Webpage Load Times

[#1]

Hi @Townman and thanks for all your help so far.

I have performed the quiet line test and the line is quiet so I guess that's not the issue.

Unfortunately, once the router was plugged back in again - and not for the first time - my line speed has dropped right down to 0.17 so clearly a reset is in order. (It's the same if the router is in the master socket too). Guess that will have to wait until Tuesday now.

Anyway....

I did the other two tests you suggested - thankfully before my speed went to sh.. rubbish and have screen capped the results for you. There's a bit missing on the second one but there was no text in any of those parts so should be okay.

To answer the question more directly. My distance from the exchange appears to be 1.56km (directly) or 6km by road (there's a large wood in between, probably with squirrels chewing on BT cables as we speak.)

Fibre speeds look more promising, if I'm reading that right and I actually believe it but I'm guessing I won't be getting 330mb download this side of hell freezing over.

Wouldn't whatever fibre speed still be effected by the distance issues? i.e. I only get 12.2% of the headline rate as with my current ADSL?

[#2]

In your second screenshot the estimates which apply to Plusnet are VDSL Range A (Clean) and the distance that matters is the distance to the cabinet, not the exchange.

[#3]

@Browni

So 47.5 to 35mb download and 8.9 to 6 upload?

I could live with that... now I just need that free upgrade from PN for being a loyal customer for very nearly 20 years.... how about it guys?

Meanwhile, after six restarts of the router, I've got my current download up to 0.8...!

[#4]

@worzel,

There's a lot going on here.  The synch speed at the higher than expected SNRM is within the BT forecast for this line, so it might be difficult to get a fault accepted on this line.  A SNRM reset might deliver improvement if whatever caused the DLM to take action has been corrected.

The SamKnows stats really are very silly.  They are comparing measured DATA speed against the UPTO maximum line SYNCH speed.  DATA speed will always be slower than SYNCH speed due to various PROFILE characteristics and flow control.  Even if you had a synch speed at the maximum 8Mbps, you would not see better than 7.5Mbps DATA speed - that is just 93%.

You should repeat the QLT regularly.  In the meantime you should raise a BB fault report and see what comes back.

@CRT what's the error history looking line on this line please?  Will it stand a SNRM reset or does it need to BTOR TLC?

[#5]

Yep but the upload would only be achievable on the Fibre Unlimited Extra package, Fibre Unlimited is limited to 2 Mbps up

[#6]

@Townman

Thanks for your help, although have to admit didn't really understand much of it, other than my line is rubbish, which I already knew.

Also not sure who the @crt is that your last comment was aimed at, but I can tell you there's been nothing but problems with my line for the last two years, at least, with constant dropouts, ever decreasing speeds.

Once upon a time, I used to get a download averaging 1.5 but haven't seen that since the line - the actual line - got physically severed and which BT:OR said "wasn't a fault" even though I had no phone or broadband for nearly two months before they finally sent someone to plug it back in again (after they'd missed four appointments of course)

That was Jan 2016 and things never got back to normal since despite my raising several broadband faults (none of which got any action until I protested on this forum) and asking for near monthly resets throughout the first three quarters of 2016. Then things got a little stable, if slow, until this current issue and I'm back to wild fluctuating speeds, and poor webpage load times.

I just wish someone would actual fix it, but looks like that's not going to happen any more this year, than last.

Anyway, like I said, thanks for the help and I'll start another broadband fault but doubt anything will happen as BT:OR won't do anything and PN can't. So I'll be stuck like this, seemingly forever.

If only I was convinced that going to Fibre would sort the issues, but I'm not, so I won't, as I don't want to be paying more for something that is as bad, if not worse.

[#7]

How many telephone sockets do you have? Do you have a filtered faceplate on the master socket?

[#8]

@ejs

Only the one phone socket.

There is a face plate on it - although I removed that for the tests I did above - but I don't know if that is filtered or not.

Oh and broadband is getting worse. According to Samknows.one. Website load time is still rubbish. Download speed won't go above 0.5 and the Latency issue has returned and "Packet Loss" has now been flagged up.

So it's all going great here. Maybe I should invest in carrier pigeons!?

[#9]

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@worzel wrote:

@Townman

Thanks for your help, although have to admit didn't really understand much of it, other than my line is rubbish, which I already knew.

@Also not sure who the @crt is that your last comment was aimed at, but I can tell you there's been nothing but problems with my line for the last two years, at least, with constant dropouts, ever decreasing speeds.

---

Hi @worzel,

Let's try again!  @CRT is a short code for the Customer Relations Team - the PN Staffers around here - and is used as an informal means of attracting the attention of anyone in the team, rather than trying to tag an specific individual who might not be available to assist at a specific time.  Essentially its a means of seeking input on something we "other users" cannot access, but feel might help to better understand the problem.

