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FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

emtee
Grafter
Posts: 46
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎19-03-2013

FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

I've had ongoing problems with gradually dropping daytime speeds (first worked at 72Mbps, dropped after a couple of months to 50Mbps and settled around 37Mbps), but also dropping to ridiculous speeds from mid afternoon until about midnight (sometimes as low as 2Mbps). Upload speeds also suffered (never over 12Mbps, and only 1Mbps yesterday).
Reported to PlusNet (who took a week to respond), but eventually they raised a job with OpenReach on Friday 27th, and the OpenRead engineer turned up as scheduled the following day. He was here from about 3pm untl 6.30pm and found line imbalance and large numbers of FECs. He did a lift-and-shift, onto vectoring equipment at the cabinet, but was still seeing problems. Eventually, he had to go ... but, as he promised, he turned up bright and early this morning and started checking the line more carefully (it had tested absolutely perfectly).
So he decided to switch to another pair, and he was able to measure 60Mbps at my modem (I'm seeing about 53Mbps with 18Mbps upload). It just remains to be seen if the speed drops off this evening ...
... but, when so many complain about OpenReach, it's nice to be able to report a man doing his job with some pride and strong customer focus.
Of course, if the speed drops off again in the evenings I'll be back on to PlusNet (just hope I get the same engineer!)
7 REPLIES 7
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
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Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

Hi emtee,
Sorry to see we were slow in picking up on this initially.
I'm glad to hear the engineer was on top of their work, let us know if this becomes an issue again.
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
emtee
Grafter
Posts: 46
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎19-03-2013

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

Well - it has become an issue again!!
The Openreach engineer work may well have improved the basic connection speed, but I'm seeing the slow-down again in the evening.
There's a very clear pattern to the slow-down ... it's fine pretty much all day, but it drops through the evening (current 5Mbps) and then recovers by about midnight.
EXACTLY the same happened to me when on ADSL, and after a couple of engineer visits it was eventually traced to a congested route out of the exchange which was showing green everywhere. A determined Openreach engineer agreed that it looked traffic-related (I was able to show him graphs showing the speed variations using a spare computer to monitor download speeds every 5 minutes). Eventually he managed to get someone to identify that it was actually red - I was shifted onto new equipment at the exchange and the congestion disappeared.
I know FTTC is different, but the pattern is the same and HAS to be traffic and/or congestion related surely. The line itself, from router to cabinet, is definitely performing optimally. I've added this to the existing question - let's hope it gets picked up reasonably quickly.
emtee
Grafter
Posts: 46
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎19-03-2013

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

A second Openreach attended today - and wasted his time rechecking what the previous engineer had checked over two days.
He is 100% certain that the evening slowdowns are due to congestion and he'll report this, although he doubts anything will be done.
My speeds are dropping from 60Mbps during the day to anything between 2 and 7Mbps between 5pm and midnight. Not really acceptable when I'm paying £35 a month.
It was clear from day one that this was a congestion issue, and both Openreach engineers agree that this is blindingly obvious. Several others in the area are also suffering very poor speeds, but the hoops that BT puts them through (which can involved anything up to 4 hours on the phone) has put them off complaining.
Fortunately at least one has persevered and been told that his 1-2Mbps (instead of 40) is due to "problems at the exchange". But nothing seems to be being done about it.
Since this exchange is part of a pioneering BDUK roll-out, it seems it ought to be time to really put pressure on Openreach to get this sorted ASAP. But is PlusNet up to that?
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
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Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

Which exchange is this?
emtee
Grafter
Posts: 46
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Registered: ‎19-03-2013

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

Rothbury
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
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Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

So your exchange is a child of Alnwick. I would expect the capacity problem lies there, but there isn't an up-to-date capacity report at the moment (although PN should be able to see if there are capacity problems in the area).
Generally speaking, most capacity problems are BT Wholesale rather than Openreach. The connection from the cabinet to the exchange is rarely a source of congestion (Openreach's area), it's normally the backhaul from the exchange to the ISP (BT Wholesale).
emtee
Grafter
Posts: 46
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎19-03-2013

Re: FTTC speed problems ... and Openreach

Certainly capacity issues in the past have always been at the Rothbury exchange (and fixed there).
Yes, it may be that the capacity issue is in BTw's domain, but the only route we have is via the Openreach process.