Internet up and down like a yoyo this morning

[#1]

As per topic, my internet is up and down like a yoyo and has been for the last hour or so, fairly certain this isn't anything at my end as it's generally rock solid except for planned service outages.

As a result of the constant retraining my internet speed has also dropped, which I'm also less than pleased about.

Any chance someone from PN can look into this and get back to me?

[#2]

Afternoon @Method0ne I can see these drops on our side so I just need to ask a few questions. 

Has anyone been doing work outside? E.g. water pipes or gas work.

What checks have you done your side?

Are you using the router we provided?

Please can you send a picture of the setup?

[#3]

No work going on that I can see any evidence of on my street, or on the surrounding ones, just had to go out for some things so checked on that where I could.

Router is my own, Draytek 2860AC which I've been using since I got my FTTC connection from PN, currently connected to the master faceplate as a standard setup would be, only that one socket in the house and no extensions at all. Not even sure if I have a PN supplied router, and if I do it's from back when the service first went live so is likely years out of date at this point.

Haven't been able to really do much other than speedtests to be honest as I'm somewhat disabled at present and have a lot of mobility issues, but in all honesty this is the first time in a while I've had any internet issue that wasn't a planned outage due to BTW servicing something, or that wasn't immediately fixed by a router reboot.

As it stands right now the connection seems to have been stable for close to an hour so hopefully whatever was causing the drops has cleared up, the speed drop is a bit of a concern but I assume that's some DSLAM shenanigans due to the repeated disconnects. Also just noticed my downstream is no longer interleaved, which it has been for years, could the repeated disconnects have triggered a line retrain? Pretty sure I had to manually request those in the past but it's been a long time since I've looked into anything as I haven't had issues in so long.

Edited to add router stats.

[#4]

Adding BT Speedtest/address check and Speedof.me test results in case of relevance.

[#5]

@Method0ne Anywhere on that kit that shows network/DSL uptime? Your D/S speed appears to be capped at 30Mb/s.

[#6]

Added uptime stats, I manually reset the router at the first disconnect I noticed as I wondered if it was going to simply be a case of turn it off and back on again to fix it, so the router uptime in the top right only shows 5hrs 28mins.

Under normal operation the router is on for months at a time without a reboot or a disconnect (that I notice) without issue.

[#7]

Thanks for the extra info. As I said previously, your D/S speed has been capped at 30Mb/s, but additionally, your D/S noise margin is high - the reason for this needs investigating before any meaningful attempt can be made to remove the cap/improve your speed.

Hope the added data helps @willcutforth .

[#8]

I believe the speed cap is due to the repeated disconnects causing the limit to be reduced (I recall this being a thing, hence my wondering if it was DSLAM shenanigans).

The D/S noise margin has always been a bit iffy, I always thought it was due to distance from the Cabinet as that's how it was explained to me back in the day when I had an adsl connection, and as far as I know that distance from the Cab is why I can't get 80/20 on my line, and why I normally only get 34/5.5 on a good day. Though if there is a potential issue that is the cause then I'd happily have it looked into.

[#9]

It appears, from the BTW address check report, that 30Mb/s was their observation on 30/9/2023, so has been capped since at least that time.

A 10dB noise margin indicates an issue - it implies a fault somewhere, and is not related to you r distance from the cab - although those figures do suggest your copper length is large.

[#10]

I can assure you, it wasn't capped before the disconnects started happening earlier today, it's always connected at a hair under 34 down and around 5.5 up, been that way for at least a decade. Today is the first time I've ever seen it connect at a lower rate than that since the initial install.

[#11]

The report I mentioned above clearly shows a 30Mb/s connection at that date, but as this is hopefully being investigated by PN, you will have to follow their advice. I am only commenting based on years of experience.

[#12]

After the initial problems, it seems like my connection stabilized, or at least I didn't notice any interruptions for a good long while, right up until around 11PM when it started yoyo-ing again.

Since I was having issues anyway I took a look and found a firmware update for my router so I've gone ahead and installed it in the hope that maybe it'll help, can't really hurt anything at this point at least.

Will check back on things in the morning, fingers crossed I still have an internet connection!

[#13]

Looks like I've had at least one drop since I last checked in as I'm only showing 1hr 37mins of connection uptime since I went to bed, will continue to monitor as the day progresses and hopefully a solution can be found.

[#14]

Just had another drop, this is making it very hard to actually enjoy doing anything I'd normally be doing while online.

[#15]

I suggest you follow:

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.

The above assumes you still have 'normal' landline connection - if you have a SOGEA (internet only) one, just use the second link to report a network issue.

You clearly have a fault, which needs the attention of Plusnet/OpenReach.