Unstable evening conections?

[#1]

During the day I have a normally fairly rock-steady connection of around 6.7Mbps down and 0.3 up (my IP profile is 7.15Mbps on an ADSL Max line, 20CN), with ping ranging from around 12ms to 30ms.  However, lately I've noticed a lot of instability in the evenings, either with my download speed dropping quite severely, or my ping shooting into triple figures, or a combination of both.  As I type my download speed has dropped to 3.14Mbps.  It makes e.g. gaming next to impossible and even surfing an exercise in patience.
I do have several people using the connection at various stages, more so than during the day (usually), but in the past I can't say that I've noticed such large fluctuations and gaming in particular has suffered much more recently.  Any ideas?

[#2]

On long lines, you can sometimes get issues in the evening, as I understand it due to better radio propagation at night. I used to get this at my parents, things settled when SNR margin went to 9 or 12dB rather than 6dB.
Are you using the plusnet modem, or a third party one, as some perform better than others (a bad one will sync at a high speed, but struggle to maintain it, a good one will sync slightly slower, but never drop sync). I've found both plusnet modems quite good in this regard

[#3]

I'm on a reasonably short line (I get maximum possible 20CN speeds) and the issue is pretty recent, although I've been with PN for years.  I use my own router - an ASUS RT-N66u.  It's difficult for me to see my SNR details as access to my modem is not straightforward.  I'm just wondering why it's got so much worse recently

[#4]

Hopefully one of the plusnet staff will run a linetest for you then, maybe winters taken it's toll on one of the joints

[#5]

I've run some basic line tests but I've not found any fault so far.
Our faults team will be picking up the ticket you've raised shortly, and they'll pass details over to BTw for you for further investigation.

[#6]

OK, thanks.

[#7]

Quote from: plusnettony

Our faults team will be picking up the ticket you've raised shortly, and they'll pass details over to BTw for you for further investigation.

er, I didn't actually raise a ticket.  Should I do so?

[#8]

Sounds like a similar problem to mine, mine came down to rein interference http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/rein.htm. ; I never found out what but suspect street lighting which is close to my flat both front and back.
To get around it, I got a new router that I could tweak the SNR to replace the free technicolor.  I set it higher during the day[7db currrently] so that when the interference starts it doesn't drop below 6db during the night.  As previously if it got below 5db my connection would become unstable.
So take note of the SNR on your router when its stable and when not, which probably drops below 6.

[#9]

Is your account username linked to your forum account?

[#10]

I believe so, yes

[#11]

I thought so - One of my colleagues raised a ticket for you (97941202)

[#12]

It's Friday evening, 17:11, clearly everyone's rushed home to surf the net rather than go out to the pub after work:


1. Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
Download  Speed
3.4 Mbps

0 Mbps 7.15 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed
Download speedachieved during the test was - 3.4 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.6 Mbps-7.15 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8.13 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.45 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 7.15 Mbps
At least the roads will be clear tonight
All test done on a wired connection.  Son's out of the house so can't be hogging anything.  Ping's relatively OK at the moment at 42ms.  Normally it's in the teens but it has been known to shoot into triple figures some evenings

[#13]

God knows why people are assuming this is a line issue. With the IP Profile where it should be on a 20CN line it's blatantly obvious it's not that! It's yet another case of an over load of the exchange or the Plusnet gateway. Try doing a disconnect/connect via the router interface to get a different gateway.

[#14]

er, it may be blatantly obvious to a techie but it's not blatantly obvious to me.  Happy to try a different gateway but not quite sure why I'm supposed to just know that off the cuff

[#15]

My comment wasn't directed at you but at others who should have known better!