Pulling my hair out over PlusNet lack of support.

[#1]

The high noise margin is a symptom of the line being banded, these two would go hand in hand.

And the relatively low uptime just means the router disconnected at least once ~2 days ago. 

I’m not ruling out an issue on Openreach’s side, but think it would be prudent for more checks to be done. 

[#2]

Agreed, @Gandalf , but if the OP carries out the relevant checks on their equipment and they come back as clear, will PN/OR sort the issue?

As a point of interest, as I was going to ask anyway, does the OP have the option of FTTC or FTTP, as both of these are considerably more reliable than ADSL?

[#3]

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@KitKite wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

My frustration is that PlusNet has not or avoided making any comment or apology to the system failure in my area at christmas. 

My modem is stable at the very top of a banding profile at 6655. Can someone explain why at exactly 6655 and not say more or less.

It does not change. Even after a modem reboot. Its like the line capable of going higher but can't because its locked/capped to that profile. If a line is set to a banded profile can that line go higher?  And how long will it take to move to a higher band?

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May I stick my oar in here?

"I believe my lines banded profile got reset to a lower one with an upper DL speed of 6655.
Plusnet do not want to reset my download speed to the pre Christmas weekend. The have basically capped it at 6655."

I wonder... Obviously I am unfamiliar with your situation and BB issues, but your post chimes with my experience when I was last on ADSL 2+ (Now on 40/10 FTTC ).

I too ended up banded, on the top banding: 7168Kb/s - 14336Kb/s

And, interestingly, like you I was always slap bang up against the top end of that band - exactly 14336Kb/s - whatever I did with the router. This implied to me what I already knew: my line could go slightly faster ~15,000Kb/s. I could even get that maximum speed if I asked for a DLM reset. It worked until it didn't. That is until early in the morning around 5am it mysteriously reset to 14336Kb/s. What was wrong with my line? Nothing. Nobody could every find anything wrong with it, it just wouldn't work at the higher rate. Still less the speed it had originally worked at. That was a reliable and solid 18Mbps at 3db SNRM, every day. And I turned the router off every night!

Originally with TalkTalk, I then changed to PN and the line was the same. Then I went through a horrible couple of years with repeating, extremely intermittent faults, that were never there when you looked for them. Only when you weren't looking for them. Long story but I eventually got two faults removed.

Things returned to 'normal' - that is 18Mbps download at 3db SNRM - for a blissful period. Then an event. Nothing was ever the same again, it was slower ~16/15Mbps. As the years went by things only got slowly worse over time. There was still no 'fault' on my line. Whatever I tried I could never get back my original 18Mbps download.

I decided there must be some unacknowledged change to the way BT/Openreach managed ADSL lines via the DLM. I could never get PN to accept this. In the end I gave up fighting the system, decided ADSL was simply obsolescent and on the way out. I changed to FTTC and it just works (as ADSL used to in those far off days of 18Mbps). My 40/10 FTTC is presumably helped over any bumps with its high SNRM.

I recently looked at the Openreach availability of BB to my address and was genuinely shocked to see that ADSL 2+ is now shown as down to a meagre 7 Mbps to my address! Funnily enough, its recorded "Highest recorded speed" was still shown as me on my 14336Kb/s ADSL back when I was still on ADSL 2+. Almost twice the current shown maximum expected speed. 😮

Possibly you need to now consider a move away from ADSL (assuming this is possible for you)?

[#4]

Hi

I've gone through the troubleshooting link

Including the following

Checked cables are ok and plugged in correctly

Disconnected the connected phone and its power supply

I also disconnect any other local power supplies

Swapped out the ADSL filter.

Rebooted router last night. I noticed no change.

[#5]

This has the hallmarks of SHINE / REIN interference.  Notably it started around Christmas time ... possibly coincident with the acquisition of new electronics.

SHINE / REIN will cause repeated disconnections, leading to banding (with an elevated SNRM) in an attempt to maintain the stability of the connection.  In such circumstances, one is faced with either a slower more stable connection or a faster very unstable connection.  The absence of a discernible fault on the line also supports the possibility of local / environmental interference.

Detecting this is far from easy.  I have done this with an AM radio tuned to 612KHz - see ::. Kitz - REIN, SHINE & RFI .:: 

However, the best way to investigate this is to run dynamic monitoring of the connection's SNRM; this needs to be done 24x7 with a 10 second sample rate.  Routerstats (see Internet Software (vwlowen.co.uk)) is the go to product for this, but the router needs to be amenable to exposing the required data.  I think that the lite version works with the 2704 router - I do not recall clearly.

If you have an older router from Plusnet which you can try (for example the TG582n which works well with the full version or a Plusnet Hub1 / BTHH5a for which there is a special version) you might gain insight to what is happening in your local environment.

