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Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 09:51:44 GMT

Hoping for a bit of help on this one from the MODS.

Background
I work in IT and have done for 28 years. Part of that time was spent being a network engineer so I "know my onions". The speed tests I refer to below were from fast.com / speedtest.com / BT

I ordered Ultrafast 900 from BT and Openreach duly turned up to install the ONT and run the fibre. He plugged in the Smart Hub 2 and told me I was live and ready to go. I didn't check speeds as with it being Fibre I just expected it to work out of the box - This was a mistake.

I connected my laptop later on that day to test out the connection. This as directly into the Smart Hub via a Gig Ethernet network card. However, speeds were nowhere near the advertised rates. I was getting the following results

Ping 6ms
Download 300-350
Upload 50

I decided to discard the hub and plugged my laptop directly into the ONT, setup the connection and ran a series of speed tests.

Download 300-350
Upload 100-120

I then plugged the Smart Hub back in to see what results I had.

Download 300-350
Upload 50-52 - Not sure if this related to another thread I've just read about throttling being active on the Smart Hub 2.

I then ran the BT speedtest that you can access via the Smart Hub 2. According to that, I was getting
Download 972
Upload 51

I called BT to raise a fault and was told they would send an OpenReqch engineer round. He checked the light coming down the cable, said that it was excellent so no issues there. He switched out the ONT just in case that was faulty but it didn't make any difference. We also replaced the network cables we were using. He couldn't get anything faster than I had (directly connected to the ONT). There were also no faults on the ONT at the management end.

I contacted BT again and they said the Openreach engineer had closed down the ticket as they were happy with the installation. BT re-ran their speedtests and are adamant that I'm getting the throughput below
Download 924-975
Upload 50-51

BT have now said they'll send Openreach around again but they're just going to say everything is okay with the installation.

By connecting directly to the ONT via Gig E, I have ruled out it being anything in the house so it's definitely either BT or Openreach.

Can one of the BT mods in here get this escalated as I'm paying for a service BT say I'm getting, but in the real world I'm not getting the stay fast guarantee.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

NeilO — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 11:29:35 GMT

Hi @symbol-soup welcome to the community and thanks for posting, I'm sorry to see you're having problems with your FTTP broadband speeds. The stay fast guarantee is to your Hub and not the device and this is where the MyBT speed test measures the speeds from. There does appear to be an issue with the upload speed and we should be able to assist you with that and we'll be happy to check over the connection.

I'll send you a private message so you can get in touch with the moderation team, you'll get the private message by clicking on the envelope in the top right of the community.

Thanks

Neil

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 11:57:06 GMT

Thanks @NeilO . I appreciate you looking at the upload speeds. Your answer about speeds to the hub doesn't really answer my question as to why I'm only seeing 350 meg downloads when I'm directly connected to the ONT though.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

pippincp — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 16:32:12 GMT

What result do you get with THIS speedtest when connected to the ONT?

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

Carlusha — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 19:07:17 GMT

Also note the helpful points in the drop down on @pippincp 's recommended test page.

When testing 500Mb/1000Mb speeds via a computer based device the results are dependent on the capability of the device and the premises environment.
In addition to the standard guidance provided in the ‘Before You Start?’ section you need to ensure that the customers device meets the following minimum specification:

Processor should be above or equivalent to Intel® Core™ i5-4570S Processor (4 cores, 3.80 max Turbo frequency, 2.90GHz processor frequency, 6MB smart cache)
Ensure that at least 4 GB of RAM is free
1 GB NIC card is recommended
Ethernet cable should have the capability to transfer 1GB data
Operating System - Windows 8 and above
Minimum browsers supported - Google Chrome Version86, CX's Internet Explorer 11 as well as Microsoft Edge 2020 browsers version9 (2018 IE is not compatible)
Please ensure you are using the latest browser version for optimum results.

NB: To ensure accurate results please ensure you are testing via a wired connection with all other devices disabled, or switched off when running the test.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

pippincp — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 19:19:08 GMT

@Carlusha Did you miss this bit? "I work in IT and have done for 28 years. Part of that time was spent being a network engineer so I "know my onions".

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 19:38:00 GMT

I should have said, I've also tried this as well as nperf. Download speeds are never greater than 350. Upload is 100

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 19:43:17 GMT

Thanks for this but my equipment exceeds all of those specs. The mods have been in touch so I'll post on here once there are some updates.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 19:43:54 GMT

🙂

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

ch — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 20:16:50 GMT

Have you tried a second machine connected hard-wired?

Have you proved that your laptop ethernet port is capable of transferring data at gigabit speeds (perhaps from an internal source/server - some aren't, depending how cheap the manufacturer was with the chipset/bus architecture)?

