Could a staff member help with this speed issue please?

[#1]

Thank you! Appreciate it.

[#2]

No problems, please feel free to let us know how it goes.

[#3]

@Anoush

I used to work for BT some years back so I still have contacts within wholesale, however now the whole thing has been screwed by OFCOM and EOI for all providers. Long are the days of getting a friend to pickup a job to connect your broadband early, etc.

However, I've spoken with a friend and the reality is this, an engineer is going to come and test the line, if there's no fault and the speeds are "basically acceptable" for my range it won't get fixed on the first visit. That last sentence is basically taken almost word for word from my friend's response on whatsapp.

What a world we live in, especially when BT had this policy of RFT (Right first time). I'm very much a believer in "Anything worth doing is worth doing right".

Ben

[#4]

I'm not entirely sure this is the case, however checking your fault it appears that the engineer identified no fault with the service. As the speed is only fractionally below the estimate I wouldn't really advise to arrange another engineer.

Having said this, I'll leave the ticket open with our faults team to investigate and they will update you shortly.

[#5]

@Anoush

The problem here, and with much of Cornwall is that the cabinets can be huge distances from people's properties, especially in a place like this where there's a fair bit of greenland. Of course the estimated speed is taken from the nearest cabinet and in my case the line is a further 1200 meters on from that, also see my second point below about the line itself.

I really wish that all providers (not just aimed at plus.net) would be a little more sensible with the figures provided as estimates as they don't all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Down here we are also plagued with aluminium in the ground as BT vastly understand how much of it was actually originally laid. Another problem to add to this list is that I live by the waterfront and the area containing my line gets flooded by the sea everyday, therefore things get wet.

Why the line originally was syncing much higher? I don't know but why bother in the first place?

I wish OFCOM would force providers not to be so "sales like" with their estimates, my friend said 80% of his work is this type of fault on a daily basis (what a huge waste of time and money). Just be real,

"It ain't looking great, you're gonna get below maximum ADSL2+ speeds, somewhere around 20mbit".

Hopefully this makes sense, it was rushed as I'm running out of the door.

All being said I can't fault you @Anoush and really appreciate the help/input you've had in this.

Can't wait to see the progress of the GFAST rollout, I think that will fix many problems for alot of people.

[#6]

OFCOM have already acted which is why you see ADSL advertised as up to 17 Mbps when the technology can handle up to 24Mbps.

[#7]

@Browni

Ah, I see. I was out of the loop for sometime, I was living in Cheltenham on a 200mbit connection so had no reason to even worry about speed issues. I guess they need to do something similar with Fibre to manage people's expectations in certain areas at least anyway.

Although, I would imagine the lack of speed due to line length from the cabs isn't so prevalent in large cities, etc.

It's just so frustrating when the line originally syncs near 30mbit and drops day by day down to 18-20mbit. To put things into perspective with how poor our national network is I used to live here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Griffith+NSW+2680,+Australia/@-34.4317668,137.5461511,5.67z/data... in rural Australia and only received 2mbit slower than I get in the UK and this was 8 years ago.

[#8]

@benfphillips You seem to have a worryingly level of assumptions and facts that are simply wrong!

Like ADSL, Fibre estimated speeds take into account of the distance from the cabinet, and not estimated from it. And it does not matter if you are in the city or country, the same way of estimating applies.

You say the sea crashes over your line every day, that to me would be my biggest concern.

[#9]

@Mustrum

I wrote a reply to your trolly comment but figured I'd get another special response therefore I refrained. If you have anymore stupid comments, please either refrain or PM me as you're wasting people's time when they could be having similar issues.

The estimates are totally wrong which is why my friends that work for O/R and the chap that came the other day said they spend a huge chunk of their day on this type of "fault" where the speeds given by to/by ISPs at the point of sale are farcical.

The box at the bottom of the hill gets flooded when it rains and on higher tides, again confirmed by the engineer, also confirmed is the disgusting amount of aluminium used around here.

Estimated line speed:32Mb (This may vary between 22.4Mb and 32.4Mb) Checked on 2017-04-05 11:42:23

Current line speed:19.7 Mb 

The fact the router is plagued with disconnects, apparently requested by the user which there's no official response I'm sure doesn't help.

[#10]

@benfphillips sorry if you thought my previous post was trolling, that was never my intention.

The first place perhaps you should start with is DSL Checker - enter your phone number, and let us know what the available rates are. If they are less than you are currently getting, then you can report faults and get PN to do something about it.

Not saying your mates that are ex BT/OR re right or wrong, I am saying I have a certificate from the chairman thanking me for my 25 years of service. My comments in my previous post about broadband are factual, have a look over on Kitz if it helps

[#11]

So my connection speed has dropped further now to about ~17mbit which is a long way from the 'estimate' I was given at the point of sale. Upon attending I asked the engineer about the potential cost of the visit and was told that it was a broadband only fault and therefore there would be no charge. I'm going to speak with three friends that still work at Openreach to also seek clarification on this.

