FTTC Trial - 3 Month Status Update

[#1]

It's now three months since the FTTC upgrade, and speeds have been relatively stable since installation at approx 13 Mbit/sec down and 2 Mbit/sec up until last week when BBC iPlayer started to exhibit low bandwidth symptoms - jumping picture, dropped sound track, timer symbol, etc.
A speed check indicated that the link had deteriorated to 500Kbit/sec down, 2 Mbit/sec up.
Action taken:
  - A power-off reset of the Netgear router alone resulted in a complete failure to re-establish a connection.
  - A power-off reset of the BT modem restored the link to its earlier 13 down/2 up performance level.
Could it be that the BT modem adaptive equaliser adjusts over time to a point from which it cannot recover without a forced reset?

[#2]

My Speed is typically 37M Down an 8M Up 
Sunday morning, I was getting 600K Down and I can't remember the up, but it could have been 6M.
I power cycled my VSDL modem and all was fixed. This is my 2nd Modem after my 1st failed leaving me with internet for 8 days (unable to obtain a DSL sync)
Having come from a Virgin area where my modem worked without any issue for years this is starting to concern me...
Tim.

[#3]

Hi Tim,
Wow! 37 down, 8 up - I'm impressed! You must be close to the cab.
Strangely, this is my second modem as the first one was swapped out during earlier investigations into the low synch rate. The problem was eventually tracked down to a short section of aluminium cable, so there was probably nothing wrong with the original modem.
As BT won't replace the aluminium cable section on the grounds of cost and disruption, 13 down, 2 up is the best I can hope for until something catastrophic happens to the dodgy cable.
I don't know how immature the design of the BT VDSL modem is, or indeed whether it is a rebadged standard component. The tendency of the modem to lock up when faced with extreme line characteristics suggests that the firmware is not yet fully optimised. The Virgin product has been on the market for a good while and has probably been used by other service providers too.
I wonder - are PlusNet forwarding the comments and observations made in the forum to BT?

[#4]

Hi Phil,
Hmmm, these modems do not sound the most robust, reading other forum posts here sounds like more people are having issues with theirs too.
I'm actually about 1km from my cabinet so I'm very happy with my speeds, must be nice copper cable all the way! I struggled to get 1.5M on the ADSL Max service so FTTC is a god send, although +Net need to offer more bandwidth and better traffic management to really get benefit!
Interestingly on my 1st modem, my speed started out at 37M but after a few days seemed to settle at about 29 to 30, this new one is solid at 37 apart from the 1 reboot required so far....
Let's hope +Net feedback to BT these modem issues.
Tim.

[#5]

I have been seeing a reduction of my download speed, but this seems to be because I schedule my router Draytek 2130n to disable it's WAN interface over night (don't ask why...)
But when I check speed in the morning I have seen it as low as 500kbs download but always a reasonable 7-8mbs upload (I'm about 600m from my cabinet).
Re-booting the BT modem and router always restores speed Ok but why should it slow down just because I'm not PPPoE authenticated over night?