Continuing problem with Broadband

[#1]

Someone said my BT HH4r was "a bit old" so I decided to buy a new modem that supported both ADSL and VDSL/FTTC. One was available locally - TP-Link TD-W9970 - and I am in the process of installing it. New and only £30. I can now connect at a reasonable speed (still settling down) but the problems, at least in the short term, seem to be sorted. I am wondering if the problems all along were to do with the BT modem or a combination of dodgy modem and wiring. Could Plusnet's tests have identified that it was a problem at my end (he said rather guiltily)?

[#2]

A 'bit old' @busylizzie - it was ancient! 😉. If the problems were beyond the BT test socket - and from the Help Desk page you provided they were - PN's tests would probably just identified problems at your property, without being able to isolate them.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

"In my defence", the Openreach engineer did say the old phone wires to home was causing broadband to drop. I didn't notice problems until the last couple of weeks and the old router had been returning acceptable performance - 18MB/s - with no fault lights. So the router didn't seem to be a culprit.

Anyway thanks for the advice and help. We got there (I hope).

[#4]

That is the problem of reporting things online when some rectification work has already bee done - we can't see historical problems.

[#5]

Sight of the new router stats would be illuminating - there might yet be more refinement here!

Edit: I had missed @adam945 's post - the fact that the DLM had moved this line to 9dB suggests that there might yet be other things to examine, meaning that this issue is not fully fixed yet!

This line is very short - it might be capable of doing 22mbps!!!

[#6]

Good point, @Townman - wish I'd have thought of that. 😀

[#7]

There are around 20 different info / config screens, this is the first:

Basic Status

Device Information

Firmware Version:0.9.1 0.2 v0076.0 Build 170919 Rel.61201n

Hardware Version:TD-W9970 v2 00000000

System Up Time:0 day(s) 01:29:08

DSL

Line Status:Connected

DSL Modulation Type:ADSL_2plus

Annex Type:Annex A/L

Upstream Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps) 1201 20298
Max Rate (Kbps) 1155 21200
SNR Margin (dB) 8.9 6.1
Line Attenuation (dB) 10.5 16
Errors (Pkts) 0 0

[#8]

Thank, @busylizzie - that confirms you are near perfect - it may be that DLM decides you can be moved to a 3dB profile, which may up your speeds a little, but may introduce instability, so keep your eyes on it.

[#9]

Looking good!

Compared to post #14 the 3dB change in DS SNRM has delivered a 1.8 mbps improvement ... which is a not bad!  If there is interleaving on, if the line is good enough, the max rate suggests that a bit more might be available.

You need to keep an eye on this - look for the DS SNRM rising above 6dB.  If it does, then there might be merit in installing and running Routerstats (see the link below) so that we might eliminate the presence of RFI.

If this line is VERY good, you might even see the DLM attempt 3dB on the DS and you will nearly hit the full 24mbps!

A good investment of £30 - you will probably see an improvement in WiFi as well.

Edit @jab1 uses fewer words!

[#10]

TBH if I have a line speed of around 18MB then that is sufficient for catch-up TV, a couple of connected devices, and the odd large download. I would happily accept the loss of a small increase in performance over possible stability issues. Or to put it another way, for almost a week my speed was 0-3MB, generally at the lower end and unable to do much other than email and basic web browsing. Very happy with the way things are currently.

Thanks, folks