WARNING: Plusnet/BT do not allow you to turn off the power to your router

[#1]

Thanks Adie for fixing the quote - not having a good day today!!

[#2]

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

I'm sure the OP better understands how disconnecting can affect an ADSL connection now if they've read these responses, let's make sure we're doing what we can to educate and welcome new comers to the forum.

Five days later and no response though !
Any CBB new comers yet ?

[#3]

They were on the forums Thu 05-01-2012, 21:10:40.
See http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=17647

[#4]

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

Quote It would be useful if Plusnet could add to their web home page a clear warning that if you turn off the power to your router Feedback definitely taken on board. However you are quite able to turn the router off for extended periods without a negative impact on your connection. Its doing so frequently that can affect the connection speed in an adverse way.

Useful if you could define "frequently".
The Government is forever telling us to switch off appliances not in use eg overnight.

[#5]

frequent is say three times in one hour
Over night is no problem.  But the time that you switch it back on could be,  Idealy switch on between the hours of half hour after sunrise and 2 PM.  Outside thoes hours you are likely to get a low synch

[#6]

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

you are quite able to turn the router off for extended periods without a negative impact on your connection

I know that's the theory, but it has never worked for me !.
I am on 20CN, and am lucky to have a rock solid 8128Kbps sync, and the full 7150Kbps profile.  I keep the router switched on 24 hours a day, every day, and it only gets switched off when experimenting with different routers, and disconnected for hours during the frequent thunderstorms here.  I have NEVER seen the sync rate or profile drop doing these disconnections.
HOWEVER, because of the exposed position that my house is in and the thunderstorm risk, when I am away from home on holiday for a week or two, I used to properly do the software [DISCONNECT], wait 30 minutes and then switch the power off, and then disconnect the RJ11 from the master socket.  EVERY TIME I came home and got it running again, my connection had dropped to less than 2Mbps and would take around a week to recover back to it's normal behaviour.
So on my very stable full rate connection, multiple disconnections NEVER show a drop, but a SINGLE clean shutdown for a week or more will crucify the performance - how does Adam explain that ?

[#7]

High resistance fault on the line.
Total shut down - no data/power on line......fault re-appears.
Re energise power and line quality will gradually come back and yes it will take some time.

[#8]

When you return from being away, BEFORE you power on your router, ring your home phone number and leave it ringing for a short time. The extra voltage might clear the faults before you start up your router.

[#9]

Is it worth requesting Plusnet do a line test ?, as both the phone and broadband are otherwise problem free, and no doubt any test will result in "no fault found".
I would presume from the nature of a high resistance fault being due to ageing and corrosion, that (if that is a potential issue) it is not going to get any better, and will get progressively worse.  Do I just wait until it becomes a problem ?

[#10]

Sadly I suspect you may be right.
It will one of those faults which are not regarded as sufficiently bad to warrant investigation - and it will be difficult to find as well.
The best time to make your 'fault complaint'  would be when you have just returned and switched on.
Your sync would be low enough to fail the "Plusnet fault level sync test"
(during first 10 days of your internet, your line's lowest sync is recorded and the fault level set at some % of this (say 65% for example).  Any syncs down to this fault sync level are not regarded as really a "fault" just the way things are - Anything below this level IS regarded as a fault for potential investigation)

[#11]

Interesting thread.
Since last Thursday, I've been adding new fixed ip addresses to my router, and generally having to reboot the router to apply changes etc. On Sunday, my line speed was apparently dropped to 0.5 Mb.
I've been on to the help desk this morning and I now have to wait 72 hours before I get back to my usual 5 Mb.
Could these reboots of my router been the cause of my line speed being dropped?
If so, how are you supposed to test your home network without rebooting your router?  When I do any changes to my network, I change one thing at a time, reboot, see if it works as expected, do another change, reboot etc etc. Is there any way to do all this whilst keeping the line up?

[#12]

do a soft reboot using the disconnect option on the router webpage

[#13]

Quote from: PeterLoftus

do a soft reboot using the disconnect option on the router webpage

Ah, that's what I have been doing, mostly, didn't realise a soft reset didn't drop the line.  I think I only did one hard reset, but I shall make sure in future, thanks.

[#14]

There is also a soft restart on there and I think either way the equipment at the exchange recognises it as an intended disconnection and doesn't take it as a fault