Another tale of Fibre woe

[#1]

G'Afternoon All,
Towards the end of June I ordered the "80/40 fibre extra" product.
It was accepted as the 80/20, ok so I was late and the download speed had been reduce,  but it with the following quote "Estimated line speed 50meg".
A probable 37.5% reduction in performance.
That's life I thought!
Installation was arranged for the 7/7/15 AM, I did phone to check that I'd get the Router in time which acted as gentle reminder for it to be ordered and I did!
Installation by a Kelly engineer was fine, he knew his stuff and was punctual, polite and informative.
Now the woe began, download speed was approx. 40meg, so now 50% reduction in performance, phoned Plusnet and was told to wait for the 10days settling period to pass.
As the period progressed so my speed reduced to 32/33meg then dropped to 29meg and I finally los myt internet connection.
This sort of coincided with a neighbour, another Plusnet customer, having a problem  on his recent Fibre upgrade repaired in the same cabinet.
My connection was re-established 2 or 3 days later after "A software problem" in the cabinet was cleared. My speed was now only 29 to 31meg.
Plusnet asked me to try various things I obliged and eventually a visit from an engineer was arranged.
He left saying the speed was good at the D side of the cabinet that's us (the E side is from the Exchange) but he couldn't find anything wrong but there might be a problem with wiring and BT aren't about to start digging up roads
Plusnet took the normal three days to decide to conclude an Engineer should visit because, to quote from my ticket, "THE FAULT WAS IN AA".
I assumed this meant the location of the fault had been identified and the Engineer would be able to go straight to it.
Silly me!,
He arrived today and didn't have the foggiest what "AA" was or meant, I later established because that is a Plusnet code not BT.
Again punctual, polite and knowledgeable but again couldn't find the problem, I have clean line, no drop outs, hiccups etc, but when he'd finished the speed was down again 26meg. So now 67.5% reduction in performance
A neighbour, well known on here, who upgraded at about the same time now seems to have settled at 43meg, I from all accounts have a good clean line and everything going for it is getting continually worsening results.
A Plusnet CS person had the nerve to call my speed loss "Slight" I wonder if a similar percentage reduction in wages would be considered "slight"
Any clues as to what to do next, apart from keeping BT/OR  Engineers away from the cabinet that is?
CJC

[#2]

Quote from: CJC1942

Towards the end of June I ordered the "80/40 fibre extra" product. It was accepted as the 80/20, ok so I was late and the download speed had been reduce,  but it with the following quote "Estimated line speed 50meg". A probable 37.5% reduction in performance.

Hopefully someone from the Customer Services team will help but I don't believe there ever was (or is) an 80/40 product. There is 80/20, and there used to be 40/20 (but it is now 40/2 for new provisions).
Your estimated line speed should not be viewed as a 37.5% reduction in performance as the speed you will get is dependent on how far you are from the fibre cabinet (amongst other factors). Only those extremely close to the cabinet will ever get near the full speeds of 80/20. If your estimated line speed is 50meg, it is unlikely you were ever in a position to get 80 Mbps.
You are clearly getting below your speed estimate however, and that should be investigated.

[#3]

Hi Jafreer
You are right!, I got this 80/40 thing stuck in my head for some reason!
Even so my speed is nearly down to 50% of the estimated value I was given which is ludicrous.
I have been talking to CS with not a lot of success, it's four weeks now and they still haven't really supplied the product they said they would.
Would someone from CS enlighten me on what "The fault is in AA" response on my ticket refers to?
CJC1942

[#4]

You can also report faults at http://faults.plus.net
Quite often, someone from Customer Relations will come on the forum and run a line test for you. It would be interesting to see if that picks up a fault.
The 10 day training period does not apply to fibre connections, but it seems quite common that Customer Services still quote it.
Sometimes the speed estimates are wrong, but it seems your speed has dropped.
A couple of basic questions...
Are you testing with a wired connection rather than a wireless connection?
Do you have your modem plugged directly into the master socket?

[#5]

The modem is plugged into the master socket, newly installed when I upgraded.
I generally use WiFi but obviously connected by cable for specific speed checks.
Wi-FI or cable make very little difference to the speed check results I see.
The three BT guys have checked the speed using their equipment at the master socket, therefore totally divorced from my equipment.
They have all asked and no there are no other sockets tapped off the line.
Before upgrading my broadband speed was approaching 4.0 - 5.0meg, which I don't think was bad on a line that BT and Plusnet were saying was only good for 1.5 - 2.0 meg which is what most people around here are getting.
As I said earlier I am talking to CS a;ready but was hoping for some advice from forum members also.
CJC

[#6]

Quote from: CJC1942

The three BT guys have checked the speed using their equipment at the master socket, therefore totally divorced from my equipment. They have all asked and no there are no other sockets tapped off the line.

What speeds were they getting on their equipment?
Do you have a MK3 master socket?
The BT guys (and you) can easily unplug any additional extension wiring by simply removing the bottom faceplate of the master socket (2 screws). That should take that out the equation.

[#7]

"What speeds were they getting on their equipment?"
Today 26meg, previously about 29meg and 31meg the same as I get/was getting at the time
"Do you have a MK3 master socket?"
I assume so it was fitted by the Kelly engineer when my upgrade to Fibre extra was done four weeks ago.
"The BT guys (and you) can easily unplug any additional extension wiring by simply removing the bottom faceplate of the master socket (2 screws). That should take that out the equation."
The guy today did, and I did, I assume the previous guy did also but what he did is irrelevant now.

[#8]

I would say that rules out the problem being related to internal wiring then. So the issue needs to be chased up via a fault report.
I assume you have already filled out a fault report at faults.plus.net?

[#9]

I can see it's still with our Faults team.
Unfortunately it's looking like the estimate was incorrect.
The engineers have tried all the available spare pairs at the cabinet and none give you a higher speed then what you've been getting.
Our faults team will look at it again but I don't think there will be anything they can do.

[#10]

Hi Matthew
Immediately after the installation and for several days, but less than the magic ten, my speed was slightly over 40meg, ok not great but reasonably near enough the estimate to shut me up.
I know an Engineer had accessed the cabinet to investigate a fault on my neighbours line, at about that time my speed dropped and I subsequently lost internet access for several days.while his line was now working.
My neighbour has sin been enjoying 42Meg
Seems a bit too coincidental for me.
The first Engineer to investigate my fault said the correct speed was available on our side of the cabinet, that's backed up by my neighbours experience.
Between the cabinet he is referring to, Number 20, and our properties there is Cabinet 20/1 and a telegraph pole, on my forecourt, via which our lies come to us.
I am sure nobody has checked at either of those points, definitely not the telegraph pole as that's outside my office window where I spend most of the day.
So maybe BT should checkout the fault more thoroughly.
The only problem with that is after Engineers visits my speed is always lower!!
Ces

[#11]

It is not unusual for speeds to drop a couple of days after fibre activation. This is because your line goes on an open profile whilst DLM monitors the line (for errors, disconnects etc). After monitoring, it makes appropriate adjustments (e.g. applies interleaving) to ensure your line stays stable. The problem with that is that you usually see your absolute best speeds for the first 2 days, then it drops based on your line quality.
The other issue is regarding line speed estimates. It is kind of a flawed system, because nobody really knows what speed you will get until you are connected. Sometimes the estimate is accurate, sometimes you get higher than the estimate, and sometimes you get lower than the estimate. At the end of the day, your line will only support a given speed. The trick is to make sure that it is not a fault that is impacting your speed, and that can be hard to determine depending on how far off the estimates your speed is.

[#12]

Quote
"The trick is to make sure that it is not a fault that is impacting your speed, and that can be hard to determine depending on how far off the estimates your speed is."
Which is exactly what I'm trying to ensure happens.
From what I've been told my line has been good and clean from day one and remains so.
Which is why I want the problem investigated thoroughly.

[#13]

One other thing you could look at, and this may be a long shot, and will depend on what equipment you have...
If you have an HG612 OpenReach modem, you can unlock it very easily to gain access to your line stats. This will let you see a whole plethora of information that may help you figure what is going on.
For example, is interleaving enabled on your line, if so, to what depth etc. Are there a high number of errors on the line, and do they come in bursts. Do these bursts coincide with any specific events (e.g. timeswitch, central heating controller etc).
Like I say, it may be a long shot but worth a mention. I had an ECI modem and actually bought a HG612 modem off Ebay for a tenner so I could access my line stats. When I saw the stats I realised I had a high level of interleaving on the line. I looked at errors (FEC) and noticed a high number of errors on the line. Through trial and error I correlated this to my power line networking adapters. I removed them and the errors dropped tremendously. That allowed interleaving to reduce, and I gained some speed back.
The problem with DLM is that just because you make a change, you won't necessarily see the benefit straight away. It can take DLM days (or some say weeks) to make changes to the line in response to something being 'fixed'. That is why the stats are so useful, you can monitor SNRs and see how they change over time etc.
So there are some other things you can do, but it takes time and effort (and expense sometimes). I think you are going down the correct route in pushing Plusnet to investigate in the first instance.

[#14]

Quote from: Matthew

I can see it's still with our Faults team. Unfortunately it's looking like the estimate was incorrect. The engineers have tried all the available spare pairs at the cabinet and none give you a higher speed then what you've been getting. Our faults team will look at it again but I don't think there will be anything they can do.

Just to point out - I am on the same cab and fed from the same pole via the same sub cab and my speeds are

SNR Margin (dB)	           5.1	5.8
Attenuation (dB)	21.5	0.0
Output Power (dBm)	12.5	6.6
Attainable Rate (Kbps)	51165	10886
Rate (Kbps)	        43949	10886

and when it was first installed the BT engineer reported a speed of 48Mb/s but it is now interleaved so that may be why it has dropped
Also G.INP hasn't been enabled yet
It would be worth checking where he was testing the speeds
There are two options
At the end user which takes into account everything back to the fibre cab
At the sub cab
It the result is similar at the sub cab I am obviously lucky
If the result is at the end user premises than it needs to be checked at the sub cab and if significantly different the line between the sub cab and the end user needs to be checked