FTTC - Periodic line drops and reconnects and speed varying - normal?

[nmcgann]

Hi All. I'm a new BT fibre customer (29th Oct 20) after moving over from Virgin (didn't need the speed, fed up with price increases). Bt promised download at 32Mbit/s min and 40-50Mbit/s range.

It's gone quite well so far, I am getting around about the speed I expected but I am seeing more line drops and reconnects than I would have thought. This has settled in to a pattern of a line drop with ERROR_NO_CARRIER between 1am and 4am every couple of days and then a re-connect at a similar speed or slightly slower (slowest was 39999, fastest was 54999, currently 43998).

I am running off the BT test socket. The quiet line test seems different after each drop/connect. Today I can hear periodic repetitive computer-y noise at a low level, yesterday was a slightly different computery noise but far quieter. It has only been silent before broadband was enabled, since then there has been some noise (sounds like computer crosstalk) at varying levels. The speed of the line doesn't seem to correlate to the noise level.

An excerpt from the broadband checker is:

VDSL Range A (Clean) 74 52.9 20 14.1 46.1 Available Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 72 48.9 20 12.4 39.5 Available Available --

Observed Speeds VDSL
Max Observed Downstream Speed 39.99
Max Observed Upstream Speed 13.32
Observed Date 2020-11-16

Does any of this sound usual?

The drops only in the early hours when not using it and the download speed that is coming in between 35 and 45Mbit/s when checked with one of the online speedtesters means that it's not a problem at the moment, but is this something I should report and is there any point unless I have a serious fail?

[imjolly · Accepted solution]

have you tried a different filter in the test socket?   if still same then report phone fault to 150

[nmcgann]

Just swapped it, I was using the one that came with the hub. Seems quieter, same speed.

I won't know if it has helped until the next line drop whenever that is.

[nmcgann]

How it turned out:

A different line filter didn't help. I reported the line fault, their on-line testing didn't detect anything obvious, but they said the resets and low broadband speed were indicating some kind of problem. Both openreach engineer and broadband specialist were booked.

Openreach engineer came a week later, fiddled about in the fibre cabinet then replaced my master socket (old one was 25+ years old). The line speed jumped to 55Mbit/s and has been there ever since and is dead stable.

The broadband tech came a couple of days later and didn't have to do anything further, the openreach fix had resolved the fault.

A pleasing result and I was impressed with both BT and Openreach's response.