Intermittent Speed Issues

[#1]

Thanks @Gandalf and @Townman .

We've actually had a call at the shop this morning whilst I was out, asking whether the fault still needed to be fixed as they were unable to see anything wrong (not sure whether it was BTOR or PN). Fortunately the staff were in the middle of unsuccessfully trying to process a card payment, which kept failing due to the instability of the connection, so they were quite vocal in their protestations that it was absolutely not fixed! Haha

Yes I decided to go ahead with the upgrade to FTTC, mostly because one of the team called me about the ongoing issues and agreed to match the new customer deal (which, as you know from my other thread, was the reason I hadn't been prepared to commit previously) - figured it wouldn't do any harm for the connection to be faster when it does work, even if it doesn't in itself fix the fault - hopefully they're on with that already...

They're sending me a free router, not even P&P charges, so I've taken it. Whether I'll use that or the BT moving forward I don't now, but happy to set the new one up to give access to stats etc. whilst we continue to troubleshoot. 

Hopefully there will be some further update from BTOR today, and with a bit of look they'll find the fault that @Gandalf can see. but so far they seem unable to.

Will keep this thread updated.

[#2]

"Hopefully there will be some further update from BTOR today, and with a bit of look they'll find the fault that @Gandalf can see. but so far they seem unable to."

That might depend on who is looking for the fault - a POTS or Broadband engineer!!

I suspect that a line card fault falls in the grey area between the disciplines ... @198kHz  - do you have insight here please?

[#3]

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@Townman wrote:

I suspect that a line card fault falls in the grey area between the disciplines ... @198kHz  - do you have insight here please?

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Nothing definitive I'm afraid - I was never directly involved in digital exchanges.

I would imagine that BTOR engineers can either change a lne card themselves, or at least request that it's done, without involving BTw or Network Ops, but I could be wrong - I left seven years before BTOR existed.

[#4]

Thanks for the update @newtondeli 

I can see some movement on the fault report although there's not much in the way of information following the engineer from Wednesday advising they've not found a problem on the exchange equipment and passing this to an engineer of a different skilset. The fault was allocated to another engineer last night and I'd expect we should know more within 24-48 hours.

I'll check back tomorrow as I'm on shift over the weekend (11:30 to 8). 

[#5]

Hi @Gandalf

I got a SMS notification from BTOR this morning advising an engineer was going to be working on the fault, and about an hour ago a further notification that they’d completed their work and to speak to you guys for a status update - so not sure whether that means they’ve found and fixed a fault, not found a fault or found but not fixed one? 🤷‍♂️

They didn’t attend our premises at all, so I presume whatever work was carried out at the cabinet or exchange...

[#6]

Hi @newtondeli thanks for the heads up. We've got notes back from the engineer that they've not been able to find anything wrong unfortunately although line tests are now passing (and you've had a drop just now because of the test I ran, sorry if the staff were in the middle of something). 

It may be worth monitoring this and seeing how things go over the next couple of days. I'll check back this weekend still.

[#7]

Hi @Gandalf, thanks for keeping an eye on this.

We've still been experiencing drops today too unfortunately - twice earlier the connection dropped entirely (most recently about 5 hours ago according to the router log) and since then we've struggled to actually use the connection as whilst it's remained connected it's continually failed to respond. To give an idea, if we try to stream an audio feed (standard radio) then it will typically cut-out every 10-15 minutes, despite the same stream working fine on another device with an independent connection.

It's actually taken me 3 attempts to post this response, as it keeps timing out! 

[#8]

Hi @newtondeli I'm sorry for the continued issues. We can either look at arranging another engineer for early next week or wait until your broadband's upgraded to fibre on Wednesday and if the issues persist, arrange an engineer then. 

[#9]

Hi again @Gandalf , as ever massive thanks for getting back to me so quickly!

If the upgrade is due to go through on Wednesday then let's hang fire until then, and I'll monitor the connection once it's completed to see how it fares - never know, we may get lucky! And if not I'll come back to you again and we can try round 4 with BTOR!

[#10]

Hiya @newtondeli no problem at all and yup I agree with you.

Fingers crossed the upgrade to fibre puts an end to the problems and gives you a better service too.

[#11]

A service upgrade (with higher charges) ought never be the solution to a BT network fault.

If @Gandalf found an exchange card fault in testing, but BTOR did not on inspection, then a wise engineer would presume that the fault is intermittent and replace the line card.

There is a real risk that this issue is on the d-side circuit which will remain part of a FTTC delivery infrastructure. FTTC will ‘replace’ e-side circuit and exchange connections. Has a lift and shift bee performed on the d-side circuit?

I hope that the FTTC install goes without a hitch.

[#12]

Hi @Gandalf , just a quick update (ish), I'd not heard anything further abut the upgrade completing today, but we have had a BTOR engineer working at the cabinet up the road for most of the day, and our connection has dropped out quite a number of times - after being fairly stable for a couple of days. It's also now re-connected at a much lower speed than previously.

Do you know whether we're still expecting the upgrade to be carried out today?

Cheers,

[#13]

Hi @newtondeli I've checked the order and I can see the work's scheduled for tomorrow. Upon further investigation we actually received notification of this delay in the morning on the 13th May. It looks like our own systems hadn't updated to reflect this and I must've solely checked this when I picked this up in the afternoon on that day. One more day to go...

Sorry about this. (The delay was due to engineer availability)

[#14]

Thanks @Gandalf  - our upgrade completed this morning, and so far so good. Showing sync speeds of 79.99 down and 20 up, getting download speeds in the region of 75Mbps, and upload speeds of around 18Mbps. The connection has remained stable since it completed, no drops experienced so far. Fingers crossed! 

[#15]

AARRGGGHHH! Within literally 3 minutes of posting that, the connection has just dropped out again! 🙄

This time it's not immediately reconnecting either, it's staying down, so clearly the fault is still present.

@Gandalf can you do whatever needed your end to escalate with BTOR please? Conscious we're approaching a bank holiday weekend, our busiest time, so we really cannot be without a working internet connection over this time.

Realise you may not be the right person to speak to, but think I also now need to start having some conversations about the fact we've been paying for a service we've not been able to make use of properly for many months now, and how Plusnet will compensate for this. I've never wanted to go down this route as realise sometimes things happen, but this has dragged on for months now - and I wouldn't continue to pay for any other service if I wasn't able to use it, and particularly where it was costing me money in lost business.