Poor Connection Speed for several months

[#1]

Hi all,

For several months now my connection speeds have been quite poor. My area only supports ADSL2 so my speed has always been 18 Mbps consistantly. For the pasts 3 or so months however, this has dropped to 10Mbps. To me, this speed seems to be fixed as it never goes beyond this speed.

All my tests were done through a wired connection and through the master socket. A Plusnet engineer was organised to visit my property. His initial assessment was that I had a faulty BT socket which he replaced.

Nothing seems to have changed since his visit roughly 3 weeks ago now - My speed never goes beyond 10mbps. I have realised that my connection does not drop much these days, it is just the speeds that are suffering now. Anyone have any ideas? Would appreciate any help or information to get to the cause of this.

[#2]

Hi @Extooth 

Sometimes BT engineers do not look further than the first fault (or suspect) they find, before high-tailing it to the next job.  What steps of the trouble shooting process have you completed?  See the speed issues link below.

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket (ideally this should be a corded phone). The line should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault via a mobile telephone using the button below.

• Phone Faults

How is your line performing?

Please post your router stats (include line speed, attenuation, SNRM, uptime and if available, error counts); for PN routers use the buttons below, for other routers look at the Kitz link.

Also run a BT Wholesale speed test (ideally using an Ethernet wired PC with the WiFi turned off) then run the further diagnostics, download the .PDF report and post the results here. DO NOT REBOOT the router!

Check the Plusnet user portal for the "Current Line Speed" which is relevant to users with static IP addresses.

• TG582n Stats
• Hub 0 / 1 Stats
• Hub 2 Stats
• Kitz list
• BTw Speedtest
• PN Broadband Status

[#3]

Hi @Townman

thank you for your detailed reply. Here are some stats.

Your broadband service

• Product:  Unlimited (Contracted)
• Estimated Download Range:  5 - 12Mbps
• Estimated Upload Range:  1Mbps
• Minimum Guaranteed Speed:  2.5Mbps
• Current Line Speed (Download):  15.4Mbps

For 3 years at this property my speed has always been around the 18 mark but I have noticed many dropouts - which have now stopped since my bt socket has been changed.

BT Wholesale:

Summary of Performance Test

Timestamp

Friday 16 June 2023 | 12:44:44

Ping

32 Ms

Download

9.70 Mbps

Upload

1.00 Mbps

Advance Test

Download Test

Download speed achieved during the test was 9.70 Mbps

For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 - 21 Mbps

IP Profile for your line is 10.16 Mbps

9.7 Mbps

21 Mbps

Upload Test

Upload speed achieved during the test was 1.00 Mbps

IP Profile for your line is 0.83 Mbps

1 Mbps

0.83 Mpbs

Summary Advanced Test

We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.

It is possible that any problem you have experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion or by a server responding slowly.

Please visit the "SpeedTest Guidance" for more information.

Im pressing the download report button but it does not produce me anything - nothing is opened/saved...

1. Product name: Plusnet Hub 2. Serial number: +081441+NQ71708506 3. Firmware version: Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 Last updated 23/01/22 4. Board version: Plusnet Hub One 5. DSL uptime: 0 days, 21:17:27 6. Data rate: 966 / 11513 7. Maximum data rate: 20131 / 11616 8. Noise margin: 8.4 / 14.9 9. Line attenuation: 12.0 / 26.8 10. Signal attenuation: 12.0 / 25.1 11. Data sent/received: 441.0 MB / 15.6 GB 12. Broadband username: Hidden 13. 2.4 GHz Wireless network/SSID: Wu-Tang Lan 14. 2.4 GHz Wireless connections: Enabled (802.11 b/g/n (up to 144 Mb/s)) 15. 2.4 GHz Wireless security: WPA2 16. 2.4 GHz Wireless channel: Automatic (Smart Wireless) 17. 5 GHz Wireless network/SSID: (Hidden) 18. 5 GHz Wireless connections: Disabled 19. 5 GHz Wireless security: WPA2 20. 5 GHz Wireless channel: Automatic (Smart Wireless) 21. Firewall: Default 22. MAC Address: f4:6b:ef:47:64:f4 23. VPI/VCI: 0 / 38 24. Modulation: G.992.5 Annex A 25. Latency type: Interleaved 26. Software variant: AA 27. Boot loader: 1.0.0
Plusnet Hub One | Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 | Last updated 23/01/22 - I have performed a phone line silent test and cannot hear anything.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Great stuff!!

The DS noise margin (SNRM) at 14dB is horrible!!

