Broadband issues New fibre 2 customer

[licquorice]

If it is DLM that has capped your line, he can request a DLM reset from his control. If it has been mis-provisioned, he will probably have to refer it back to BT. If its a voice engineer that attends rather than a broadband engineer, I'm  not sure what diagnostics he will be able to perform though.

Post back here after visit if not happy with outcome.

[jamonbread]

When I phoned BT today I selected the option to follow up on a previous reported fault, I also re-reported my internet troubles, so hopefully they'll send an appropriate engineer.

It's a little disconcerting that the customer service reps at BT seem to give conflicting information, according to the guy I spoke to today only Openreach engineers can lift any caps on the line.

If the openreach engineer can't sort the speed issue out, I'm not looking forward to interacting with BT's customer service, the first customer service rep initially tried to tell me I was getting full fibre 2 speeds, then when I questioned that, they then told me I was getting over my minimum speed guarantee, also tried to dismiss my line dropouts as Wifi issues, before finally transfering me over to the sales department who were very eager to sell me a faster package and a wifi upgrade. 

Thanks for the feedback, I'll post back with the relevant updates soon. 

[licquorice]

Only Openreach can remove a DLM inflicted cap, but mis-provisioning is an ISP issue.

[jamonbread]

The Openreach engineer came today, he wasn't a broadband engineer and came believing I had no dial tones on my line?

I told him I reported noise on the line and internet dropouts. He tested the line for noise and couldn't detect any noise, it does appear to have vanished today for some reason. He then ran a line test and detected corrosion on the line about 8 meters from my property line. It turned out to be a connector at junction under a manhole cover, which he's now replaced. 

He confirmed to me my line was provisioned at fibre 1 caps and has been since I moved over to BT, but said he couldn't do anything about it because he's not a broadband guy and doesn't have all the same details available to him. 

I just got off the phone with BT which took around an hour of being passed from department to department . At first the tech department confirmed I was on fibre 1 caps, and claimed I shouldn't have been sold fibre 2 as my line can't do anything faster, I told them the openreach engineer just confirmed to my my line could do 65/20, and that I had that speed with sky.

They then passed to over to the loyalty department, who at first wanted me to re-sign up for fibre 2 at a higher price so they could reprovision my line, obviously I wasn't happy about that.

To cut a long story short, the loyalty department rep went and spoke to her manager who has manually set my provision to 80/20 which will apparently take effect within the next 24 hours.  I'm not expecting to get those speeds, but hopefully my line will then settle to around the 65/20 range give or take.

I'm a bit bemused that the engineer can't seem to see any recent dropouts on my line, even though I've witnessed my router redring as a result of dropouts. Just a few days ago after an internet dropout my router red ringed, but it didn't affect the phone line itself as it was in use at the time. Hopefully the corrosion is the culprit, the copper on the connecter the engineer showed me had greened. 

[licquorice]

Yep, corrosion is the usual cause of a noisy line and broadband problems.

[jamonbread]

My line line seems to have been reprovisioned this morning, it's now capped at 61.423 down and 19.999 up.

Speed test wired are netting me 53/15, not as fast as I was getting with sky before transferring over to BT. I'm not to confident my router statistics will improve, they never moved much with my 55/10 provisioned line.

When I first signed up to Sky Max around 2 years ago now, I was originally getting 75/19 with an 80/20 cap, but after 4 months my lined started getting constant drop outs all day and night. 1 sky engineer and 3 openreach engineers later, they couldn't find the cause, so the last openreach engineer switched me onto a new fibre card in the green cab, just because he was out of ideas. It fixed the issues I was having, but my speed from then on was 65/19 with my line capped at 70/20. The last engineer told me the card switch would have no impact on the performance of the line but I guess it did somehow. 

My only hope now full fibre, when it becomes available to my area, because my lines capabilities seems to be slowly degrading over time.

Product name,BT Smart Hub 2
Fireware version,v0.26.03.01286-BT (Thu Jan 28 17:38:02 2021)
Board version,R01
GUI version,1.74 12_11_2020
DSL uptime,0 days 6 Hours 1 Mins 20 Secs
Data rate,20.0 Mbps / 61.4 Mbps
Maximum Data rate,22.2 Mbps / 62.7 Mbps
Noise margin,7.3/6.3
Line attenuation,9.4/14.3
Signal attenuation,9.4/16.8
VLAN id,101
Upstream error control,Off
Downstream error control,Off

[licquorice]

Good that you have now been correctly provisioned at 80/20 rather than 55/10.

You currently have a noise margin of 6dB, as long as your line remains stable (don't be tempted to restart hub) it should drop in steps to 3dB and give you extra speed. It might take a couple of weeks.

[jamonbread]

I don't think my line is actually capped at 80/20 provision.
Is it possible for my downstream sync and upstream sync speeds to improve? assuming my noise margin is able to lower over time, or are they both set in stone?

Connection status,Connected
Connection type,Fibre Broadband (VDSL)
Firmware version,v0.26.03.01286-BT (Thu Jan 28 17:38:02 2021)
Serial number,+091298+2045032547
Downstream sync speed,61.4 Mbps
Upstream sync speed,20.0 Mbps
Network uptime,2 days 11 Hours 16 Mins 59 Secs
System uptime,3 days 0 Hours 29 Mins 6 Secs

Is my maximum data rate based on current line settings like noise margin as well.

[iniltous]

80/20 is the maximum rate FTTC as its configured will deliver on the shortest best quality lines , all lines unless they are capped due to instability are dynamically managed ( DLM ) that’s why lines that have an underlying problem can reduce in speed over time, and if the issue resolved , speed improves. If a line is capped , then it’s possible that DLM won’t up the speed as the underlying issue is removed, hence the need to get OR to do a reset .

Speed can reduce even with the same provider over time and that isn’t a fault , but the result of crosstalk between users on the system, so it possible that your line may never get back to where it was with Sky , but if you were still with Sky it could have reduced anyway and will never get back to where it was (regardless of the ISP, ) or conversely, if the problem the OR tech resolved was present when you were with Sky and was having an effect ( but not to the same extent ) then your speed may actually be better than with Sky, but as long as it’s within the range you were told to expect, that really is all you should bank on, and TBH a couple of Mb difference is not noticeable in real world use.

As already said, your downstream noise margin may reduce further and the speed may increase  correspondingly .

[jamonbread]

I checked my technical log yesterday morning and noticed my DSL uptime was only around 10 hours, I initially thought my router had maybe rebooted due to a possible line issues, but then I noticed my noise margin had reduced from 6.3 down to 5.2.

Maximum data rate has increased to 22.030 / 65.808 up from 22.1/ 62.6 and I'm now capped at 19.99 / 64.834 up from a 20/ 61.4 cap.

My speed is still 55/56 down and 14/17 up in speed tests, but If my line can successfully get the noise margin down to around 3db without any issues, I might just get back to around 65/19 again.