Speed Degraded Over The Years!
Hi @freakent,
I'm sorry that your speed has dropped and for any inconvenience that this is causing you. As the speed is still within the line's estimates of 10 - 19.5mbps, we're limited in terms of the support that we can offer with this but there are things that we can recommend to help improve the connection.
I've tested your line and the test hasn't picked up any problems from here and indicates that your line is currently syncing at 14.8mbps. Please can you run through the tests that @Townman has recommended and let us know how you get on.
@freakent wrote:
When we first moved into this house and moved my Plusnet account with us we were getting 18mbps download. We are not far from the Exchange and the cabinet. Recently iPlayer has started buffering lots so I logged on to the router to check what speeds the router is connecting at. The link rate was 14333 downstream and 1232 upstream. I called plusnet support, the guy changed something, I waited a few hours to reboot the router. Now my link rate is 14845/1239, which is just a very small increase and still nowhere near the speeds we were originally getting.
Welcome to the club!
My story is exactly the same: used to get ~18Mbps every day - and that was when I turned the router off every night. 
Now it's down to ~15Mpbs (and still falling...), but as this is 'within spec.' I can't really take it up with anyone.
So what's going on? Well, looking at an old DSLstats screenshot on my desktop from those happy days of yore, I notice one thing immediately - the Download noise margin was ~3dB, nowadays it's always 6dB. So there's an answer of sorts right there.
So why can't I get 3dB anymore - are they even selling it these days? That's where the clouds roll in and it all gets rather foggy. It might be this, it might be that...
It might be down to my Openworld NTE 5C master socket playing up, as it is causing sporadic crackles.
It might be down to something else wrong - incoming calls cause the UPLOAD error rate to go through the roof.
It might be down to the growth of fibre (FTTC) causing increasing crosstalk on my line.
It might be down to the Gods of ADSL only allowing me 6dB download noise margin as I haven't been nice enough to them.
It might even be something else entirely! Who knows?
Sorry if this isn't much help, but I hope it at least may point you in possibly correct directions to consider. Though, like me, you may in the end have to more or less get used to living with it, and occasionally reminisce on how: 'In the good old days, you could get 18Mbps around here.'
@Shep41 wrote:
I noticed that you say the error rates go through the roof on incoming calls..have you tried reporting this as a phone fault.
@pvmb - I've just tried testing your phone line and no problems are flagging up from the external testing, although that's not to say there couldn't be a problem somewhere.
@Shep41 wrote:
Have you tried removing the front panel and plug router directly into the test socket. You will need to use a filter when using the test socket
If you've not tried this, this would be the next step.
Having said this, testing is actually coming back with your connection in sync higher than your estimates, so it may just be a case of the estimates being tweaked over time and your line holding on higher than current expectations for the line.
@Shep41 Whilst our supplier's tests pick up most faults there are some faults that aren't detected until an engineer goes out.
Thanks for getting back to us @freakent.
I'm afraid that we can only set the downstream SNR to 3db as it's not possible for us to set the upstream SNR any lower than 6db.
In addition, if the line is unstable after the change then DLM will most likely increase the SNR back to 6db.
If you're still happy for us to do this then just post back here and we'll get that arranged