Given that the telephone line is silent, then raise a broadband speed fault report, using the link below.  If that does not detect a fault, then we need to look elsewhere for a reason for the line being managed aggressively by the DLM to maintain line stability.

If there is no fault found, then you are probably experiencing the consequences of electrical interference (REIN) which is a devil of a job to deal with ... fortunately you have a Plusnet Hub One, rather than a Zero or Two!  More on that after the results of a broadband fault report.

[#5]

@Townman 

Appreciate your help once more.

I have contacted Plusnet and described the problem again, refering to my past engineer visit and mentioning what you have also told me. The Advisor told me that you hit the nail right on the head. The advisor has now done 2 things... DLM line reset to reset the limit, and another reset which should fix any drop outs (I cant recall the name of the 2nd one im sorry).

Advisor has stated that after 48hrs my speeds should return to normal and I am to call back if thats not the case. I will of course let you know on here also. Thank you for your effort so far and I will keep you in the loop!

Edit:

Found the ticket and here is what has happened:

As per our conversation, i have performed an SNR reset aswell as resetting the DLM setting within acceptable levels.

[#6]

Tread carefully here...

What we do not know is if the DLM was reset after the engineer replaced the faceplate.

• If it was not, it should have been and this action might fix your issue - the DLM reset will remove the "chronic" banding applied to your line - the "acceptable levels" might mean that the TARGET SNRM has been fixed, rather than allowing the DLM to fully optimise the parameter
• If the DLM was reset after the engineer's visit, then there is still a problem, because the SNRM is way higher than it should be for a good line

Can you please post your router stats again, remembering to obscure personal information - you can copy & paste the stats screen as text!!

Also can you look at the router log file and copy the xDSL UP line - that reports the sync speed at the reconnection and the TARGET SNRM values.

Keep a watch on the stats - if you get drops or the SNRM goes up (speed goes down) then there is more to do.

[#7]

@Townman  

Not sure if it helps, but I monitord the speeds daily before and after the Engineer visits and apart from a drop here or there, my speeds always remained constant at 10mbps.

My First speed check today directly after the reset already saw an increase to 15mbps - somewhat still away from the orignal ~18. If there are no issues will I see a gradual return to this figure do you think?

Will continue to monitor daily the router logs and speeds to see any issues.

Speeds:

Summary of Performance Test

Timestamp

Friday 16 June 2023 | 20:19:20

Ping

26 Ms

Download

14.25 Mbps

Upload

1.12 Mbps

Advance Test

Download Test

Download speed achieved during the test was 14.25 Mbps

For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 - 21 Mbps

IP Profile for your line is 14.95 Mbps

14.25 Mbps

21 Mbps

Upload Test

Upload speed achieved during the test was 1.12 Mbps

IP Profile for your line is 0.83 Mbps

1.12 Mbps

0.83 Mpbs

Summary Advanced Test

We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.

It is possible that any problem you have experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion or by a server responding slowly.

Please visit the "SpeedTest Guidance" for more information.

1. Product name:	Plusnet Hub
2. Serial number:	+081441+NQ71708506
3. Firmware version:	Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 Last updated 23/01/22
4. Board version:	Plusnet Hub One
5. DSL uptime:	0 days, 06:14:25
6. Data rate:	1088 / 16949
7. Maximum data rate:	22334 / 16992
8. Noise margin:	6.3 / 5.7
9. Line attenuation:	12.1 / 27.5
10. Signal attenuation:	12.1 / 25.6
11. Data sent/received:	31.2 MB / 731.7 MB
12. Broadband username:	Hidden
13. 2.4 GHz Wireless network/SSID:	Hidden
14. 2.4 GHz Wireless connections:	Enabled (802.11 b/g/n (up to 144 Mb/s))
15. 2.4 GHz Wireless security:	WPA2
16. 2.4 GHz Wireless channel:	Automatic (Smart Wireless)
17. 5 GHz Wireless network/SSID:	Hidden
18. 5 GHz Wireless connections:	Disabled
19. 5 GHz Wireless security:	WPA2
20. 5 GHz Wireless channel:	Automatic (Smart Wireless)
21. Firewall:	Default
22. MAC Address:	Hidden
23. VPI/VCI:	0 / 38
24. Modulation:	G.992.5 Annex A
25. Latency type:	Fast
26. Software variant:	AA
27. Boot loader:	1.0.0

[#8]

Hi @Townman 

Thanks again for helping on the issue - I have marked one of your replies as the fix - Since my last comment my line has maintained its speed as once was and Im back to being happy.

Hope you are well - thank you again for taking your time to help the community.

Extooth