BT Open Reach Installed the FTTC yesterday (26/11/2010) - as always the BT engineer had not seen a PlusNet install before and was expecting to install a BT wireless router. However, the install went without a hitch (replacing main BT line box and line checks) and securely fixed the OpenReach modem on the wall.
The supplied Wirelesses Access Point (Netgear) was a joy to setup – the auto configure found the modem and auto setup first time. Far easier and better than the other two FTTC trials I have seen (Muswell Hill/London). Happy to see my static IP address still working.
Initial speed tests (speedtest.net) showed Download showed 37Mb/s and an impressive 6 Mb/s upload. Real-world downloads indicated that the speed was holding up well. All this was between 3pm and 5pm. I was a very happy bunny.
I checked the stats at 7:0pm and found the speed had dropped to around 2Mb download and 0.5 upload (ping was much higher too). I just assumed that all the school kids were home and saturating the link. However my other ADSL line here (Orange – same exchange) was holding up at between 4 and 5 Mb/s (normal connection rate on that line)
By midnight the speed had dropped below 2Mb (i.e. slower than the original ADSL) and was still down to 1.5 Mb/s by 1:00am. This was tested on both hard-wired and wireless connections and on several computers.
Re checking at 8:00am this morning I had 1.6Mbs/ down and 0.5Up. So something wasn’t right.
From the Netgear WAP, I used the UI to disconnect and re-connected the internet connection. I still have 1.5Mb download but the upload has climbed back to 8.7Mb/s.
I then powered off the OpenReach modem (20 seconds) and allowed it to re-connect. Down load is still 1.5Mb/s (upload still really good at between 6 and 8 Mb/s – which I’ve very happy about!)
I hope this information might be useful. I’ll continue to monitor and re-post results.
At the moment the download connection is worse than before the install. On the up-side the upload is very good.
