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Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

dws1900
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 407
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Registered: ‎17-09-2018

Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@wanblue1 

I am 1500m approx away from the cabinet (most OR engineers says its too far)

I got the distance by multiple GEA tests from PN, and measuring the probable routes.

These are my figures from my vigor router/modem

     
  Downstream             Upstream                
Actual Rate 22968 Kbps 1853 Kbps
Attainable Rate 22821 Kbps 1852 Kbps
Path Mode Fast Fast
Interleave Depth 1 1
Actual PSD 6. 9 dB 12. 1 dB
 
 
  Near End                  Far End                   
Trellis ON ON
Bitswap ON ON
ReTx 0   1  
SNR Margin 3 dB 6 dB
Attenuation 32 dB 37 dB

 

Assuming you are using the PN router, could you post yours?

The sync/actual rate speed is the one that is the most useful, the other speed tests is dependant on how connected (not using wifi), congestion, and what the speed test computer is doing.

I monitor every 15 minutes using a linux system, I typically get 20Mbs download

 

wanblue1
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Registered: ‎26-06-2020

Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

As I'm getting a second line put in and intend to load balance (was intending to do this before the recent dramatic pm slowdown), i'm using Draytek modem and load balancing router combination.  The number of options on there are amazing but can't see one for attainable speed - the modem returns this though:

 

Remote VDSL2 Information From WAN 2      (VDSL2 Firmware Version:  05-07-06-0D-01-07)
  Profile State UP Speed Down Speed SNR Upstream SNR Downstream
  17A SHOWTIME 631 (Kbps) 16832 (Kbps) 6(0.1dB) 6(0.1dB)

 

 

Just run a speedtest through Ofcom and downloads coming in at 2 Mbps and uploads 300 Kbps - the results are more or less the same through all the speed check tools, and it was run on a hardwired.

Our cable run is just under 1600m (got this from a service availability checker (cant remember which one)) and the actual cabinet is about 1.2 km by road so that sounds about right.

I was with Sky until March last year (moved as P/N were a lot cheaper, with cashback) and have regretted it ever since - it's quite clear we are not getting the advertised speed and I know some neighbours are also having speed issues - but not as severe as mine - so I think it's a combination of Plusnet's backbone and the bandwidth of fibre from cabinet to exchange not being up to current demand.

I'm really dissapointed with the service from Plusnet which is reputedly very good but they have made me jump through too many hoops and it's quite clear even my limited network knowledge is better than you can get on support - even at analyst level.  Unless they can sort it in the next few days, I'm going to let Sky have this line back (and struggle with the modem config) and the new one fitted on Thursday is BT.

It'll be really interesting to see if the BT line suffers the same PM degradation as the new line will use the existing cable- if it doesn't or it's not as bad, then Plusnet can whistle for the early termination fee, if it does then I'm going direct to a contact in Openreach as it must be the capacity of the fibre.

Anoush
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Registered: ‎22-08-2015

Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

Hello,

I’m sorry for the issues with your speed.

There’s no capacity issues on the Wholesale s-vlan infrastructure at the exchange and if there was an issue with us, I’d expect to see a lot more reports as it’d affect a large amount of people.

We also don’t throttle speeds, we switched off our traffic prioritisation in June 2017 for unlimited usage products although that never throttled, it just prioritised traffic within a home network: https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-prioritisation/

I suspect the issue may be a faulty fibre port at the cabinet producing errors in the evening. We can’t specifically test for this but an engineer can investigate further and move you on to a different port, repair or replace it if appropriate.

If that’s the issue and you move providers, while sometimes you’re mapped onto an different port during a migration, it may or may not ‘fix’ this as it depends if there are other ports affected.

I’m afraid you may need to carry on with the fault you’ve got reported and push on with the engineer visits until the problem’s identified and fixed. Sad

I hope this helps somewhat 

This is my personal Community Forum account to help out around these parts while I'm at home. If I'm posting from the 1st March 2020, this means I'm off-duty with no access to internal systems.
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dws1900
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 407
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Registered: ‎17-09-2018

Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@wanblue1 

Hi

 

Below is the corresponding display on my Vigor.

You do seem a little low on the Down Speed, and your SNR is a bit high, this may be due to a line problem.

You need to find the dsl status page, and look at the data there, its under diagnostics on my 2860 router/modem.

