cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

[FTTC] Trial feedback

tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

[FTTC] Trial feedback

BT engineer installed my FTTC today.
Install painless and quick, Engineer helpful and informative.
(definitely work pre-configuring router as per instructions)
Speed difference astonishing.
Was lucky to get 2mbps download in past now have a rock solid 35mbps (upload is an equally amazing 8mbps)
Note this is despite being a good 400 metres, as the crow flies, from the cabinet.
Grin
20 REPLIES 20
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Excellent, that's really good. Still trying to get a handle on how far from the cab it is before speeds drop off so that's good to see at that distance.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Day two
A marked performance drop today from the heady heights of day one 35 mbps to 23 mbps
Still an improvement on the downstream line speed of 14.5Mbps and upstream line speed of 5Mbps that the BT wholesale broadband checker was predicting
'my broadband speed' results
Today 20:39 23315 kbps (2.91MB/s) 5947 kbps (743kB/s)
Today 08:03 35331 kbps (4.42MB/s) 8250 kbps (1.03MB/s)
puzzled by the drop as I doubt it's contention. BT engineer said I was only the 18th customer using the new FTTC cabinet
(yes I'm testing using a wired network connection to ensure there are no wireless performance issues impacting the results)
bluewhale
Rising Star
Posts: 933
Thanks: 28
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

that drop is about the same as i got and i guess is the training going on
i really miss having the stats from the modem on line noise etc so you can tell what is actually going on
i find that although i get a high maximum i still get wild variations on speed, sometimes dropping below 1mbits
much worse than on adsl2+
not really had any convincing explanations as to why this happens, but it makes it almost unusable at times
will be interesting to hear what you find as sounds like a similar line length to me
tedsloan
Dabbler
Posts: 22
Registered: ‎25-07-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Was the first customer on my cabinet 13th August last. Using the PlusNet speed test I very often get 36,000kbps. There again it can be in the teens or low twenties. I am about 650 metres from the green cabinet.
tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

day three
download speed still hovering  around 24 mbps with upload speed of around 6mbps
Puzzled by drop from 1st day's amazing figures.
Does anybody know why would that happen ?
bluewhale
Rising Star
Posts: 933
Thanks: 28
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Quote from: tomorrowman
Does anybody know why would that happen ?

i think it's training at least thats what i've been told
so implies there have been connection drops etc
like i said above wish we could se what is actually going on in the modem  so we could verify for ourselves
gm4jjj
Rising Star
Posts: 697
Thanks: 7
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

For reference I am 850m from the street cabinet and presently get 26Mb/s down, 8 up.
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

tomorrowman - looks like your sync speed has decreased. This is what it's at now:
Sync Status In Sync
Downstream Speed 24.421001 Mbps
Upstream Speed 7.2000003 Mbps
Looking at your connection logs there where a few drops on the first day so it looks like the systems decided the line was a bit unstable and decreased the sync speed, since then it's been stable for over 2 days. It may change if you reboot the BT modem.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Thanks for the explanation for the initial speed drop.
Tried the modem reboot suggestion. Can't say it made a significant difference:
Date         Download Speed                 Upload Speed
Today 08:08 23400 kbps (2.93MB/s) 5967 kbps (746kB/s)
Would I be correct in thinking the 'determining of the sync speed' is similar to ADSL i.e.
for the first x days limits set high while 'the system' finds it's optimum speed/quality level.
If so take it the ISPs have a function to 'redetermine sync speed'
P.S. Impressed so far

tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Update on the install.
pre FTTC wireless router, home server etc where all upstairs off the extension phone socket.
as part of VDSL upgrade decided to relocate all of this to be close to master socket (did not fancy having x metres of cat5 cable draped around house).
So all kit is now under couch.
Decided not to continue using the supplied  netgear WNR1000 router and reverted to using my Linksys WRT610N dual band router.
Found wireless signal strength was a little better with Linksys + use 5Ghz N band for good for HD media streaming (less congestion with neighbours broadband)
One minor niggle - PS3 previously had wired connection to router, now wireless. However PS3 wireless is only G, so download speed is actually slower than broadband connection.
(better start looking for a N wireless bridge/access point for the PS3 then)
If you do use wireless connections you really do need 'N' to take advantage of the speed offered by this FTTC broadband.



dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Yeah there's a similar 10 day training period so the speed can start out high and be unstable for a bit and the speed fluctuate as it works out the best stable speed. We don't have any mechanism to change the sync speed or reset the speed or profile at the moment.
We found the same with wireless G/N. When we first did the trial we capped the speed at 20Mbps and G could just about cope with that OK. When we removed that limit you could see the difference straight away. We then tested a whole load of different routers out and started using the WNR1000.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Looks like the 'training' phase of my VDSL2 broadband is still ongoing.
Unexpected but welcome speed increase.
Today        22:14 28585 kbps (3.57MB/s) 8238 kbps (1.03MB/s)
Yesterday 14:23 24199 kbps (3.02MB/s) 5962 kbps (745kB/s)
tomorrowman
Dabbler
Posts: 13
Registered: ‎25-10-2010

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Speed still creeping up
Getting a solid 31000 kbps +/- 500 kbps download speed for the last 3 days
upload remains in the 8225 - 8250 kbps range.

dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] Trial feedback

Cool Smiley How's the stability looking?
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology