Very Poor Peak Speeds - Recent Issue

[#1]

Hello - I wonder if someone can help please.

I've got Plus.net Fibre Unlimited - Service has been working great for at least a year. I had WiFi coverage issues with the free Plus.net router so I purchased a TP-Link Archer VR900 V1 router and it's been working great since setting up (about a year ago).

Recently though I've had a serious issue with broadband speed. According to the router, broadband is connected at 40Mbps - However during peak times (around 5pm to about 11pm I've found) I am only getting between 1 and 5Mbps - If I wait until after 11pm I get a consistent 36Mbps.

I initially thought it could be an internal issue - I've updated the firmware on the router to the latest, I've changed all passwords, checked all settings and ensuring no unauthorised WiFi users. Guest network is disabled and I have a very strong WiFi password. I only have a couple of WiFi connected devices. This made no difference.

I've also checked broadband usage on the Plus.net portal and should anyone be bootlegging off my connection I should see very high usage.

I am in a new build house with new infrastructure, dial tone is working fine and only one socket in the house - router is plugged into the master socket. I've tried removing the faceplate and going straight to the test socket within and no improvement.

I am not sure what else to try. As the issue has fairly recently started (e.g. videos on youtube no longer stream properly due to the 1Mbps connection) and the consistency of the poor speed during peak times this suggests to me my connection is working fine but perhaps the cabinets' connection is being saturated somehow? 

I've attached a screenshot of the connection speed taken from the router. Whilst this shows 40Mbps downstream current I can only get between 1Mbps and 5Mbps at the moment. Give it a few hours and it will return to around 35+Mbps.

Can someone help - Advise what to do next - If it means submitting something to BT as a fault then god help me - I won't even bother as that'll never get anything sorted.

[#2]

Hi @RichardParry,

Thanks for getting in touch.

I'm sorry that you have had problems with your Wi-Fi, it's not ideal and I appreciate how frustrating this can be.

If you are still having issues, please can you establish whether using wired connections (i.e. an ethernet cable) makes any difference. If it is just Wi-Fi, you may find the following troubleshooting link useful: http://goo.gl/YuPPSP.

To save you calling, you can also get in touch with our Technical Support Team via their live web-chat further down the page (please note that this will require your browser to allow pop-up windows and is subject to agent availability at peak times).

If you continue to experience problems, please do come back to us so we can run some further tests for you.

Thanks - LF

[#3]

Welcome to the forum.

This sounds as though you could be connected to a hot SVLAN upstream of your connection. When going slow you need to run the official speed test, that is, plug your router into the test socket and do a wired speedtest preferably using the BT speedtester. http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/. This works best on Internet Explorer or Edge browsers. If this is showing slow wired speed then do the second stage diagnostics option after completing the first stage as this saves the results where both Openreach and Plusnet can see them. Then report a fault.

You do not need to contact BT, that's the job of Plusnet.

[#4]

Thanks for the replies.

I've just run the BT Wholesale test - It came back with a 0.46Mbps downstream and 0Mbps upstream - This evening the broadband is painfully slow - I've had to resort to using 4G on my mobile and tethering to my wireless devices - Such a shame. If I wait until around 10pm it will jump from around 1Mbps average to about 23Mbps.

I've gone through the diagnostic option and attached it's output in a PDF print screen to this post - Could I please have some guidance on how to get this fixed. Thank you.

[#5]

You have not confirmed hat this test was done with the router plugged in to the test socket, that's the one that you access by taking the front off the master socket and having an Ethernet cable between yor router and the computer being used for the speed test. If this is the case then all that you can do is report a fault to Plusnet.

[#6]

Hi @RichardParry, 

I'm afraid @Baldrick1 guessed correctly and you have a hot VLAN. 

Hot VLANs genearlly get resolved automatically but I've raised a fault on your account just so we can get an expected timescale for when capacity is going to be freed up. 

[#7]

Thank you - I really hope this gets sorted. 

I've read up on HOT VLAN's online - and seems most people have never got this fixed. So fingers crossed - Unfortunately Cable Internet isn't in place here and only alternative I guess would be a 4G Router instead, which based on my tethering to my mobile would be much quicker - Around 20Mbps I get on 4G here.

Fingers crossed.