Also get a GEA test, this will reveal other problems, ask PN for one, they are free Smiley

Line 1 Information      (VDSL2 Firmware Version:  579F17_A/B/C   with Vectoring support )
  Profile State UP Speed Down Speed SNR Upstream SNR Downstream
  17A SHOWTIME 1,853 (Kbps) 22,968 (Kbps) 6 (dB) 3 (dB)
wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@dws1900 

Swapped the connections over and it gives the same data as you had:

Downstream             Upstream                
Actual Rate 17706 Kbps 657 Kbps
Attainable Rate 17907 Kbps 737 Kbps
Path Mode Fast Fast
Interleave Depth 1 1
Actual PSD 6. 1 dB 6. 2 dB
 
 
  Near End                  Far End                   
Trellis ON ON
Bitswap OFF OFF
ReTx 0   0  
SNR Margin 6 dB 6 dB
Attenuation 30 dB 42 dB
CRC 0 6946
FECS 3 s 1458677 s
ES 0 s 6621 s
SES 0 s 20 s
LOSS 0 s 715 s
UAS 87 s 34552 s

 

but the attainable rate conflicts with the real world where I'm only getting 2Mbps download speed this time of day.

wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@Anoush Thanks Anoush, I'll ask for this as well as the GEA test

dws1900
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Registered: ‎17-09-2018

Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@wanblue1 

 

Lets see what the GEA gives you. I and others have had evening issues, in my case after protracted discussion, it went away!!,

and has never returned so far.

Both us are outside the ideal distance for decent FTTC , ie less than 24Mbs download.

 

Here is the rest of my dsl stats for comparison.

Near End                  Far End                   
Trellis ON ON
Bitswap ON ON
ReTx 0   1  
SNR Margin 3 dB 6 dB
Attenuation 32 dB 37 dB
CRC 65 1826
FECS 0 s 0 s
ES 13 s 1255 s
SES 1 s 364 s
LOSS 0 s 0 s
UAS 26 s 40138 s
HEC Errors 0 0
RS Corrections 0 0
LOS Failure 0 2
LOF Failure 2 0
LPR Failure 0 0
NCD Failure 0 0
LCD Failure 0 0
NFEC 48 32
RFEC 0 16
LYSMB 472 16
wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@dws1900    This is the GEA test done early June when I logged the problem first

 

KBD

 
Test Outcome Pass
Test Outcome Code GTC_FTTC_SERVICE_0000
Description GEA service test completed and no fault found .
Main Fault Location OK
Sync Status In Sync
Downstream Speed 13.5 Mbps
Upstream Speed 0.8 Mbps
Appointment Required N
Fault Report Advised N
NTE Power Status PowerOn
Voice Line Test Result Pass
Bridge Tap Not Detected
Radio Frequency Ingress Not Detected
Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise Not Detected
Cross Talk Not Detected
Estimated Line Length In Metres 1427.9
Upstream Rate Assessment Reasonable
Downstream Rate Assessment Low
Interference Pattern Regular Interference Observed on Week Days
Service Impact Retrains Observed
Interference Duration Longest Occurrence From05:45to06:00
Interference Location Customer Premise
Interference Observed In Days 0
Home Wiring Problem Not Detected
Downstream Policing Discard Rate 0.0
Customer Traffic Level Upstream and Downstream traffic detected
Technology VDSL
DP Type External
Profile Name 0.128M-40M Downstream, Interleaving Low - 0.128M-10M Upstream, Error Protection Off
Time Stamp 2020-05-25T16:30:00
Parameters MIN MAX AVG
Down Stream Line Rate 13.4 Mbps 17.6 Mbps 14.6 Mbps
Up Stream Line Rate 0.5 Mbps 0.7 Mbps 0.6 Mbps
Up Time 561.0 Sec 900.0 Sec 899.0 Sec
Retrains 0.0 3.0 0.0
Current and Last 15 Minute Bin Performance
Parameters Last Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins) Current Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins)
Start Time Stamp 2020-06-07T16:00:29.161+01:00 2020-06-07T16:15:29.161+01:00
Ingress Code Violation 0 1
Egress Code Violation 0 0
Errored Seconds 0 1
Severely Errored Seconds 0 0
Unavailable Seconds 0 0

 

GEA Test Detail
Circuit ID NA Service ID BBEU33633982
dws1900
Aspiring Pro
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@wanblue1 

You appear to be closer than me, mine is over 1500m

 

There you go

Estimated Line Length In Metres 1427.9

 

and not good

Upstream Rate Assessment Reasonable
Downstream Rate Assessment Low
Interference Pattern Regular Interference Observed on Week Days
Service Impact Retrains Observed
Interference Duration Longest Occurrence From05:45to06:00
Interference Location Customer Premise

But its not all bad news

Bridge Tap Not Detected
Radio Frequency Ingress Not Detected
Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise Not Detected
Cross Talk Not Detected

and

Interference Pattern Regular Interference Observed on Week Days
Service Impact Retrains Observed
Interference Duration Longest Occurrence From05:45to06:00
Interference Location Customer Premise
Interference Observed In Days 0
Home Wiring Problem Not Detected

 

What could be causing interference in the property (your not arc welding are you!!)?

 

The https://kitz.co.uk page is very useful re broadband.

 

 

wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@Anoush @dws1900 

Just wondered if either of you think a fault with the port would explain these ping timings on a tracert command on a plusnet DNS server.  Done on a wired PC, the first one at 8am this morning (the download test returned 14 Mbps), the second two just done now with a download speed of around 2 Mbps?