SNRM and synch speed: SNRM is an indication of how strong the signal is, essentially it is normally 6dB, at which your link should run at its predicted speed.  On bad lines, the SNRM can be elevated (higher) to maintain stability, however that is at the expense of synch speed.  In the case of your line, though the SNRM is higher than normal, the synch speed remains within the forecast for your line ... in which case BTOR might not entertain a fault report.

Broadband products are sold as "up to" speeds and those speeds are line SYNCH RATES.  So in your case the SYNCH speed is up to 8Mbps.  What you actually get is very much dependent on the length of the line from the exchange to your home ... the longer the line, the slower the SYNCH speed.

DATA is not transferred at the SYNCH speed, but rather at the line profile speed.  This is a fraction of the SYNCH speed.  On ADSL2 it is 88% of the synch speed.  With ADSL(1) it is banded depending on the SYNCH speed, however the highest ADSL(1) profile is 7.15Mbps.

That said, the DATA transfer rate can never by as fast as the profile, because data needs line control information adding (CRC, message sequencing and acknowledgements) which take up some of the available bits.

SamKnows, knows all of this better that "normal" folk and therefore out NEVER to be comparing actual DATA speed against the marketing "up to" synch speed figure and then suggest that you are only getting 12% of what you've bought.  It is grossly misleading, setting expectations which due to real world physics can never be fulfilled.

That said, some improvement might@ be attainable on your line, depending on its error history - which is what I have asked of the PN staffers... @CRT

Did you raise a BB fault (use the link below) as I suggested?

HTH?

[#10]

@Townman

Thanks again, and I did raise a broadband issue ticket which has now been answered.

Summary

MGALS Value: 0.78 Mbps | BTW Estimate: 1 Mbps

Line appears to be banded

Workplace profile was mismatched and has been updated

Plusnet Support - CSC Analyst

4:16pm, Sunday 16 Apr 2017

Thanks for your patience.

We have tested your line today and we have located an issue with your broadband service. We have now placed some modifications on your line, and this is will be applied within the next 24 hours. This may cause your broadband connection to drop connection for a few minutes, this is nothing to worry about it just allows the settings to be applied.

However, more than 24 hours later and if anything, the samknows.one report is worse than it was to start with (see screen shot)

With the now lower speed of 0.5 confirmed by the BT wholesale test, as well as downgrade of what speed I should get from the 1mb (as mentioned in  all the previous screen shots and tests I've done for this thread) it has always been to 0.1 - 0.5...  so those goalposts have been moved.

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[#11]

So what are the router stats now?

Even if you did have a consistent 1.5Mbps connection, I don't think webpage load times would be particularly good - modern web pages are just too big and complex and won't load quickly with such low bandwidth.

[#12]

@ejs

Here's the updated router stats which if you compare to the previous one will  you an idea about how things have changed.

However we have progress and Openreach are sending an engineer out on Friday (assuming they actually turn up of course) so we'll see what happens then

[#13]

The stats still seem a bit odd. I don't suppose another modem/router has been tried, but it probably doesn't matter.

[#14]

Update:

Okay so (briefly) had a BT:OR engineer out on Friday and not only did he managed not to make things better, my connection has been worse since he left despite his saying "there was nothing wrong!"

Now I wasn't actually here when he came, someone else was, but apparently what the guy said was that my line - now running at 0.35mbps - is "As good as can be expected" and that "if I want anything better I should get BT Fibre (Yes he said BT fibre not just fibre from anyone.)

This is despite the guideline speed for my line still being "Between 1-3mbps" according to PN's own page (see attachment)

At the start of the year according to my samknows white box (see attachment) I was averaging 1.5mbps, this then dropped to around 1mbps during feb 2017, then again to 0.8mbps during March at which point I asked, on this forum for a reset, which did bump it back up to 1.2mbps for a few a while until two weeks ago when it went down to 0.5mbps. Since then it has slowly dropped to the pretty much unusable state it is now in.

Has anyone tried using modern websites on what is pretty much a dial-up connection? And of course, streaming, or gaming is out of the question?

Still waiting to get an answer on the fault ticket regarding the visit, although it has now been released from hold. but still having trouble getting my head around the theory there is nothing wrong when I have a half the speed I had two weeks ago and a quarter of what it was in four months ago.

[#15]

Again, the line stats from the modem would be the most useful thing for us to look at. There may have been a lot of disconnections while the engineer was testing things, and so it now needs a DLM reset.

Have you tried another modem/router? I'm guessing you're using a fairly old device, a Thomson 585v8?