Minimum line speed.

[#1]

I guess we are all aware that many providers only "guarantee" a minimum line speed of 1mbps (my own has been well below that figure for some time now) but what I wonder is the minimum line speed acceptable to plusnet on behalf of their customers?

Until the end of January this year my download speed would hover at around 3.5mbps whilst my neighbours port and starboard were a nudge higher. Since then mine alone 'nose dived' and has been struggling at well under 1mbps with persistent buffering being the norm should I try and stream videos. 

Lo and behold, BT tells now advises me via plusnet that "they believe they have found and rectified the issue by performing a few changes the external network" yet a quick triple check my end shows download speeds of only 1.24, 1.25 and 1.23mbps respectively. An improvement yes indeedy, but is that the best I can expect because to be honest, it's a pretty poor show all round if it is.

Any help guys? as I'm drowning not waving!

[#2]

Have you followed protocol listed in the "Broadband" faults page here.

Have you tried quiet line test?

What does Openreach test show in terms of your number's sped profile?

http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

[#3]

Yep, also got the t-shirt as they say. 

[#4]

Interesting lack of replies, especially from plusnet in regards to the minimum line speed acceptable to them on behalf of their customers. 

Hmm.  

[#5]

The minimum line speed varies from line to line, there is no overall set one. The MGALS (Minimum Guaranteed Access Line Speed) is based on the bottom 10th percentile of customers within a speed range, the highest value of this is the MGALS.

So as a quick example, if the low end of the estimate is 3Mb/s, the MGALS is 2.17Mb/s.

[#6]

Thanks for the reply Chris but that all sounds a bit vague if you'll excuse me for saying so.

Surely under any conditions and in any situation there must be a 'minimum guaranteed access line speed'. Plusnet sounds no different from any other provider when trying to pin them down on this which is not surprising given that in countryside areas like mine the internet seems at times to be almost steam driven.

I guess in is what it is, but nothing that BT especially should be proud of.

[#7]

The correct procedure should have been that your line went through a 10 day training period, at the end of which two values are recorded.  MSR or "Maximum Stable Rate" is the lowest synch speed that you achieved during that time.  (Only BT could use the minimum and call it "maximum")   On 20CN at least MSR is rounded down in 500K chunks so for example our line spent the 10 days at 4256 but MSR was recorded as 4000.   The second figure is FTR or Fault Threshold Rate which is some sort of percentage of MSR, ours is 3200.

If your line connects at a speed below that FTR then the service provider should be able to raise it as a fault purely on that basis.

Note that these figures are derived from the actual historical performance of your line, not from any pre-sale BT estimate.  Again in our case, BT estimate is "up to 1meg", training period over 4meg, fault threshold 3200.

Now the downside, which is that Plusnet does not always seem to bother getting these MSR/FTR figures recorded.   They never did for us.  and for others I've seen cases where for some perverse reason they carried out the assessment while the line was faulty, guaranteeing that the figures would be unrealistically low.    Instead they tend to keep harking back to that BT "estimate" and will fight against any attempt for you to raise a speed fault if that "estimated" speed is being achieved.  Sadly I fear that while you remain with Plusnet this will probably continue to be the case.

So rant over for the moment, can you give some figures?   What does the BT Wholesale site say is your estimated speed?

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker

What speed is your router/modem actually connecting at?

What is your Plusnet "Current Line Speed"?  https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed

Lastly maybe I'm being unduly critical of Plusnet in this case, but I don't think I see anything in their responses to show any more constructive an attitude.  Maybe some more discussion here will stir them up.

[#8]

Do you feel you've been done proud?

[#9]

Done over more like!

[#10]

Now the downside, which is that Plusnet does not always seem to bother getting these MSR/FTR figures recorded.   They never did for us.  and for others I've seen cases where for some perverse reason they carried out the assessment while the line was faulty, guaranteeing that the figures would be unrealistically low.   

These figures aren't recorded by us, they are set (as you mentioned) during the training period by the DLM. We don't decide when the figures are recorded either, so if there is a fault during the first 10 days then yes this may be lower.

Instead they tend to keep harking back to that BT "estimate" and will fight against any attempt for you to raise a speed fault if that "estimated" speed is being achieved.  Sadly I fear that while you remain with Plusnet this will probably continue to be the case.

The estimate is relevant more on FTTC than ADSL, the MGALS which I mentioned earlier is the Ofcom agreed measurement for minimum contractual speeds.

[#11]

Chris, I would be delighted for your customers if all that is now true.  I am just relaying my own direct experience as a Plusnet customer.

I must correct one thing, which is that timing of Customer Controlled SNR Reset is definitely within the power of your technical team so in that scenario (fault during training period) then it would be possible and sensible to reset once the line is fixed.

I suspect that MGALS may be a red herring for fault resolution, unless you're saying that it sets the bar higher than FTR.  I've not seen it invoked in practice.   Your example above doesn't look promising as you appear to be basing it on a percentage of the BT pre-sale line estimate and not on the actual line history.   It would be interesting to see the figures for Minivan's line, actual normal speed, BT estimate, MSR/FTR and MGALS.

[#12]

I do have those, I'll post them up and when I get the chance - and the inclination to be honest because after nearly five months, reams of correspondence with plusnet, and more calls by engineers to my home than you can shake a stick at, I'm beginning to lose the will to live!

[#13]

Reading some more about MGALS, how does that work for an existing customer who was not given the choice of going ahead or not based on the MGALS figure offered?   I can't see what would stop Plusnet just plucking a figure from out of nowhere, maybe one that's only a fraction of the speed the customer has been used to receiving.   That was why I was interested to see how they all relate in a particular case.

Chris - out of interest if I PM you a phone number that's currently not used for Plusnet DSL, could you tell me what MGALS would be on offer?