[#6]

Anyone?

[#7]

Have you completed the checks advised by @Gandalf in post #12, and can we see a current 'Help Desk' please?

[#8]

I confirmed checks in my post #

I did an updated set of Helpdesk set of stats but somehow the post wouldn't accept them.

I'll try paste in a different way below.

Your Plusnet adviser may ask you for the following information:
1 - Product name: Plusnet Router
2 - Serial number: N7171081B005543
3 - Firmware version: 7.275.17_F2704N_Plusnet
4 - Board version: F@ST2704N
5 - Mode ADSL
6 - Uptime: 17 days 01:17:22
7 - Data rate: 1216/6655
8 - Maximum data rate: 1228/10620
9 - Noise margin: 6.2/11.1
10 - Line attenuation: 22.3/43.0
12 - Data sent/received: 1.1G/3.4G
20 - Broadband username: twwilkins@plusdsl.net
21 - Wi-Fi network/SSID: PLUSNET-TPX7JR
22 - Wi-Fi connections: Enable(802.11 b/g/n(up to 144 Mb/s))20 MHz WPS disabled
23 - Wi-Fi security: WPA2
24 - Wi-Fi channel: 10
25 - Firewall: Default
26 - MAC Address: f4:6b:ef:8d:e7:4b
27 - Software variant Version 1.0
28 - Boot loader: 7.275.6

[#9]

1 - Product name: Plusnet Router
2 - Serial number: N7171081B005543
3 - Firmware version: 7.275.17_F2704N_Plusnet
4 - Board version: F@ST2704N
5 - Mode ADSL
6 - Uptime: 17 days 01:17:22
7 - Data rate: 1216/6655
8 - Maximum data rate: 1228/10620
9 - Noise margin: 6.2/11.1
10 - Line attenuation: 22.3/43.0
12 - Data sent/received: 1.1G/3.4G
20 - Broadband username: t@plusdsl.net
21 - Wi-Fi network/SSID: PLUSNET-TPX7JR
22 - Wi-Fi connections: Enable(802.11 b/g/n(up to 144 Mb/s))20 MHz WPS disabled
23 - Wi-Fi security: WPA2
24 - Wi-Fi channel: 10
25 - Firewall: Default
26 - MAC Address: f4:6b:ef:8d:e7:4b
27 - Software variant Version 1.0
28 - Boot loader: 7.275.6

[#10]

Post #19 confirmed my checks.

And I had problems posting my heldesk stats with the addition comments as above . Don't know why. Said it was posted but never showed them.

Moderator's note:
Post released from the automatic Spam Filter.

[#11]

@KitKite Thanks  for that last Help Desk detail. There is still something somewhere causing that very high D/S SNRM figure - until that is sorted, nothing will change and to be honest, getting a new hub for the P&P cost is one I would explore - your 2704N is getting a little long in the tooth these days.

[#12]

@jab1

The ‘cause” of the very high SNRM is that the line is banded.

The line is banded because something is giving rise to a high error rate / repeated disconnection at higher speeds.

Line tests report no faults which strongly suggests SHINE / REIN electrical interference.

If the line is chronically banded the DLM will not readjust the line automatically - a SNRM reset will be required. @Gandalf has indicated that the error rate remains high thus a restart is not prudent. This gives rise to a catch 22 situation.

We have not been advised of the results of a quiet line test. These need to be done repeatedly, at different times of the day - and might still not be conclusive. As @pvm reported their trigger occurred at 5am.

If I were to ‘bet’ on what’s going on here, it would be that there is something which gives rise to a level of intermittent RFI. That is some which can only be seen with 24x7 monitoring of the router stats.

We do not know the location of this user - we’ve seen similar issues from farmer’s electric fences and take-away’s extraction fans … or indeed from an aging router!

If there were evidence that the error rate has reduced there would be merit in requesting a SNRM reset. Whilst the error rate remains, a SNRM reset is nugatory.

Replacing the router with one which lends itself to being monitored by RouterStats removes the existing router from the equation and enables inspection for RFI. The Plusnet Hub One (BTHH5a) is capable of being monitored, the Hub Two is not. There are a lot of routers which will work with routers stats available on flea-bay for very little £££.

In passing running WiFi on channel 10 is suspicious, far from ideal and not friendly to neighbours. The preferred channels are 1, 6 and 11.

[#13]

OK @Townman - I'll leave it to you. 😉

[#14]

John,

By all means continue to contribute … this one is not the typical “The SNRM is high..” issue - there is an unintended cause of the SNRM being high. Line tests out clean, the service monitoring reports high error rates which probably come from the user’s environment.

We’ve no evidence of a quiet line test for audible noise … and we’ve certainly got no RFI monitoring … not even with a simple AM radio