Only getting 15Mbps

[#1]

@MisterW  I believe @bobpullen  was replying to my comment re OR replacing the master socket.

It does not happen so much these days, as most have already been replaced, but every other fault was a replacement master socket - or so it seemed.

That wiring does seem very strange though!

[#2]

Thanks everyone for your replies. As requested here is the front and back of the face plate. I can confirm that no cables are connected to this when it is pulled out and all cables remain inside the socket as shown in the previous pictures.

As far as I can recall, this is the origional faceplate from when the house was built 25 years ago. I assume the additional cableing was done by the building contractor as the house was being built and may have been done before, after or at the same time the master socket was installed.

We are currently shielding and would not necessarily want an engineer coming in to the house. Is it an option to leave the hub plugged into the test socket and have our "banding" restriciton lifted? Or, would it be an option to have a replacemet faceplate posted to us (or can we buy a new one online?)

Long term, what would you reccomend I do? If there is additional cabeling spliced into the main phone line between the outside and the master socket, can I get a regular spark to fix this or does it need to be BT/openreach? Again, I dont need the additional phone points throughout the house and am happy to repalce those with blank face plates.

All the best, Alan.

[#3]

Ah ha! I have solved the strange wiring problem. I unscrewed the back of the master socket and can confirm that the wires wrapped with the electrical tape are not connected. This must be the extension which runs upstairs, but it must have been disconnected at some point. Presumably it was origionally connected properly to the back of the removable faceplate as normal.

I guess this means the master socket is wired properly and without tampering. Also points towards the faceplate being faulty?

I guess my questions at the end of my last post still apply.

Thanks again.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@catherinealan full Mark's for courage and perseverance there😀 it's sometimes difficult for us, when trying to help, to understand what people might be capable or willing to do to assist us. 

I think your conclusion are correct, the extension wiring has been disconnected previously and the master socket is wired correctly. The conclusion must be that the master socket, primarily the faceplate is faulty.

@bobpullen  would you agree with that Bob ?

Under normal circumstances I'd have no hesitation in saying raise a fault and get an engineer visit. Any half decent BT engineer would take a few minutes to come to the same conclusion, replace the master socket with the latest NTE5C version, reset the DLM, job done! Were not in normal circumstances though the shielding issue must be considered.

As I see it the possibilities are:-

1) leave the router plugged into the test socket, theres no problem with that  other than the untidy look. Eventually the DLM should increase the speed on it's own but it could take a while. 

2) get a replacement NTE5C, they're widely available on ebay, replace it yourself and then wait for zpeed increase as 1. Technically you're not supposed to do this but if genuine Bt socket is used it should be ok if any future bt engineer might visit

3) raise a speed fault and when asked to try the test socket, give the information we've obtained regarding faceplate removal and that there is no wiring on the faceplate. Problem here is that BT are prioritising people with no phone or broadband and speed faults may take a while to be auctioned. Any action is going to result in a BT engineer visit though!

If you're happy with leaving in the test socket, I'd be inclined to take that approach for now

@bobpullen Bob, if@catherinealan were to take that approach would you be able to give the wizard a nudge to request a DLM reset to speed things up ?

[#5]

@catherinealan  I typed the above on my tablet , now I've got a decent keyboard to type on, I'll just to go back and answer some of your earlier questions for completeness

To make sure I understand your last message correctly, are you saying that when connected to the test socket the numbers look "normal" except for the sofware limitation (banding) enforced by the exchange?

Yes

If there is additional cabeling spliced into the main phone line between the outside and the master socket, can I get a regular spark to fix this or does it need to be BT/openreach?

Any work on the master socket and upstream of that is BT Openreach's responsibility and technically (legally?) needs to be done by Openreach. However, from the pictures you posted and the stats when plugged into the test socket, I don't believe there is any additional cabling connected between the outside and the master socket.

Or, would it be an option to have a replacemet faceplate posted to us (or can we buy a new one online?)

As @bobpullen said earlier the master socket looks pretty old. I'm pretty sure that we just have a failed faceplate here, unfortunately I dont believe there's any formal mechanism to request a new faceplate other than a BT Engineer visit. My guess is that the external connector on the faceplate is corroded but its difficult to see inside from the picture. It might be possible to get a replacement master socket of that type on ebay but if you are going to that length, its better and probably, easier and cheaper, to get the latest NTE5C with a filtered faceplate. If you were considering that I'll happily post some links to whats available.

[#6]

Thanks @MisterW for all your help with this. It looks like we have sorted it.

I think I will just leave the connection plugged in to the test socket and consider replacing the faceplate myself with one of the new ones from ebay. I had a quick look online and it seems super easy to do (I am ok with electronics generally). Il watch a few gudes on YouTube or whatever then decide. Given the (very small) risk that I could make any mistake and need an engineer, il probably just leave it in the test socket untill the lockdown is lifted completle (i.e. vaccine next year!).

If the banding restriction thing can be reset, it would be much appreciated as going forward I will ether be in the test socket, or eventually a new master socket (wether installed by me of BT).

Thanks again, Alan.

[#7]

@catherinealan  this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-BT-Openreach-Master-Socket-Nte5c-MK2-Broadband-MK4-Filtered-Fplat... is what you need. It has the backbox, master socket and filtered faceplate. You can then do away with any filters. On the new type (Mk4) all the connectors are 'cam' type so there's no need for a punch down tool. In your case all you'd need to do would be unscrew the A and B wires(blue and white in your photo) making a note of which is A & B, from the existing master socket, remove it, fix the new backplate, reattach the A and B wires and fit the facepate.

[#8]

Thanks again. I guess we just wait for @bobpullen and the wizzard (Gandalf?) to see if the reset is possible.

All the best.

[#9]

---

@MisterW wrote:

@bobpullen   your post crossed with my edit , you mean the fact that it just appears to be a faceplate problem ?

---

Yes, or the faceplate is somehow making contact with an exposed  wire behind the socket but we've since ruled that out.

Seems all is well with the decided approach.

I'll defer to @Gandalf with regards to the DLM reset. Can't see why this can't be requested if the intention is to remain in the test socket.

[#10]

I wanted to wait untill we had this resolved before asking about the "politics" of this. I know plusnet had a minimum speed guarentee, how would this apply here? Also, and I dont mean this to sounds like a complaint necessarily, but if the exchange has placed a speed limit on my connection...why didnt someone (openreach, BT, plusnet) tell me? Is this informaiton not available to them and would they not have some responsibility over it?

I have always had some troubles with my connection and to be honest it's only that my son-in-law is staying with me this week that we have investigated this together. Its entirly possible that this issue has been present for 10 years through several different ISPs. How does this aspect of the ISP/openreach/customer relationship work?

Thanks again to all involved.

- Alan

[#11]

Thanks for the contributions Bob. 

[#12]

I'd just typed a long edit to my post above and then this dammed forum software timed me out🙄

So here goes again...(maybe a little more concise this time

@catherinealan 

I know plusnet had a minimum speed guarentee, how would this apply here? Also, and I dont mean this to sounds like a complaint necessarily, but if the exchange has placed a speed limit on my connection...why didnt someone (openreach, BT, plusnet) tell me? Is this informaiton not available to them and would they not have some responsibility over it?

Bear in mind I am just a customer like yourself so can't speak on behalf of PlusNet but I'll try and give some insight.

You are correct, the minimum speed guarantee does apply in these circumstances and if you were to raise a fault , I'm sure PN would ultimately get Openreach to investigate and fix the problem. They would go through the same procedure as I suggested, test socket first, then they'd do a GEA test and discover the banding that's shown by your stats and get an Openreach engineer visit to diagose and fix the problem, almost certainly by replacing the master socket. That would probably take about a week under normal circumstances but goodness knows how long in the current ones where speed faults are (justifiably?) not a priority. With your excellent assistance we've managed to short-circuit the process and diagnosed the fault in 24hrs. If it wasn't for needing the DLM reset(or the DLM was better at automatically detecting the fault was fixed) then we'd be done. Hopefully Anoush or someone else in the Help team will assist quickly with the DLM reset and PlusNet will have one happy customer again.

As to pro-actively monitoring for faults, I'm not sure any of the mainstream ISP's do this, they respond to customers raising a fault. There are some niche(read expensive!) small ISP's that do pro-active monitoring but they would probably only pick up loss of service rather than reduced speed faults.

[#13]

thanks @MisterW, I agree with all you have said there and understand. I did a bit more reading and seen articles like this which tell me that the reset thing is not necessarily as simple as button on the screen of a plusnet call handler.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/ability-reset-openreach-fttc-broadband-dlm-profiles-ar...

I also agree with your conclusion that not activly monitoring faults such as these and contacting customers is a cost saving measure which makes sense. We have a 1000/1000 ciricut to my work with all the proper SLAs etc... I suppose that the difference... which is understandable.

Perhaps in the future when the DML reset stuff gets more automated between openreach and the ISPs etc....it will be more normal for the systems to fix themselves in a more automated fashion and/or more proacitve problem fixing from ISPs as the issues become easier (and therefore cost less) for them to fix.

[#14]

@catherinealan Yes, if you're prepared to pay for the SLA then you can expect the service. Problem is broadband is a commodity these days, some people (I hasten to add not you!) seem want it for a low price and then expect it to work flawlessly and be fixed instantly when it doesn't. What's the engineering saying for projects, you can have any two of right, on-time and to budget , but not all three!

A bit of background on DLM control and resets. With the old ADSL DLM , ISP's had online control of changes and resets. With the advent of FTTC, the DLM is supposedly more sophisticated. Openreach didn't provide any access to the DLM and insisted that only an Openreach engineer could request any DLM change following a visit. Recently they've allowed ISP's to remotely request DLM reset under certain circumstances, but only the more experienced PlusNet staff have access to this facility, That's mainly to ensure that it's only used when the fault has been corrected, otherwise its a waste of time since the fault will just return. Hopefully we will progress in future to the ADSL like scenario where ISP's can apply some control of the DLM without Openreach involvement.  

[#15]

@catherinealan 

The figures 

Line attenuation:	36.8 / 30.7

seem rather high and may suggest either a fault or you are a long way from the cabinet.

Please can you

1. request a GEA test from Plusnet, and either publish the report, or post the distance displayed with the report

2. Check on this site

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

to determine the speeds you are supposed to be getting.

 (redact your phone number from the report prior to posting)