I had some luck on one machine that was performing poorly by running TCPOptimizer. I suspect something had screwed with the ipstack settings somewhere along the line. A fresh build of Windows 10 didn't need tweaking to perform at the maximum throughput.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 20:19:45 GMT

It's def capable as I can do transfers on my internal LAN.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

Keith_Beddoe — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 21:05:10 GMT

Have you tried setting the LAN network card on the laptop to 1000Mb full duplex instead of auto negotiate?

While I worked on BT Business provision (optical networks) it was quite common to see Duplex Mismatch issues where the customer interface was set to auto negotiate, and owing to link pulse timing issues, the speed and duplex state would continually chop around, resulting in poor throughput.

The solution was to always insist that the customer set their interface to 1000Mb Full Duplex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplex_mismatch

You may have come across this issue before.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

carlito000 — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 00:49:20 GMT

Certainly mine is always rock solid around 900 hardwired, your experience doesn't sound correct at all.

Just some random thoughts.

Is there some kind of "training period" on a new install where the speed settles down? Im sure I was told this, but we didn't use our connection for about 4 weeks after it went live as builders were onsite.

Are your definitely using a cat 5e cable or above (this has caught me out LOTS of times with Ultrafast 900 FTTP)

Give multiple devices a try for the speed test, not just a single laptop.

One other observation, speed tests run inside a web browser show slower speeds on my Win 10 laptop. If you download the native standalone Windows speedtest app I get the full 900mbps in the test.

Sounds like you know your stuff, assuming cable and multiple laptops check out gut instinct is an external problem to your install presentation.

Good luck!

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:11:04 GMT

Hi Keith,

I hadn't got it set to full duplex as I hadn't seen that issue for a long time so thanks for the reminder 🙂 However after changing it, no difference unfortunately.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

Keith_Beddoe — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:25:46 GMT

There had been other similar posts from people, mostly on the LAN side. What sorted their issue was interposing a gigabit Ethernet switch between the home hub LAN port, and their wired devices. Somehow the home hub was not liking the direct connection. You may like to try that with your home hub. I assume you have disabled the normal issue with the home hub, ie Smart Setup, which keeps trying to redirect the connection?

In your case, if you are getting the same problem on a direct WAN connection, then its unlikely to help, but there is no harm in trying, although you could not use the other ports on the switch as it would be a WAN connection. Who knows the hardware characteristics of the Openreach ONT.

I have seen many strange things with network connections, which often make no sense.

The other issue that can affect throughput is the MTU size, but I do not know what the correct settings are for the BT kit.

You also need to remember that you are unlikely to get the full 900Mbs all of the time, as you are sharing the connection with many other users. You do not have an exclusive connection, unlike a business user.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

licquorice — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:35:57 GMT

@Keith_Beddoe wrote:

The other issue that can affect throughput is the MTU size, but I do not know what the correct settings are for the BT kit.

1492 I think

You also need to remember that you are unlikely to get the full 900Mbs all of the time, as you are sharing the connection with many other users. You do not have an exclusive connection, unlike a business user.

Indeed, you are sharing 2.5G between up to 32 users.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:44:51 GMT

I'm not actually running BT kit at my end. I use Ubiquiti Unifi equipment. My setup is ONT (Openreach) - Router - Gig E Switch - 4 hard wired WiFi access points straight back to the switch. Everything is hard wired Gig E as I live in a really old stone house.

I've only got the BT kit (SH2) plugged in when BT ask for it to do testing. One of the reasons I'm testing everything from the ONT is so that BT can't turn around and say it's because I'm using my own equipment.

The house is a long way from the exchange so we were running off a 4g connection previously. FTTP only became available to my area 2 weeks ago so I would be really surprised if the issue is contention, but it could be. My IP profile is correct but my gut feeling is that there is some limit/throttling being placed on my line as I never get above 350 download. Unfortunately two weeks in and I'm still not talking to anyone on the phone at BT that can do much apart from send an Openreach engineer / do a speed test to the SH2 and tell me they're getting full speeds. It's frustrating, but I'm hoping that after my 3rd Openreach visit today, it will get escalated.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

licquorice — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:47:26 GMT

It does seem a bit odd that it is a constant figure, you would expect it to vary if it was contention.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

Keith_Beddoe — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:50:48 GMT

The only valid test that BT would accept, would be a direct LAN connection to the Smart Hub 2.

I suspect you have issues on your own network which you have been unable to locate.

Re: Ultrafast 900 FTTP - Real world experience - Only getting 1/3 of throughput BT say I'm getting

symbol-soup — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 09:01:31 GMT

I have negated it being anything on my LAN by connecting directly to the ONT.