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External NTE

Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

External NTE

I am new to Plusnet and this forum so apologies for any errors in protocol. I have been on Plusnet since 20th January so I am aware that there will be a period of time where the speed of my fibre maybe erratic. However, I have been having problems with disconnects which has made me look at the usual stuff such as whether my router is plugged into the master socket. On checking this I think I have an external master socket (please see picture) and that this might be affecting my fibre speed. Ironically I joined Plusnet in part because I wasn’t getting the speeds I was paying for from my previous fibre provider. From what I am reading on the forum, this is something that Openreach dabbled with for a while then decided it wasn’t a good idea. Again from the forum it appears that Plusnet themselves are generally not familiar with these boxes. About two years ago Openreach came to my house to fix a line problem and it was clear that neither engineer was familiar with this box (that should have set alarm bells ringing). From what I can tell from the community the consensus is that I should ask to have the box replaced with an internal master socket. There seems to be some debate as to whether Plusnet or Openreach should pick this up and what, if any cost should be picked up by me. Any experiences or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

13 REPLIES 13
Den1
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Re: External NTE

Personally i would have it removed and replaced with an internal one, these were known nto cause issues with broadband speeds hence they are now discontinued, you would most likely have to bear the cost though.

Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Thanks for your post @Steve961 

What does your telephone socket within your property look like where your router is plugged into, and do you also have any phone sockets? Feel free to post up some photos of them and we should be able to advise further.

If you've got a Openreach master socket you should have a test socket behind the faceplate, by plugging your router into there should rule out any wiring that's your responsibility. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

Re: External NTE

Hi,

As far as I can tell I just have the external NTE. Inside the house, what would be the master socket is actually just an extension socket, no NTE-5 (picture attached - all my telephone sockets look like this). I gather this is quite unusual as per my earlier post, even Openreach engineers dont appear to see them often.

 

From what I am reading online, this is an issue and will be affecting my connection speeds. I also wonder if it is causing my disconnect issues? I tried a different channel having used a wi-fi analyser, I then split the 2.4GHz and 5 Ghz as recommended by people on this forum having the same issue and finally in desperation disabled the 5GHz. The latter seems to have slowed the disconnects to a trickle.

 

I'm now left with the external NTE unless anyone has any other ideas?

 

Thanks, Steve

Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Hi Steve, Yeah that looks like an odd setup you've got there with no internal Openreach phone socket. I've tested your line though and there aren't any definitive issues showing with the broadband signal going into your router so the disconnections may be limited to the wireless signal between your devices and your router.

Having said that, the tests are showing what's known as a Bridge Tap which can be caused by faulty wiring although this may not be causing an issue. To narrow this down do you have a laptop or computer you can plug into your router to test your connection on ruling out WiFi?

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

Re: External NTE

Hi Anoush,

 

Yes I have a laptop that I can plug into the router; I'll give that a try in the morning.

 

I suspect that the problem you have detected is causing me issues and may or may not be related to the external NTE setup. My broadband speed has been between 1.5mb and 4.5mb all day (albeit over wifi which I realise is not the optimum). It did briefly rise to 16mb about and hour ago, then quickly dropped back to about 8mb. I've just tested it again and its about 13mb.

 

I'll post an update tomorrow after Ive plugged the laptopn into the router.

 

Thanks, Steve

Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Hi Steve, no problem if your speeds are still slow on your laptop while plugged into the router I think it'd be worth us arranging an engineer visit to investigate this further. 

I hope I'm wrong but I've got a feeling that'd likely be the case as I've seen a bridge tap commonly caused by star-wiring to wreck havoc on a broadband connection especially fibre. 

An engineer should be able to modernise things at the very least and if the only work they do is internally, I'd be unsure at this stage if that call-out would be deemed chargeable (We'd only pass on to you £65 at most if it is)

Our billing/revenue assurance guys who review engineer charges would likely know if modernising this type of setup leads to a chargeable visit, so I'll speak to them tomorrow and post back.

 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
MisterW
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Re: External NTE

Yeah that looks like an odd setup you've got there with no internal Openreach phone socket.

