Poor Plusnet broadband connection, Stroud Gloucestershire GL5

[#1]

I'll try to keep this simple.

We started with Plusnet in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in September 2015 and by December it became clear that our broadband connection (supposedly 7Mb+) was variable to say the least. Broadband Speedchecker regularly reported 3Mb or less download.

We contacted tech support and went through the usual procedure: they check the line; no noise on the phone; we disconnect everything; switch off the router; restart everything and, hey presto, we're back to 6Mb.

But the speed declines back down to 2Mb or even 1Mb and we are reminded of dial-up so we go through the whole thing again and the speed goes up again, then it decays again.

Then the BT engineer is called out who checks our line and says that it will support 8Mb and Plusnet bill us (£50) for the engineers visit because the engineer didn't find any problem. But the speed declines again..............

We use internet radio (a Sonos system) and that has become our 'pit canary' because, when the Sonos drops out, we know that we've lost service again.

We have now done more tests and I have noticed that if I send an email with an attached photo (100kb file size) the Sonos drops out and I was surprised that such a small file would completely wipe out our service. The same is true if we send a larger file except the service interruption can last for far longer.

We have just had the opportunity to try the same tests on the same Plusnet package in London and there is no interruption of any sort, no matter how big the file is that is sent or received.

So why is our service in Stroud so bad and why can't Plusnet sort it out?

Suggestions please.

PS We have CAT5 cabling so we now use Ethernet cables and wifi is off.

[#2]

Any suggestions as to how to resolve the problem or am I stuck with it? I was considering upgrading to fibre but if Plusnet can't run ADSL then why should their fibre be any better?

Its not as if we haven't tried everything that we can think of at our end and the real clincher is that sending a small picture file stalls the service. Surely sending a small file shouldn't do that?

[#3]

@neiljay The Cat 5 wiring, is this on your LAN side of the system? Do you have CW1308 on the phone/line side? Better cover some basics -

Do you have a Master Socket similar to the one on the left? Do you have any extension phone sockets - hard wired or plug in, and what is normally plugged in where? Do you use any extension leads between the phone socket and filter or filter and modem/router?
Do all your Microfilters look similar to this?
How often do you check the phone line for noise? Can you hear any crackling or other noises on the line when the line drops? Have you had any problems with incoming or outgoing calls? Try the Quiet Line Test 17070 option 2 if need be.

[#4]

@neiljay - Speed Monitoring Software. You can't really do this if you stop to think about it. If you have software that tests the speed of your internet connection then your connection would remain saturated, and you'd not be able to use it. You could of course have these tests done at intervals but you then end up with would would in effect be an intermittent connection and wouldn't be all that useful.

[#5]

Anotherone.

The CAT5 sockets are wired back to a hub which is then plugged into the router. However, when working with Plusnet's tech support, I have my iMac plugged directly into one of the ports on the router (Draytek Vigor 2820n) with an ethernet cable and the iMac is now permanently connected to the router by this cable. Wifi is switched off.

CW1308 - can you explain?

Master socket - when BT's engineer came to check the line he installed a single 'master socket' and told me that I could now delete all other microfilters.

Plus net's tech support enquired about line noise and the line is clear as a bell, confirmed by the BT engineer.

What interests me is that the service drops out completely when I send even the smallest file.

I should also say that we went through a period when Broadband Speedchecker and BT Wholesale recorded download speeds of 40Mbs and upload speeds of 4Mbs. To say that the line performance is unstable is something of an understatement.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

[#6]

I get the point and I hoped that there might be some software which you could set up to run the ping/down/up test on a preset schedule and log the results. At present I am using Broadband Speedchecker which can save the results and output in text which can then be imported into any spreadsheet. I do this at the moment but it would be great if it was possible to get something to do it for me, like once an hour.

[#7]

@neiljay - Well that's not really a speed test, with that said you may find this of interest.

Another option would be to write a shell script to do and use a cron job to launch it.

[#8]

OK. As Mook said monitoring throughput speed is not practical and what you can monitor depends on the modem/router and OS. Let's leave that aside for a moment because it's the line side of things that's important.
So with the Master Socket fitted has it also got the Mk3 plate so you have 2 sockets and the modem/router is in the top one? Tell us what's plugged in where and what leads are used.

[#9]

@Anonymous Testing ping is a bit pointless at present. We need to find out why the connection drops.

[#10]

@Anotherone - I was simply replying to the post!

[#11]

I appreciate that, but what he thinks he needs to monitor is not what will be of much use (at present anyway).

[#12]

So going back to anotherone's question - which master socket do you have and do you have any telephone extensions hard wired or phone extension types.

CW1308 - I think AO is asking what type of cable goes from the Master socket to the downwire - does your line in come from a pole or underground? are there any junction boxes/connectors.

Can you post the results/spreadsheet of your bt tests - upload speeds seem important if it is dropping out when sending a file.
What speed shows at plusnet - see link at the bottom of this post.

Do you have access to a windows pc/laptop.

Sonos radio sometimes appears to have caused problems as it uses a lot of bandwidth? do the upload work when
sonos is totally off? How many machines are connected to the hub?

Is there still a problem when connected direct to the router?

Do the problems occur all the time or at certain times of the day?

Can youi get any stats from your router? I dont see any posted.

[#13]

Sounds like the upstream is being saturated.

The router stats should show how much is available.

[#14]

Have you posted in the wrong thread? Until we know how this is connected to the line, we are going to discover little about dropped connections. Saturation of the upstream is not related to connection drops.