Connection Drops several time per hour, speed reduced to a crawl

[#1]

It has been several days already that my wife tells me that during the day there are several drop of connection.

Since yesterday I'm on holiday and I managed to keep an eye on the router and can confirm that on average I've seen 2 drop every hour. The weird thing is that the connection drop. Stay down for not even a minute and then reconnect.

On top of that, yesterday evening I was able to measure a whopping 0.01 Mbs speed in download and 3.6 Upload.

This morning I'm trying again and I'm barely brushing 3Mbs

The usual speed is around 27Mbs here which is already low compared to what stated in the activation email

Nothing changed in term of devices connected. Nothing changed in the router configuration. I've had the same router since I started the contract with plusnet, 23rd Mar 2018.

I see plenty of other topics already with the same issue. Is Plusnet doing anything about this?

[#2]

Hi @thecrius, sorry to hear you're experiencing slower than expected speeds.

I'm not aware of any widespread issues. Testing isn't flagging up any faults although the download sync speed is lower than I'd expect, at 27.3Mbps.

If you haven't already, could you go through our troubleshooting guides Here.

If you continue to experience the same problems after this, please report the issue at https://faults.plus.net and let us know once you've done this, we'll then be able to get the ticket picked up and progressed with our suppliers if necessary.

Thanks.

[#3]

Hello Harry,

Thanks for the quick response.

I checked the link, here the results:

1. Listen to your phone's dial tone.
   We don't have a landline phone at home. We only use smartphones. The router is the only thing connected to the socket.
2. Make sure all the right wires are plugged in correctly.
   I double checked the wire (socket to router is the only one really) and it's well connected.
3. Plug your router into the master socket.
   Done.
4. If you need to use microfilters, make sure they're working.
   We've the standard microfilter provided that had not given any issue until now.
   Also the entire landline is quite new as we had to have it phisically installed when we moved in (Aug 2016). The last time an OpenReach technician came and checked for noise and such, he wasn't even sure that his own tools were working because of how the line was clear of noise.

I should mention that I now checked again the connection and it seems to have bumped up a bit (around 18Mbs - 20Mbs) but still far from what it should be.

Just to skip the usual suggestion: I'm testing this with WiFi, standing right next to the router and using an ethernet cable as well.

[#4]

If you continue to experience problems after going through the troubleshooting steps, please report the issue at https://faults.plus.net and let us know once you've done this, we'll then be able to get the ticket picked up and progressed with our suppliers if necessary.

Thanks.

[#5]

Thank you again Harry, I completed the ticket request at faults.plus.net.

Just for posterity, I ran some tests at the BT speedtest and I'd really like to understand how they measure the speed of our connections. Following are a test from the BT website and two from another suggested service. They have been ran one after the other.

I've never seen my connection reach nearly 50Mbps.

I hope to manage to update this topic with a "fixed" flag soon enough. Meanwhile, thanks Harry!

[#6]

Thanks for that, I've raised the fault report with our suppliers and responded via the ticket on the account here: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=185784357

If you could respond to the ticket with the requested information and then let us know back here once you've done this, we'll get that picked up and booked in for you.

Thanks.

[#7]

Thanks, I just received the text messages asking for the days as well.
I just replied and find quite unfair this clause:

If the engineer finds the problem is with your internal wiring, your equipment, the condition of your property or the Openreach network has been damaged within the boundary of your property by things like building or garden works or if no fault is found, you will receive a charge of £65 to cover the cost of the engineer.

If the engineer find my equipment and side of connectivity to be without fault I can't see how I should be charged.

I wouldn't bother to open a ticket, have to arrange holidays schedule to have an engineer visit if everything was working as expected.

On top of that, I haven't the full control of this system. On the contrary I'm on the receiving end.
If you fix something in the meanwhile that I'm not aware of and that fix my connectivity issues, I will just be as baffled as the engineer honestly and still, nothing will assure me that in the next days I won't have the same issue.

I understand the need of a fees due to some people not knowing how to properly care for their equipment. It's the "no fault found, you get charged" that really sounds unfair.

Just the latest speedtest: https://www.speedtest.net/result/7898833870

[#8]

Hi @thecrius,

Thank you for getting back in touch and I'm sorry for any concern that the engineer charging statement has caused you.

To be honest, it's rare that the charge for "no fault found" is applied as we do our best to investigate and ensure that there is an issue with the connection before we go ahead and book an engineer. In this case, the tests from our side show that your sync speed is below the estimates and your connection log shows more drops than we would expect for fibre broadband. As this is the case, we can be confident that there is an issue and, even if the engineer is unable to determine the cause of the fault during the visit, we would not levy the £65 charge for "no fault found."

[#9]

Thank you Emily for coming back and clarify it for me.

As said already, I understand putting a money-wall to avoid abuser of the engineer service, I was just concerned as it's rather "catch-em-all" with the reason to be charged.

I'll wait for the engineer and keep this topic updated for future reference (You guys will surely get the engineer report directly).

Cheers

[#10]

Hi @thecrius,

Your appointment for an engineer has been booked for 27/12/2018 between 8am-1pm due to low speed.

If the appointment needs rearranging, let us know as soon as possible so we can make the relevant amendments. You can monitor the fault for updates here.

Thank you.

[#11]

Got it, thanks.

Tested again now:

Something definitely improved, not yet the minimum guaranteed but definitely acceptable. I was out of home all day today so I cannot speak about microdisconnections.

I put back the cable in the usual socket instead of the master socket. Let me know if you need me to reconnect it to the master before the 27th.

Meanwhile, have a merry christmas and thanks for your assistance!

[#12]

Merry Christmas to you too, hopefully the appointment goes well on the 27th.

[#13]

Openreach's van is here since sometimes after 08.30 in the morning but even after signaling the guy, no one is coming in.

I'm writing it here just to be sure he doesn't just leave and then report that "nobody was home" as it had already happened in the past.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y1WYN2T1fJlu9I-rf7MP1Mx1Q7ZULeBU/view?usp=sharing

Edit: It just left.

Speed test still measure a peak of 25Mbps instead of the minimum 31Mbps. Again, acceptable but given that we are having Openreach move for this issue, i'd be glad they actually fix something  

[#14]

Hi there, thanks for your message.

It's likely that the engineer needs to complete work remotely, before attending the premises and so I wouldn't worry too much about the van leaving, especially with you still being within the timeslot.

Please let us know if you haven't received any further update by 13:00 and we'll then be able to chase this up for you. -Owen

[#15]

Sorry for the late update by the connectio came and went constantly today as another technician came by later in the morning and is still working on it right now.

In short the line is in good condition and nothing on my side seems to be faulty.

However there are several errors happening during the transmission's test. I really can't remember the right acronym used by the tech.

He went to the cabinet, which is quite far (500mt against an average of 200mt for this area) and have several nodes from there to my home, to see if he can eliminates the errors in transmissions by switching the port to which I'm connected there.

He came back around lunchtime to test again and have seen that there are still errors in the transmission in the order of thousands per minute. He left again and came back leaving a small tester connected to the line, trying to replace a possibly faulty cable.

One important thing that seem to impact both the quality and stability is that the cables in my route to the cabinet are alluminium instead of copper. I don't know if it's something you can raise up to openreach to update the cables to the better quality copper ones.

Again, the high number of nodes and the distance play a big factor but unless a new cabinet is installed closer to us, there is nothing to be done in that case.