Help with Broadband speeds FTTC

[seniorshot]

Hi there,

I have been using the BT FTTC service for 2 years and have had the download speeds of about 24 to 25Mb for 21 months, (Upload speed has always been about 1.5Mb) the service has been very stable and reliable. Things changed however in September, I noticed slower speeds and that the sync speed on the HH6 had dropped to about 17MB from about 27Mbs. I started to monitor the download speed and this reduced further to about 14/15mb. I left things as they were, hoping that DLM would eventually improve my speeds back up to approx 25Mbs, that didn't happen and so in early October I reported a fault to BT.

The BT wholesale Broadband test and the Router test were  reporting no faults with a speed of about 15Mbs. The line tested OK with no noise on the silent line test. There were no line disconnections and the router showed the network had been connected for 12 days. The BT fault report centre refreshed the Line/router (whatever that means ( I did notice that the Network Id changed from Broadcom 8 back to BTHub6-xxxx). They could not give any sensible explanation why the speed had dropped from a reliable 25Mbs for the first 21 months of service to a very poor 15MBs ( I used to get 11/12Mb with ADSL)

I again decided to see if  DLM would get things back up to something like normal. I was wrong. This week I noticed that the D/L speed has reduced further to 13.1Mbs with the D/L sync speed at 16Mb. I believe that there is a problem somewhere but I can't convince BT to investigate further.

I am wondering if my speeds have fallen below the guarantee threshold see below - The handback speed is 18Mbs.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[NeilO]

Hi @seniorshot I'm sorry to see you're broadband speed isn't performing as it should, I see the connection time on your router stats is just under two days. Was that a restart or is your connection dropping out intermittently?

[seniorshot]

Since I have been monitoring the problem more closely I have noticed that generally the router has been staying connected for about 10-14 days. It did drop out recently and that is when I noticed that the sync speed has dropped to 16Mb.

[imjolly]

There are posts about hub dropping connection and restarting after about 14 days but having been a sufferer these drop did not result in any change in conenction more an inconvenience 

i see you have the opportunity to switch to Full fibre up to 1000mb

[pippincp]

It's also worth mentioning you can keep the same package (new contract) and get the full speed of fibre 1 on FTTP.

[seniorshot]

Yes I have had lots of mail shots from BT about FTTP but I don't wish to go down that route, certainly not at the moment. (Without going into detail there could be installation problems - shared poles etc).

I don't want to get distracted with that option, I would just like to get back to where I was pre- September ie  a 23/24Mb reliable FTTC service.

[pippincp]

As FTTP would solve all your problems I fail to see the reason for your reticence in ordering. Your choice though.

[seniorshot]

Revisiting my original post, I suppose I have 4 questions:

1. Do the figures in the Router printout suggest there is any obvious problem?

2. With a D/L speed of 13.1 Mbs does this mean I have dropped below the Guaranteed Speed. (Downstream Handback threshold  is 18mbs)

3. Are the occasional dropouts (every 12-14 days ) likely to be the cause of the slow speeds

4. What do I need to do to convince BT to accept that 13.1Mbs is an unacceptable speed and to do something about it.

[imjolly]

you only have 1 day  connection time are you having connection problems and not just the 14 day reset.  your attainable speed is 20mb and if you could get noise margin down to normal 6db then your speed would move closer to attainable.  as I said already the 10/14 day drops/resets will not affect your connection speed.

the speeds quoted by BT are connection speeds not download/throughput speeds so you currently have 16mb connection ( 13.1mb is download speed )

13.1mb download speed is consistent with your 16mb connection speed and if you could get a stable conenction and conenction speed increased to 18mb you may see download speed get to 14/14.5mb

this could all be in past if you upgraded to FTTP

[seniorshot]

Thank you for your reply with your thoughts on my situation.

I had already stated that I do not have a connection problem, 10/14 days is the norm. The 1 day shown on the router printout was because I began investigating the sudden drop in D/L speed (13Mbs) and this obviously occured after a drop out - that figure is now already back up to 3 days.

I do appreciate the difference between connection speed and download speed, but my question is why the download speed has suddenly reduced from a reliable 24Mbs down to 13 Mbs - bear in mind this is only 2Mbs more than I was achieving with ADSL. If I  had been told that I would only achieve 2Mbs increase in speed by moving to FTTC then I wouldn't have bothered -  its not worth the extra money!

You mention getting the noise margin down to 6db but I have no control over that - only BT can sort that out and the response I get from BT Faults (and the BT Wholesale speed tester)  is that everything is working fine. I think I'll have to have another go at trying to get an engineer involved but my hope of achieving a positive outcome is not high.