Email about speeds confusing

[#1]

Hello,

I can't work this one out. Since my line went active it's been very solidly syncing at 68Mb and my line profile has been around 56Mb. It's been like it ever since it went live. My PPP up time is also 12 days so I am quite sure the line is not dropping out.

# xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 19196 Kbps, Downstream rate = 67700 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 19305 Kbps, Downstream rate = 58659 Kbps

The bit I don't understand is this though, I had an email from Plusnet this morning stating I've now been online for 14 days and this was in the content of the email;

Estimated line speed: 55Mbps to 78Mbps

This shows the normally available speeds your line is capable of. You may have chosen to buy a product which runs at slower speeds.

Current line speed: 78Mbps

This is a measure of the actual line speed you are now receiving based on the product you have taken.

Minimum guaranteed access line speed: 48.9Mbps

This is the minimum speed you should expect to achieve on your line.

Where on earth is this mis-information coming from? I don't really want to reboot my modem as I don't want it to affect DLM however I would also like to ask if I can get interleaving removed from the line so again I want to avoid rebooting if possible.

Does it mean I will get 78Mb if I reboot or is it just poor information being provided? If they are emailing me to tell me my line is 78Mb then why is it in reality so much slower? Where are they getting this from?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

I'm sorry to see that the email gave the wrong line speed. This email normally shows the line's sync speed at the time that the email is sent, however upon testing your line I can see that it's currently syncing at 58.7mbps so it does appear that there's been an error here:

GEA Test Detail
Circuit ID	NA	Service ID	BBEUXXXXXXX

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	58.7 Mbps
Upstream Speed	19.3 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	463.2
Upstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Downstream Rate Assessment	Reasonable
Interference Pattern	Regular Interference Observed on Week Days
Service Impact	No Impact Observed
Interference Duration Longest Occurrence	From 12:00 to 23:45
Interference Location	Customer Premise
Interference Observed In Days	3
Home Wiring Problem	Not Detected
Downstream Policing Discard Rate	0.0
Customer Traffic Level	Upstream and Downstream Traffic Detected
Technology	VDSL
Profile Name	0.128M-80M Downstream, Interleaving Low - 0.128M-20M Upstream, Error Protection Off
Time Stamp	2018-06-25T12:15:00

Parameters	MIN	MAX	AVG
Down Stream Line Rate	58.6 Mbps	58.6 Mbps	58.6 Mbps
Up Stream Line Rate	19.3 Mbps	19.3 Mbps	19.3 Mbps
Up Time	900.0 Sec	900.0 Sec	900.0 Sec
Retrains	0.0	0.0	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	2018-06-27T11:45:30.508+01:00	2018-06-27T12:00:30.508+01:00
Ingress Code Violation	0	0
Egress Code Violation	0	0
Errored Seconds	1	0
Severely Errored Seconds	0	0
Unavailable Seconds	0	0

Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. I will raise this internally so that we can look into why the speed on the email that was sent to you was not correct.

[#3]

Thank you for clarifying for me and being proactive about fixing this for others.

[#4]

@steveocee Unless something has changed recently, I'm not sure it's quite as simple as @EmilyD says,

There are 3 set's of speeds involved:-

1) Your synch speeds - those are shown by the router stats and by the GEA test that Emily did. These are the physical speeds at which the router is connected to the cabinet.

2) The BT line profile - this is derived from the synch speed and is about 3% less then the synch. This is the actual transfer speeds allowing for overheads.

3) the PlusNet Current Line Speed - this tracks the BT Profile and is used ( well it was but isn't now on most connections!) to control the data rate at PlusNet's end.

Now for the bit that's causing your confusion, when a line is initially connected, the PN Current Line Speed is set to the maximum for the product, in your case 78Mb. The PN Line speed tracks the BT profile using delta reports from BT Openreach informing of any BT profile changes. Often these reports get lost and so the PN Line speed can get 'stuck' as yours appears to have done.

Now for the crunch, AFAIK it's the Current Line Speed that's reported in the email not synch speeds. Hence your confusing email.

In your case the Current Line speed, if it had tracked properly would be reporting about 57Mb.

[#5]

@MisterW Interesting....

Do you think it could be because I'm using a HG612 modem and not the Plusnet offering? Wonder if the Plusnet router polls it's info back to them (a bit like SNMP)?

[#6]

The router doesn't send speed information back to PlusNet so using the HG612 will make no difference. It's your sync speed that determines your throughput speeds. The PlusNet Estimated speeds and Current line speed are no real indication of your actual speed so they are confusing and more or less meaningless.

[#7]

Hi @steveocee, no it won't be due to the router you're using.

From what I can see your account hasn't received a delta report from our suppliers to advise of the current sync rate.

Though, this isn't anything to worry about as the speed profile on your account is largely irrelevant nowadays as due to the way the majority of connections are routed across our network and the fact that your profile is set to way above your actual sync rate, this shouldn't impact speeds in any way. 

However I appreciate the automated emails entitled "About your broadband speed" can be confusing if the delta reports don't come through as we'd expect.

Apologies for the confusion and any inconvenience this caused.