Disappointed with speed

[#1]

It's not a bottleneck in the traditional sense.
Anything that is less than perfect between the router and the DSLAM will have a cumulative effect on line attenuation and hence reduction in sync speed. So any improvement you can make at your end will help.
A bottle neck is more like if you are connected over wifi at 5Mb/s. Changing anything downstream of that isn't going to have any effect until you are down to below 5Mb/s.
I think it's likely you've been downgraded as you say. Having said that I've restarted my modem upwards of 40 times in the last week and this morning I'm upto 23Mb and my SNR ration has gone down to 3dB! 
Steve

[#2]

You're right - the word bottleneck was indeed an inappropriate term to use. What I meant was that whatever attenuation there was between the socket and modem was evidently small - perhaps negligible - compared with that from the rest of the line hence why the impact of its reduction will have been minimal (and within the expected variation as discussed). Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying it wasn't a worthwhile test to perform but merely pointing out why it hasn't appeared to help and why one might be forgiven for thinking that it has actually made things worse.
Mathew

[#3]

[#4]

From your description of your previous cable setup I'd say you've definitely improved things! 
However, as Mathew says above, it seems that any attenuation in those wires was negligible. I would seriously consider the face plate if only because it means you don't have to have filters hanging out of every phone socket.
Steve

[#5]

Hi JamesM,
You using a belkin router? Have you tried the Thomson? Have you tried different filters?
Jojo

[#6]

[#7]

Quote from: JamesM

trying to get my head around that I thought if I could get 75% of the speed on up to 8 meg, I just thought I would be able to get 75% of the speed on up to 20 meg.

It just doesn't work that way, as I hope the Kitz information explained - if you read and understood it.

[#8]

Hi JamesM,
Firstly, your sync rate is unlikely to pick up in the next few days but I would expect better than you're getting. This is why I suggested a different router. The reason I say this is because I had a Thomson on my line and was getting 20004k sync. I replaced it with a Netgear and my sync went down to about 16-17000k and it was just basically the router. So if you are able to try the Thomson, or another one and we can see what's what.
Jojo

[#9]

Quote from: JamesM

... my speed went back up to just under 6Mbps where it stayed solid and synced at 7616.  ... I have had a sync of 13335 but now it is 10014. ... All I can do now is wait 72 hours (well 48 now) and hopefully the sync will pick up and so will my speed. ... I thought if I could get 75% of the speed on up to 8 meg, I just thought I would be able to get 75% of the speed on up to 20 meg.

That "75% of the headline speed" is the wrong expectation to have, because the headline speed for ADSL2+ is only available within a smaller radius (1km) from the exchange, while the headline speed for ADSL was available out to a larger radius (2-2.5km).
The right expectation to have is a reduced one, based on the distance you are from the exchange (or, more accurately, the attenuation figure). This gives you a sync speed to aim at - in your case, somewhere in the region of 14-16Mbps (taken from Oldjim's graph). Then you have to allow for the overhead in transferring data back-and-forth (around 15%) and an extra allowance for the way BT's IP Profiles are set (up to another 1Mbps) - so you'd then expect download speed checkers to tell you somewhere between 11-13.5Mbps.
So the trick now is to get your sync speed higher, and to then make sure the IP Profile figures (at both BT and Plusnet) come into alignment. You can't do much about the latter, but you can do lots to aid the former... and getting rid of that ultra-long extension lead mashup ought to help. That it hasn't helped could be because DLM has intervened - in either increasing the target SNRM, or in banding your connection.
Can you post the other statistics about your line (attenuation, SNR, power, etc), so we can get an inkling about why the sync is that low?
Obviously, all this is best done with the router plugged into the test socket behind the master (via a filter), so we can be sure that all other extension wiring and phones are disconnected at the time.
From those figures, and with that "simplest" line configuration, we have a starting point to decide whether to try other filters or routers.

[#10]

Quote from: WWWombat

So the trick now is to get your sync speed higher, and to then make sure the IP Profile figures (at both BT and Plusnet) come into alignment.

Just to aid my understanding, and perhaps that of the OP's, can you elaborate on the IP profile aspect? In particular, is it a case of waiting for <something> to adjust the IP profiles at BT and Plusnet? If so, how long might this typically be and where can they then be checked?
Mathew

[#11]

HI MJN,
A good guide to the normal time it can take for the IP profiles to change can be seen here. Once the profile changes on the BT side the plusnet one will normally pick it up within 24 hours.
Jojo

[#12]

Thanks Jojo - good stuff. I see that we can check the profile at Plusnet's end here, but am I also right in thinking that BT's end is checked by running their Speedtest?
Mathew

[#13]

That's the one MJN.

[#14]

Thanks both. (Apologies to the OP for the temporary hijack!)
Mathew

[#15]