Fibre Help - Terrible speeds!

[#1]

Hi Everyone

I am suffering from terrible speeds from my fibre connection and do not know why or what to do to resolve things, so thought I may get some help from some of you that are a lot more knowledgeable than I am.

I transferred my fibre when we moved here 2 years ago, so am close to the end of my contract.  I raised a ticket a few months ago about the abysmal speeds I was getting all of a sudden, the advice given was to move from the basic fibre router that came with the installation and move to a hub one.  Not being prepared to re sign to a new contract or pay £100 for a hub one, I opted to buy a sealed hub one on Ebay - which didn't go down well with tech support who said they wouldn't support a 3rd party router to my astonishment!

I have played around with some of the settings on the hub one - although I don't know much about this and keep switching to a different channel.  Sometimes this improves things for a short while and I go back to 30 - 36 meg speed, then after a while I am back down to under 10 meg.  The speedchecker looks more like a heart monitor and there are more peaks and troughs than in the Himalayas!

It has reached a point where I cant connect to i player or watch anything online and even surfing the internet can result in pages taking ages to turn.  I do not know what to do or how to try and change things to get back to where we were when we were getting what I am paying for - a 35 meg fibre connection.  

I like Plusnet and would like to stay but at the moment I am paying out each month and not getting the decent service I think I am entitled to.

I don't think it is congestion in the area as we live in an area that is full of elderly warden controlled places and not many have internet connections.  I also do not understand how for 18 months things were fine, no lagging or buffering or slow speeds, then all of a sudden we fall of a cliff and seem to go back to the old days of dial up speeds!

Any help would be appreciated as to what I can try and how to do it.

Thanks in advance

Simon

[#2]

Have you tried to log a fault ? https://portal.plus.net/apps/kbdfaults

[#3]

Hi @dhd101212

Welcome to the forums.

Are you testing the line speeds only using WiFi or cable to the router?

If only Wifi, then please try using a cable connection as WiFi is notorious for speed issues and then you can compare the 2 sets of results.

Plusnet's guide for trouble shooting WiFi connections is given here http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/wireless_broadband/

Also do you have a smartphone as it is easier to check WiFi signal strength and channel congestion using an app like WiFi Analyer by Farproc https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer if on Andriod.

[#4]

Thanks for helping me out with this.  I have been to the broadband troubleshooter and followed it through to BT Wholesale and managed to run all the tests there.  The first time I ran it it came back as saying that my download speed was within acceptable limits at 22mbps via ethernet connection.  I decided to test it again as it seems to be an intermittent fault, this time it registered 10 mbps and referred me through to another test.  The results were;

FAQ

1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.   Download Speed   0.01 Mbps 0 Mbps 38.71 Mbps Max Achievable Speed  Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.01 Mbps  For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 20 Mbps-38.71 Mbps .  Additional Information:  IP Profile for your line is - 38.71 Mbps 2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.   Upload Speed   1.27 Mbps 0 Mbps 2 Mbps Max Achievable Speed Upload speed achieved during the test was - 1.27Mbps  Additional Information:  Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 2 Mbps Your service was found to be performing poorly. Please raise a fault with your service provider, stating that the BT Performance Tester tool indicates poor service throughput performance after the third test. Please visit the FAQ if you are unable to understand the test results. I have cut and paste this as I don't know another way to do it!!! So I continued through the troubleshooter and supplied the readings, it said it has opened a ticket and it is being put through to the faults team. I hope this means they can do something about it now.  My only concern is last time I spoke to someone at plusnet on live chat they said they wouldn't help me because I have a third party router!  Even though it is one of their own Hub One routers because I got it still sealed from Ebay they said it wasn't supported.  I wasn't exactly happy over that because at the end of the day I am still paying for a fibre service and getting less than dial up speeds sometimes. I will keep my fingers crossed that they will do something to help me now, if not then I guess I will have to move supplier when my contract ends in July, which I don't really want to do.

[#5]

I have just installed that wifi analyzer on my smartphone.  It is showing that my router is the only one connected to the 5ghz band and only 4 on the 2.4ghz band.  That sounds about right for where we live as most people are quite elderly and dont have the internet.  So that should surely mean that I should be getting much faster speeds?

[#6]

Did you run the BT test on a phone, or on a computer connected via ethernet?
If on an ethernet connected computer, contact plusnet tell them you have used the BT tester, and there appears to be a fault on your line.

Assuming you have a wired PC, when you have run the speedtest:
Use screenprint key.
Paste into a blank "Paint" document.
Save the document and then you can upload it to here. Do this seperately for both speedtests.

If you are not using a computer wired into the router (and bear in mind, the router must be connected to your first socket) then it is hard to tell whether the issue is being caused by something inside your system.

[#7]

All the tests were run from an ethernet connection cable plugged in to the hub one router which is plugged into the fibre master socket on the wall that BT fitted 2 years ago when we moved in.

I have got an open ticket and the fault is apparently being investigated.  It is intermittent though, sometimes I can get 36 mb download speed on wireless and it is steady as a rock on the speedtest graph but then it drops right off the scale or down to less than 1 mb.  I am not the most technically minded person with these things but even I know it shouldn't be doing that!

Hopefully Plusnet can get it sorted out now and we can get back to when we had a nice steady 30 mb or more connection speed.