You've have emailed me today saying that there would be a £65 charge as no fault was found. You do not even give me the chance to respond to this ticket.

I feel like this is a little bit of a cop out when the speeds are far from what was advertised as pasted from the checker in a previous post.

@Anoush could you please look into this as you say there's no fault but the speed is just not getting any better. I went out of my away to use my own equipment and also purchased and old O/R modem to see if this would help but to no avail.

edit: forgot to mention that on his hand help equipment it was actually syncing at about 14mbit.

[#12]

I am sorry to hear you have been charged for the appointment, and that the engineer advised there would be no charge.

Unfortunately, the engineer incorrectly advised you as the possibility of the fee applies to both phone and broadband faults regardless whether only 1 service is affected or both.

I'm testing your line and I'm seeing your sync speed has dropped further, sitting at 18.4 Mb/s which is below the minimum guaranteed access line speed.

I'd like to offer you another engineer to investigate this because there definitely appears to be a problem. I'd advise getting a fault raised back to us at http://faults.plus.net

As for the charge applied to your account, leave this with me and I'll get back to you on Monday.

I apologise for the inconvenience caused.

[#13]

Thanks for the reply @Anoush

I was very much left with the impression that this is the maximum speed that people in this area seem to receive due to the quality of the cabling between here and the nearest cabinet. The chap that came around said that there is a huge amount of aluminium cabling in this area.

When it comes to internal wiring there is very little because it comes from a duct in the ground so it's simply a hole drilled into the wall to the other side where the master socket is located.

Upon looking at the speed checker it even seems to think that people further up this road (which is a dead end in about half a mile) can still get into the 20mbit + range when clearly the local loop runs underground down this road meaning their path is the same as mine, only with more distance to travel. 

When you say access speed I'm assuming it's about 20mbit? (I think I saw that figure when browsing BT's broadband packages.)

If you think there's a possibility this can be improved on then I'm all for raising another fault, what I don't want to do is waste people's time and resources, including my own money. What seems to make this even harder is that their handheld equipment seems to sync at a lower speed than the Plusnet Router and the Openreach modem. Apart from running fibre and adding a new cabinet or laying even more fibre and giving the village FTTP at a huge cost is there much else you think could be done?

After thought: The only other option I have thought of would be to pay for two lines/subscriptions and bond the connections which would give me somewhere around 36mbit in speed and slightly better upload?

[#14]

Just tried to call you today but I didn't manage to get through.

I was very much left with the impression that this is the maximum speed that people in this area seem to receive due to the quality of the cabling between here and the nearest cabinet. The chap that came around said that there is a huge amount of aluminium cabling in this area.

---

It's likely this is the case, but your current sync speed of 18 Mb/s is below both your estimate (22 Mb/s) and also the minimum guaranteed access line speed (MGALS) which is based on the estimate so we're happy to arrange another engineer to take another look into this.

---

Upon looking at the speed checker it even seems to think that people further up this road (which is a dead end in about half a mile) can still get into the 20mbit + range when clearly the local loop runs underground down this road meaning their path is the same as mine, only with more distance to travel. 

When you say access speed I'm assuming it's about 20mbit? (I think I saw that figure when browsing BT's broadband packages.)

---

The access line speed is essentially based on the bottom 10th percentile of customers for a particular speed range, once this is worked out the highest value of this percentile is classed as the MGALS. In your case, 19.5 Mb/s.

---

If you think there's a possibility this can be improved on then I'm all for raising another fault, what I don't want to do is waste people's time and resources, including my own money. What seems to make this even harder is that their handheld equipment seems to sync at a lower speed than the Plusnet Router and the Openreach modem. Apart from running fibre and adding a new cabinet or laying even more fibre and giving the village FTTP at a huge cost is there much else you think could be done?

---

As above, It's possible that not much can be done but we're happy to send another engineer to have another crack at it.

I've discussed with my manager and we can either continue with the fault investigation and decide what to do with the charge we've applied afterwards. Alternatively, we can leave as is and write off the charge from your account.

---

After thought: The only other option I have thought of would be to pay for two lines/subscriptions and bond the connections which would give me somewhere around 36mbit in speed and slightly better upload?

---

I believe this may be possible, but I'll be out of my depth here and can't really advise on this. I'm sure the members of the community will be able to point you in the right direction/provide clarification.

Let us know how you would like to proceed regarding the fault.

[#15]

@Anoush @Gandalf 

Thanks for the reply.

If you could arrange an engineer for the earliest available appointment I would appreciate it, as I work from home I'm always going to be in.

I guess there are some other options they could look at, e.g changing the port at the exchange, using a different pair down the road.

I've re-raised another fault.

Thanks again.