 

PS C:\Users\ianhu> tracert 212.159.6.10

Tracing route to cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms VIGOR [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 10 ms * * 137.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.137]
4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.136]
5 11 ms 12 ms 13 ms cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]

Trace complete.
PS C:\Users\ianhu> tracert 212.159.6.10

Tracing route to cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms VIGOR [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * 276 ms 137.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.137]
4 443 ms 548 ms 595 ms 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.136]
5 340 ms 291 ms 189 ms cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]

Trace complete.
PS C:\Users\ianhu> tracert 212.159.6.10

Tracing route to cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms VIGOR [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 205 ms 355 ms 316 ms 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.136]
5 137 ms * 159 ms cdns02.plus.net [212.159.6.10]

wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@dws1900 Thanks, no not arc welding!

The mastersocket (which is a new GFast one) is connected directly to the modem and there are no phones or extensions etc connected.

Our is fairly complex - a mix of Wifi, ethernet through a couple of switches and a bit of powerline.  The PC I use for the wired speed checks is directly connected to the modem/router though and I've ran speed checks with comparable results with the rest of the LAN physically disconnected and WiFi Off.

Also tried a speed check with a factory reset plusnet router - again no wifi and just one LAN connection to the testing PC.

I don't see it can be anything internal, although am going to unplug the Powerline (you never know).

We are in the country although surrounded by houses and the speed starts to drop at about 1pm, getting down to unusable (apart from a bit of browsing) by about 7pm

wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

Just an update really.  Another OR engineer visit on Friday last week - spent hours testing the line and found no errors.  He was going to try a different port in the cabinet (although said he didn't see how this could be the problem) but O/R wouldn't allocate a new port (possibly as I'm now changing ISP's).

 

The new BT connection has been installed and up for about 5 days - the Plusnet connection has followed the same daily pattern which has meant I can't really load balance as the load balance calculation works off the sync speed, not throughput.

 

The new BT connection uses the same cable going to the same cabinet (obviously) but has been completely stable and with a higher upload than I've ever has with Plusnet.  I've set the Plusnet connection to supply only one wired PC which is only been used for speedtests so effectively we are not using it at all.

 

What makes me really annoyed is the disconnect between ISP and Openreach - reading other posts on this forum and similar forums from other ISP, it seems problems often follow a similar pattern of Openreach blaming the ISP and the ISP blaming Openreach with the customer left in the middle only really able to deal with helpdesks and 3 day delays on getting back to customers.  This really has to stop and I'm amazed Ofcom has not taken action.

 

Sky will be taking over the Plusnet connection on 13 July.  Assuming the speed returns consistently (ie: the fluctuation problems are down to Plusnet) to what we should be getting, I will complain to Plusnet and ask for compensation to cover the many hours I have spent trying to resolve this issue.

 

Also, don't really understand why the sync speed of the BT line is higher than P/N given they use pairs in the same cable?

LINE 1 - Plusnet, Remote - BT  (through a Vigor 130 modem) - and yes, I have tried them the other way around - same result.

 

Line 1 Information      (VDSL2 Firmware Version:  779517_A/B/C   with Vectoring support )
  Profile State UP Speed Down Speed SNR Upstream SNR Downstream
  17A SHOWTIME 591 (Kbps) 12,949 (Kbps) 6 (dB) 6 (dB)
Remote VDSL2 Information From WAN 2      (VDSL2 Firmware Version:  05-07-06-0D-01-07)
  Profile State UP Speed Down Speed SNR Upstream SNR Downstream
  17A SHOWTIME 1017 (Kbps) 14300 (Kbps) 6(0.1dB) 6(0.1dB)
wanblue1
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Re: Broadband slowing down in evening/afternoon

@MauriceC @dws1900 @Anoush @grahamn 

 

Thanks for all your help with this and thought I just post an update.

After three engineer visits, I have moved the service to Sky.  It moved across very early one morning so pretty certain no hardware changes by OR were involved.  The connection has been stable 24/7 at around 12 - 14 Mbps throughput ever since and upload speed improved to around 1Mbps.

The new BT broadband uses a spare pair in the same cable as the old connection and was stable at similar speeds to Sky since it was installed.

Load balancing works really well and can get a reliable 25 Mbps speed.  Anyone trying to load balance with Sky Q probably needs to set up a rule for the Sky Box only to use one connection or you get all sorts of errors though.

Tried to raise a complaint with Plusnet through the ticket system - they were never picked up, so I phoned and am now in the process of submitting it through the ombudsman.

The most annoying thing in all of this is they never appeared to read any of the End User Data I provided, or any of my messages saying the problem had NOT been solved, or indeed this thread (a direct link was put on the ticket).  One day around 12pm, I posted on the ticket that the connection was still dropping speeds in the PM and 1 HOUR later Plusnet posted to say they can see the problems have been resolved and will close the ticket in 14 days!

Since moving to Sky, my access to the Help ticket has been disabled so have had to ask for all my Data under GDRP to give to the ombudsman.