Its not odd when there is an External Nte. With the external NTe , all the internal wiring is left to the builder. If you have multiple internal sockets then you WILL very likely have a bridge tap. The builder will almost certainly have wired each socket back to the nte ( star wired ) because it was the easiest way. This WILL give problems , particluarly with FTTC.

Openreach realised that the external nte was a bad idea and in the days of engineer FTTC installs they routinely replaced them and changed the wiring to use a normal NTE5. Problem is that with self installs OR have washed their hands of external NTes.

There's a previous thread discussing the problem here https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/External-master-socket/m-p/1564360

If the current speed is below the MGALS then the first approach should be to request an engineer as Openreach MUST replace the xNTE ( see BT SIN here https://www.btplc.com/SINet/sins/pdf/470v3p0.pdf ) before doing anything else...

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

Re: External NTE

Hi Anoush,

I plugged by laptop into the router and recieved speeds in excess of 25mb. Thats the good news. The bad news is that today I'm also getting speeds in excess of 24mb on my wifi so I'm not sure whats going on. I then reactiveated the 5Gz which when I deactivated it slowed down  the wifi disconnects to a trickle but now I have reactiveated it I'm not getting any more disconnects that with it deactiveated so the problem seems to have gone away for now although I'm not confident it has gone for good! (Sampe of wifi log below)

Any ideas?

Thanks, Steve

9:51:43, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 02:0f:b5:30:0b:cf IEEE 802.11: WiFi registration failed
09:45:18, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:dc:e7:49:06:e4 IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:44:58, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:dc:e7:49:06:e4 IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:44:49, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:dc:e7:49:06:e4 IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:44:49, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:dc:e7:49:06:e4 IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:42:08, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 74:c6:3b:30:0b:cf IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:41:51, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 02:0f:b5:30:0b:cf IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:41:48, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 74:c6:3b:30:0b:cf IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:29:01, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 74:c6:3b:30:0b:cf IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:57, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:57, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:57, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:55, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:55, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: WiFi registration failed
09:24:43, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:42, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:42, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:40, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:37, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: WiFi registration failed
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 20:13:e0:cf:fa:f0 IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 20:13:e0:cf:fa:f0 IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 3c:5c:c4:4a:63:9d IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 3c:5c:c4:4a:63:9d IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
09:24:24, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client associated
09:24:16, 27 Jan. ath00: STA 50:c7:bf:43:aa:ed IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated
   
Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Hi Steve, it's good to see that your speeds on a wired connection are OK, I'd keep an eye on this as the issues may intermittent or flare up at some point in the future due to the bridge tap, but hopefully that doesn't ever cause a problem.

With regards to the wireless disconnects, it looks like the vast majority of your devices apart from one are on the 2.4GHz frequency, can you try moving some over to the 5GHz to see if that improves things?

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

Re: External NTE

Hi Anoush,

I originally had a number of devices attached to 5Ghz and that actually appeared to cause constant disconnects, i.e. every minute! That was why I tried switching it off. I will connect more to 5Ghz but I think I do have an issue.

Kind regards, Steve

Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Hi Steve, Ahh I think I misunderstood your last post.

If the disconnects are happening on the 5GHz frequency you may be affected by this issue.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Steve961
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎25-01-2020

Re: External NTE

Hi Anoush,

To be honest I dont know if I'm suffering with disconnects from the 5Ghz or because of it. WIth the disconnects I was getting I followed advice from the forum. Initially I changed from channel 11 to 1, then I split the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz and finally in desperation I turned off the 5Ghz which did seem to improve things. I have now switched it back on but left it split but as you pointed out earlier, I need to connect some devces to the 5Ghz to see what happens. I'm still concerned about the bridge tap, not least (as mentioned earlier) I left my previous provider in part because I wasnt getting the speeds I was paying for.

Kind regards, Steve

PS. Thanks to all other contributors to my problem; I am reading your posts with interest.

Gandalf
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Re: External NTE

Hi Steve, thanks for the detail.

Let me know how the troubleshooting goes, I'd also recommend if possible to keep your laptop plugged into the router for a while and see if that causes any issues to identify if the bridge tap is a red herring or needs to be looked at.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet