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Slow fibre broadband.

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petelane1951
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Registered: ‎10-12-2014

Slow fibre broadband.

I would like to have Plusnet TV but my line speed is too slow. However we are in a Superfast broadband area that is supposed to guarantee 24mps. On the BT Openreach website it shows me connected to cabinet 19 which is a new cabinet in our village for fibre. However an engineer told my neighbour that his line is actually connected to cabinet 8 which is another mile away. He said all the lines go straight through cabinet 19 but are not connected to the fibre connections in that cabinet. I have checked with our local Dorset broadband team who say Openreach are aware of an issue but do not know when it will be resolved. It appears to relate to the fact that lines were not moved to the new cabinet when Superfast broadband was completed. The Openreach engineer told my neighbour it is a quick fix but he can only do it if requested by Plusnet. My question is how to get this done.  Plusnet customer services say they can not get Openreach to investigate because it is against their management policy. I can not have TV unless my speed is increased because of management policies. So how do I get this resolved or do I give just have to wait for Openreach to finally sort out their issue? 

20 REPLIES 20
BD
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

Hi, I've checked your account and can see that it's showing cabinet 19. Fibre is available at that cabinet and I'd suggest going down the route of upgrading to fibre as if the engineer who goes to do the installation does see your routed to cabinet 8 that's when we could look  at possibly re-routing the line to fibre capable 19 and this is how we would initiate it as I've seen it done in the past .

It could also just be your neighbour who is routed to cabinet 8 and there is always the chance that no re-routing is needed.

I can see you are debating moving the service to another provider due to the June price increase and the above option is always available if you choose to stay with us.

I hope this helps,

 

Ben

petelane1951
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

Ben,

 

We are already on fibre. The issue appears to be that Openreach did not connect the top half of our village to box 19 but their records show they have. Openreach are aware but have told us that our provider has to request the change. I was told by one of your agents (and so was my neighbour) that Plusnet will not do this. Hopefully Dorset Superfast Broadband team may assist.

 

My neighbour has signed up to BT Infinity with a quoted estimated speed of 52mbs. My question is really why can Plusnet provide the same? You will lose customers to other providers if they offer a higher speed than you. 

BD
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

Ah I see, In that case then as it's not a routing error and just the unfortunate case that half of the village are routed through to a different cabinet. There isn't a way we can change your given cabinet and I'm sorry to hear that your on the slower end of the split will your village and routing.

King regards,

Ben

RealAleMadrid
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

@BD  That's a very unhelpful reply, I don't think you have understood the situation, - it is a routing error. You should be pushing openreach to get the Op's connection to match the routing records  which state that his line is connected to Cab 19 when it actually goes to another cab. You should be doing more to help your customer. However I suspect PlusNet will do nothing and eventually Openreach will sort out the connections to the new cabinet.

HarryB
Plusnet Help Team
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.


@RealAleMadrid wrote:

 - it is a routing error.


I'm not 100% sure it is to be honest.

 


@RealAleMadrid wrote:

You should be pushing openreach to get the Op's connection to match the routing records  which state that his line is connected to Cab 19 when it actually goes to another cab.


I've looked over this with Ben and the OP's postcode is currently covered by 2 cabinets, PCP8 and PCP19.

The estimated distance from the PCP to the OP's road is roughly the same from both cabinets according to This Website which would usually mean similar speeds. The website also states the one of the cabinets covers roughly 52% of the postcode and the other cab covers roughly 47% of the postcode, so it would make sense that some are on 8 and others are on 19.

 

Further to this, I've checked a few other addresses in the same postcode on DSLchecker for results that come back as cab8 and cab19, and both cabinets seem to have roughly the same speed estimates.

 

Basically, the information for both of these cabinets would suggest similar performance from either of them.

 

In terms of what we can do for the OP, we could raise a TAGS Query, however this is likely to come back saying that DSLChecker is correct and the line is connected to cab19 and the speeds are performing within the speed estimates provided.

 

If cab19 was capable of considerably higher speeds, the estimates should reflect this and then at the very least, we'd be able to raise a fault with our suppliers to get an engineer out to investigate this further.

 

@petelane1951 wrote:
BT Infinity with a quoted estimated speed of 52mbs

Is it possible that you're referring to the upto speeds that are quoted as opposed to the actual estimate for the line?

Could you advise what speeds are quoted for your neighbours address or telephone number when entered over on dslchecker.bt.com

 

Thanks.

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 Harry Beesley
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RealAleMadrid
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

I'm sorry if I was a bit blunt in my previous post, but I felt Ben's response was rather dismissive. Unfortunately we don't have all the facts but if we believe what the Openreach engineer said and that some lines are passing cab 19 and going to cab 8 which the OP says is a mile further away could it be possible that cab 19 is a new infill cabinet and that a network re-arrangement to transfer some lines to cab19 is in progress or gone a bit wrong. By the way the distances on codelook are to the exchange so of no relevance to FTTC connections.

ejs
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

I think the Magenta Systems CodeLook website is not particularly accurate on the exact locations of the cabinets - I think it estimates the cabinet location based on the postcodes that the cabinet serves.

petelane1951
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Registered: ‎10-12-2014

Re: Slow fibre broadband.

Harry and Ben,

Thanks for looking at my issue. I will try and answer your queries as best I can.

 

Cabinet 8 was an original cabinet supplying the village. It is at the junction of the main road to Swanage and is well over a mile from us. Cabinet 19 is a new cabinet installed in the village at the junction of the High St and The Hyde during the fibre rollout.  It is about half the distance to us. A BT engineer attended my neighbour for a fault and he checked cabinet 19 and told him that only 4 lines were connected. He rang his boss asking if he could connect my neighbour and was told that his phone supplier had to report it. He is the one who told my neighbour that he could get 52mbs if connected to cabinet 19. I went onto the BT retail site afterwards and it quoted between 56 and 76mbs with a guaranteed speed of 52 for my address.

I have checked with Dorset Superfast Broadband team and our village is supposed to have been rolled out a year ago with a minimum speed of 24mbs. They told me that BT have admitted a technical issue which is slowing speeds.

On Friday I spoke to an engineer who was in the road and he told me he had just been to an issue in Capstan Field, the next road to ours, and discovered that BT had not wired cabinet 19 when it was new but their records show that our line is already there. He had reported the issue and his boss was arranging to have the new lines fitted. As a favour he also mentioned that our post was also affected. It appears that BT thought the rollout was finished but our half of the village was never connected correctly.

Dorset Superfast Broadband do not have a date for the fix. 

But our village has been rolled out so I should be getting more than 11mbs under the superfast rollout.  Interestingly, since the issue has come to light BT Retail have amended their site and Toms Field Rd is only capable of the current figure.

As far as the estimates for speed, is it possible BT are using current line speeds even though they are not on the correct cabinet. 

I do not want to leave Plusnet but I am stuck. If my line speed is not over 15 mbs I can not have TV. I can not get that because my cable appears to be incorrectly routed. Why would BT have bothered fitting a new cabinet in the village if the old cabinet was capable of providing speeds to meet the superfast rollout?

Our current cable is about half the distance in fibre from the exchange and half the distance in copper from cabinet to house. If it was on cabinet 19 it would be about 3/4 in fibre and 1/4 in copper which has got to improve my speed.

I hope you can help. 

If not and my neighbour gets his new connection to BT Infinity with a decent speed then It would mean BT would be getting preferential service from Openreach than other suppliers. 

 

 

petelane1951
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

Harry and Ben,

On checking the website you gave the cabinets are not as shown. Cabinet 8 is at the junction of the B3069 and Valley Road. Cabinet 19 is at the junction of the B3069 and The Hyde. Our fibre line was fitted last year and would have to be connected to cabinet 8 because cabinet 19 was not there until February 2017 as shown on the website. 

The website also states that 

FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet, where BT takes fibre to a new green cabinets, then provides a VDSL2 modem using existing copper cable to the new cabinet. Performance reduces for greater distance from the cabinet.

So if my line was correctly installed in cabinet 19 my speed would have increased in February this year and it did not. 

Please can you help?

HarryB
Plusnet Help Team
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

@ejs -


@ejs wrote:
I think the Magenta Systems CodeLook website is not particularly accurate on the exact locations of the cabinets - I think it estimates the cabinet location based on the postcodes that the cabinet serves.

I appreciate that and always try to take information from there with a pinch of salt.

 


@petelane1951 wrote:
Why would BT have bothered fitting a new cabinet in the village if the old cabinet was capable of providing speeds to meet the superfast rollout?

The new cabinet could be for increased capacity to serve the area.


@petelane1951 wrote:
But our village has been rolled out so I should be getting more than 11mbs under the superfast rollout.

The estimates for your line do also back this up, although only slightly above 11Mbps:

Cabinet 19

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Handback Threshold(Mbps)

WBC FTTC Availability Date

WBC SOGEA Availability Date

WBC FTTC 18x2 Provide Availability

WBC FTTC 18x2 Sim Availability

Left in Jumper

High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 18.4 13.1 1.2 0.8 11 Available -- -- Yes --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 16.1 6.6 1.2 0.6 4.5 Available -- -- Yes --

ADSL Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

Left in Jumper

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 3 -- 2 to 4 Available -- -- -- Yes
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 3 Up to 0.5 2 to 4 Available -- -- -- Yes
ADSL Max Up to 2.5 -- 1.5 to 5 Available -- -- -- --

 

It is still providing considerably higher speeds than the ADSL lines in your area (At least, going by what the estimates state)

 

 

Apologies for not updating my post yesterday, however in regards to:


@HarryB wrote:
In terms of what we can do for the OP, we could raise a TAGS Query, however this is likely to come back saying that DSLChecker is correct and the line is connected to cab19 and the speeds are performing within the speed estimates provided.

I did actually raise this yesterday (Ref: 643986) and I'm monitoring this for updates via a ticket on the account Here.

 

In the TAGS Query, I explained that records show you're connected to cab 19 and engineers have confirmed you should be, but in reality the line is actually connected to cab 8, therefore speeds are lower than engineers have advised you should be able to get.

 

The response I've had today advises our suppliers are looking in to this and I've been asked to check back for an update towards the end of the week.

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 Harry Beesley
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RealAleMadrid
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

@petelane1951 I've probably got better things to do but I used to live in Dorset and spent many hours on Swanage beach and walking the coast, so  I have been checking some addresses in the area by putting postcodes in the BT address checker and selecting from the list..

My conclusion is that BT have completely messed up provisioning on the new cab 19. I found only 1 address in The Hyde with a 80/20 estimate as it is very near the cab but there should be more. There are a few addresses in Old Moathouse Lane with 74/20 estimates but other properties show around 20Mbps download although they say they are on cab19.

Tom's Field road is interesting, a mix of addresses on Cab 8 and Cab 19 with very similar estimates of  around 18Mbps down which can't be right, particularly when I found one in the same road with a 77/20 estimate.

So it would seem that very few addresses have been connected through the new cab which tends to agree with the BT engineers comment that 4 lines were connected. It isn't as simple as just connecting your line to another cab though, the circuit ID has to updated to change the fibre connection to the new FTTC cab and with a lot of lines to change it becomes complicated with different ISPs involved.

So the first problem is getting Openreach to admit that something is wrong, they don't do that willingly so it could take time but @HarryB is on the case asking them some questions. I'm afraid it could take them even longer to sort it all out so I wish you luck!

petelane1951
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

@RealAleMadrid. Thanks for spending the time and your good wishes. Interestingly BT have admitted to Dorset Superfast team that they have a technical issue. In addition 2 separate engineers have identified the issue and one spoke to his boss while I was with him and he was looking at getting the contractor back. Apparently BT used a contractor who does not seem to have connected several cables. I realise that it might not be quick but until my neighbour and others complained BT did not seem bothered and seemed happy with the current situation. The only good thing is that Dorset Superfast team have some clout because they specify at least 24 mbs and most of the village is no where near that. BT have said that they can not act unless our suppliers raise the issue which @HarryB has done. 

HarryB
Plusnet Help Team
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

I've had a response from our suppliers on the TAGS Query and copied this on to the ticket on your account.

 

Although it's not brought the matter to a resolution, it's actually more positive than it could have been.

 

As per my response on the ticket on your account, I will continue to monitor this and provide further updates once they're available to me. Thanks for your patience.

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 Harry Beesley
 Plusnet
petelane1951
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Re: Slow fibre broadband.

@HarryB . Thank you for the update. Hopefully there is a possible resolution in sight.