FTTP Installed and working but speed limited by homplug & wireless

[#1]

FTTP was installed yesterday. All went smoothly although it seemed to take a team of 6 BT engineers the best part of 5 hours! How on earth are they going to scale that up for a national rollout?
The engineers had to put some sort of small terminal box on the outside of the house. Apparently it needs to be immediately above the telephony access box (can't be to the side). You then get upto 25m of fibre optic cable from this box to the ONT - with a choice of black or white cable. Can be routed outside the house or run internally (your choice). This is then connected to the ONT (a router that they manage and which terminates the optical connection into 4 x RJ45 ethernet plugs (requires power). The PlusNet router then plugs into the ONT in order to authenticate and provide the gateway for your home network. Presumably one day they might find a way of combining these 2 routers?
Speeds when connected directly to the ONT are frightening (87mbps download) but its amazing how quickly this tails off as you go further into the house. Given I was getting just 2mbps beforehand its hardly a complaint, more an observation that I intend to try to sort out!
Going through the NetGear WNR3500 router (wired) seems to drop it down to 67mbps. Wireless (g) drops it further to c.16mbps but the most disappointing drop is via the 5 x Homeplugs I have. Supposedly rated at 85mbps I'm actually getting just 7mbps! Have ordered a pair of Solwise 500 AV to see if that sorts it.
All speeds reported from speedtest.net
Many thanks

[#2]

Wilreless 'g' will certainly slow you down - can't you use 'N'?  I was able to get a wireless connection from router to laptop of around 135Mb/s using 'N', admittedly with both devices in the same room.
Homeplug is not a wonderfully efficient protocol.  You will not get anything like the rated speed if you have more than 2 devices  I use a pair of 200Mb/s rated Netgear AV EoP it to get to the part of the house I can't run a wire to directly  It gives me about the same speed as if I had run a 100Mb ethernet directly.  You would get better performance if you could use 2 or three homeplugs feeding 100Mbs switches (not as neat and may not be feasible in your house).
Your router supports gigabit wired network, so I am very surprised you are losing so much bandwidth in the router - are you sure you are connecting to a gigabit device?  67Mb sounds like what you would get from a 100Mb ethernet connection.

[#3]

The router is the Netgear WNR3500v2 shipped by PlusNet and so it should be gigabit. There is a chance the machine I was using has only got a 100mbps network card but it's faily new so I'd be surprised. I'll check.
I've 5 x Powerline/HomePlug devices and, whilst I just had a 2mbps to the Internet, I had no problem with them at all! I'm going to check with 500mbps devices (x2) to see if that make a sufficient difference.
I currently only have 'G' wireless capability but I may also check 'N' out if the Powerline's still don't respond well. Historically I've found 'G' pretty dreadful in my house.

[#4]

Just a thought: has anyone checked out the MTU setting to use with FTTP (or FTTC)? (maximum for PPPoE is 1492) Might this explain the speed drop on a wired connection?
(With no access to the BT supplied modem who knows what MTU that is set for!)

[#5]

From memory, there is no option to set the MTU in the WNR3500 gui.
From my personal experience, using the WNR3500 wirelessly is sporadic from a performance perspective too. I always sit in the same position in the same room (about 9 feet away) and speeds vary massively. I've even gone to the effort of upgrading the wireless adapter in my laptop with no great affect.
It's just another one of those issues that wouldn't be so, if you had 'normal' speed broadband.  
Paul
dick:quote

[#6]

Quote from: youngsyp

From my personal experience, using the WNR3500 wirelessly is sporadic from a performance perspective too. I always sit in the same position in the same room (about 9 feet away) and speeds vary massively. I've even gone to the effort of upgrading the wireless adapter in my laptop with no great affect.

Wireless is horribly susceptible to interference.  You could have a neighbour intermittently using a wireless device on the same or an adjacent channel to the one you are using.  Or even worse be using a baby alarm/intercom.  Have you tried changing channel - it probably won't help if it is an alarm or similar device but you might get some improvement if you are clashing with another network.

[#7]

Wireless video senders can play havoc too - they lurk about on nearby channels and do nasty things when you least expect it.

[#8]

Quote from: leng

Have you tried changing channel - it probably won't help if it is an alarm or similar device but you might get some improvement if you are clashing with another network.

Yep, tried all the usual things.
The biggest issue seems to be the antennas in the router. They're very directional and as they're integrated, performance is very sensitive to the postion and angle of the router.
My closest neighbours are 2 outside walls and a 7 foot air space apart on one side and a thick interior wall on the other side. Plus, I still have the same issues when my nearest neighbours property is vacant.
Using the wireless card utility, it seems congestion is more of an issue than interference for me too...
Paul

[#9]

FTTP in Milton Keynes
Wired to the router...

Accessed via a couple of Solwise 500mbps AV Homeplugs...

Accessed via a couple of Advent 85mbps Homeplugs...

Wireless 'G' access..

Conclusion...wire up your entire house with ethernet if you get FTTP!

[#10]

The ONT (Optical Network Terminator) is not a router, it is the device that converts the light signals on the optic fibre cable to electrical signals on wire that connects to your router and the other way round too.
In future I am sure the router and ONT device will be combined, but at the moment I suspect there is not enough volume to justify a consumer class product at this time.