog Error or 0x3.

If you have a Plusnet Hub Two the Event Log is on the Advanced settings/Technical log page.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Offline28

I'm really sorry for how long it's taken to get back to you. We've been quite busy recently so it's taking longer than we'd like to reply.

After testing your line this afternoon I can see the connection was dropping a lot but appears to be stable now.

If the connection starts playing up again just report a fault using the links above and we'll investigate further

[#5]

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@MatthewWheeler wrote:

After testing your line this afternoon I can see the connection was dropping a lot but appears to be stable now.

If the connection starts playing up again just report a fault using the links above and we'll investigate further

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Which in the absence of metrics could simply mean that BT's Dynamic Line Management (DLM) system could have "slugged" the line speed to keep the line stable.

Can you please post your full router stats - notably, speed, SNRM and attenuation figures.

What was the result of your line noise test?

[#6]

Thanks @jab1 , @Baldrick1 , @MatthewWheeler  and @Townman for your help and taking the time to reply.

For the everyone's benefit here is some more context and the workaround/fix for the issue.

Two weeks ago, when I was experiencing the intermittent broadband issue Plusnet logged for a BT Openreach engineer to attend. They upgraded and installed a Master socket 5C. Not long after this the issue was just as bad if not worse than before.

Plusnet support called me and asked if I had a BT master socket fitted. They told me to remove the face plate and connect the ADSL filter and router connection directly into the socket. 

Plusnet left me to test the line for a few days, which I did and the issue has not returned. So I guess the fix was to remove the Master socket 5C faceplate.

Many thanks all for your help and advice.

[#7]

@Offline28 Sounds - to me - like your back-box has been too tightly screwed to the (possibly) uneven wall. Unfortunately, you can't, officially, play with that, but if you are happy with the current set-up, then there is no detriment - it just doesn't look very neat.